Right now I'm killing time waiting for the "alarm guy" to get here. He's late, but he called first, so he's still alright with me. Most of you have heard the rant about how I'm going to get that alarm installed TODAY, well yes, today I finally am. In about 30 minutes I can officially check it off of my list of things to do before I go back to school. Other things that still need checking off... Paint our bedroom, bathroom and office, plant a tree in our backyard, get a northside home improvement loan, so we can start thinking about a new roof on the garage, a bathroom in the basement, and insulation up in the attic so we don't have the water damage we had last year... Oh I also need to have at least one more BBQ, go camping in the back of our new pick-up truck, sew a wrap skirt with vintage stretchy fabric from ARC, clean out the garage, call ARC to come and pick up my old stuff, make some gazpacho, get signed up for belly dance class, and maybe try and get down to see my Grandma in Nebraska. Whew. Oh, and maybe plan some art projects for my soon to be students. One idea for them is mandatory "doodle of the day" time. Which will hopefully give them a time to warm up their hands and get into creative mode. I'll provide blank note cards, and folders of artifacts from other countries, and they've got to provide a bic pen doodle that somehow represents what they see without copying. At the end of the quarter we'll bind them into a doodle book.

On Sunday we went to the Lantern Festival at Como Park. Here's Zander with Mike and Rhonda while we were getting ready for the lanterns. Zander looks happy because only hours before he got the title for his truck. It ain't pretty. However, it will be able to handle any alley way extravaganza that I might stumble upon. Mike and Rhonda were great sports after having to deal with Rhonda's purse getting stolen early in the morning. Thief, if you're reading this, you're a bad, bad, person. Give it all back and say way more than just 20 Hail Marys. Anyway, we watched some drumming and saw more than our share of Ninja style fighting. During one of the demonstrations the teacher explained how Ninjas would disable their attackers and then sneak away into the darkness. It was pretty quiet at that point, until a little guy with a not so little voice said, "Ninjas are cowards, huh Dad?"

When we first got to the park, this huge string of kites was flying with almost no wind. Bee-u-ti-ful.

Here's what we came for... The lighting of the lanterns. I'm so crappy at taking nighttime photos!