Happy Birthday

Matthew was home over his fall break so we were able to celebrate his birthday ON his Birthday....well we actually celebrated it a day early.  He went back to school tonight.

Happy Birthday Mathew!

As you can read by Mary's Post she had a wonderfull time in Minneapolis.  It is amazing she did all of that in one weekend.

Everybody have a good week

posted by Randy

the play's the thing!

its me!!

hi all!

so updates from mary.

i went hunting with dad, got a duck.

i liked it alot =]

ok so this weekend i went to minneapolis and saw four plays. wow. all of them were so good!

first-

Radio Golf


was so interesting, it definably got you thinking.

it was about a black charactor running for mayor, and his wife and friend were helping him along with a project of renovating a ghetto part of town into shops and parking lots. but its halted for a bit when an old man said that he didnt get any notice that his house was sold, and that he had to pay taxes since someone always paid them when his mother was alive. the politician finds out they bought the house before it went on sale on the market so it was illegal. after he finds that out he finds out that his dad was the one who was paying their taxes. and upon finding that out he finds that they are related! so he loses his election, his friend and wife, and the play ends with him going to help the old man with his house. all in all the least interesting play that we saw but it was so interesting! Andy was finding so many points that was like "its a wonderful life"

on to the next one!

Bert & Ernie, Goodnight!



what can i say about this? AWESOME!

i cant really explain, but watch these videos and you dont get the feel but its enough i think






both of the actors did a wonderful job of pysical work, using their bodies like they were muppets, the flailing around and stuff =]

if you ever get a chance to see it, take all your family and go! i loved it and i think youd have to be a rock to not enjoy it.

then we saw

The House Can't Stand





which was a one man show. well a one woman show. it was two hours long and the energy that he had playing this character was amazing! to clarify.

Steve Epp is really famous and with Dominique Serrand directing him on what he had written, was amazing.



here i'll just tell you what the thing said,

"The Southern Theater presents the world premiere of a new solo performance and the debut of a new Twin Cities theater company. This compelling story of a lonely mother in search of a future was created by former artistic directors of Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Steve Epp and Dominique Serrand, and by the team that brought you such acclaimed productions as The Miser, Carmen, Fishtank, Don Juan Giovanni, The Deception and Maria de Buenos Aires." -- http://www.southerntheater.org/2009_10-22_epp_and_serrand.htm

just wow. wowsie. overwhelming. Jeune Lune had to disperse because of money trouble i think so i feel really privileged to have seen such a great play. or monologue rather.


the last play was

Ruined



wow. what an impacting play. it was set in Africa during some of the rebel wars,
and focused on more of what happened to the women and how they get through it. just wow. it was amazing.

well now im off! good bye!




Posted by Mary

Accounting class

Let me tell you about my Accounting Class that I am currently in

First off:

Assets = Liabilities + Owner's Equity

In short that is a big headache.

I will put you through our instructor's teaching method in a way that maybe will help you understand what I am going through.

Imagine a big tape playing machine standing in front of the room.  For the younger generation a dvd or a Blue Ray disc.  At exactly the starting time the play button is activated and it begins to talk, and it will talk and talk and talk without slowing down, (imagine a car travelling while on cruise control).  If you ask it a question the tape machine will stop, rewind and play what he said over again.  If you ask it again it will stop and rewind and say the exact same thing again.

The machine will actually stop talking sometimes, only to have you solve a questions. Not quite so simple task. As you begin working out the problem to solve it, the machine believes adequate time has passed and will turn back on and begin discussing the problem.  You never get to completely solve the problem so you never know if you really understand what you were trying to solve for.

The machine feels a 15 minute lunch is more than enough time to get something to eat, and sitting for 2.5 to 3 hours at a time has no effrect on learning retention or bladder control. The tape inside the machine just keeps playing.....without stopping.

I have two more weekends with this tape machine,  they tell me if I can make it past this class it is all down hill from here.

Well back to Accounting,.....eat...sleep...Accounting, that is what I am doing

Posted by Randy

my day today

so, me stephen, philomena, and caroline went to a corn maze up in northwood today. the corn maze was fine exept for the map that they gave us. one problem was that stations 6 and 8 [there were 15 in all] were nowhere near each other, yet you could see each one from the other. and to top it all off when we were done our trailblazer wouldn't start. we ended up haveing to call a tow truck and get a jump. so we made it back home.

i also watched the jay leno show. 


lol, crazyness of me.

i also found this

there's no substitute for brains either

one day a customer walks up to a counter in a store[this didn't happen in clear lake]
and asks for water pills

employee: sir there are no sutch things as water pills

customer:  yes there is there is pills for everything else

employee: but no water pills

customer: fine i'll find them myself[wanders over to vitamins to look for water pills]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

wow people can be stupid like thinking that pop tarts are healthy because there a breakfast food[this happened to a friend of mine]

well thats all for now so long!!

posted by Daniel

Helpful Tips for large families

Marcy made some comments regarding her grocery cart being too small for the amount of items that need to go in it.

Well that got me thinking that Marcy is slowly realizing, just what her older siblings with large families have figured out a very long time ago.  Not that Marcy is a slow learner, it is just that she was last in the line of the 7 siblings.

So I thought I better clue her in on some helpful tips of managing a large family.  I gave some of these tips to Bret and Anne when they joined the club.  Come to think if it......... I have not heard any feedback from them about my wise and wonderful tips I provided them?

Groceries:
This will be one of your biggest expenses.  When your kids get older and move into adolescents they will turn into a human vacuum cleaner.  By the time they reach adolescents you need to come up with a plan.  You will soon figure out, that when you get home from the gorcery store. The food that you just bought has already dissapeared, even before you are able to set the sack down and put the food away.

To cope with this phenomena:
You can try having the food truck unload first at your door before it goes to the gocery store, or
you will need to begin shopping for grocery items that your kids do not really like to eat. 
Now, they will still eat the food they do not like but, by using this method it will slow down the rate and speed in which they will eat it, thus you have food in the house over a longer period of time.

Chores are a good thing,  the younger you get them to do chores the less whining you will have when they get older.  You will still get whining mostly on the front end but it will diminish on the back side since the older siblings soon realize you have become tone deaf to their frequency of whining and they no longer use that noise to try and avoid the manaul labor, plus the chores will become routine for them and they know it needs to be done before they can do anything else.  Take note,  the whining will continue as they get older but it will be for different situations.  Whining is a part of life.


Bathroom use:

First and for most, everyone needs to learn that you flush solids FIRST!  Then flush the paper.  This must be done in two separate or more flush cycles.   Life is not fun, when the little ponies leave their corral,..... if you know what I mean.

Hot water and showers:
Unless you have a hot water heater the size of your city water tower, you will encounter running out of hot water and somebody will be taking a cold water shower.
As they get older, for some reason the hot water goes quicker.

you have multiple options dealing with this issue
Options #1
Always be the first one to take the first shower and there is no need for you to ever worry about this issue.

Option #2
prioritize who gets to take the shower first.  Meaning the person who uses the most hot water goes last. 

Option #3
Rationing......you would be surprised how fast they get done taking a shower when the cold water exits the shower head!

Option #4
buy a larger hot water heater,.............about the size of a city water tower


Sleeping

The sooner you can get them to bed the better, 
It cuts down on the amount of whining you have to listen to. and you have the evenings to yourself

As they get older that free time is reversed.  you lose your evening time but you gain back that time by having more morning and afternoon time to yourself as they tend to sleep in and stay up later.

Whining

throughout the post I have mentioned whining, and being on the receiving end to this noise.  Well as they get older the roles will reverse and soon THEY will be on the receiving end of this high pitched noise reverberation.  "get your school work done"  "pick up your clothes"  "where are you going?"  "Are you planning on sleeping all day"  Now some people may call this nagging, but I like to refer to it as a more mature form of whining.

So listen to their whining and learn from what they do and how they do it, because when they get older you will use it back on them, so you might as well learn from the best.

Marcy I hope this helps.

Posted by Randy

this that and other things, take note no birthday posts!

Mary was home for fall break, and she wanted to go duck hunting.  We went out Friday morning and she bagged a green-wing teal. She had a couple more  opportunitites that morning but they just did not want to come into our decoys.  As you can see with the smile on her face she had fun.  And so did I.

Daniel will be next, we just need to break this string of bad luck we have been having when Daniel and I go out hunting together.

Saturday afternoon we went over to Summner and celebrated Sarah's belated birthday.  We came, we invaded, and we left.  It was  good time, Mary finally got to see Sarah's new place. Everybody had a chance to play with Watson (Sarah's kitten).  I put up some curtains in her bedroom.  I did forget to do a light bulb inspection.

Mary is going back to school Sunday night. The other three kids just got done doing a big pile of dishes that back logged over the weekend.

My Accounting classes for my Masters class is a killer.  The darn book is written all in Greek.  It is called Accounting principles for Government and not-for-profit organizations.  First of all since when has the Government balanced an account? So If you think about it, what I am learning is basically theory and "dream-on" material, not real world stuff. But, ...Anyway I will get done with that class on December 4th. 

Mary has her Steel Pan concerts on the last weekend in October.

Sarah's musical she is assisting with is coming up soon also.

Well that is all for now. hava a good week

Posted by Randy

Happy Birthday to Sophia!

Thank you Sarah for catching this.
I had my dates mixed up, I was a week ahead of myself, now I have to go back and work that week I skipped.....bummer!

Happy birthday Sophia, I hope you receive lots of presents and eat a whole bunch of cake and ice cream.  Enjoy your special day and have a fun party

Posted by Randy