34 days to school-ugh!

Another week of summer flew by, and now it's August 1st. Thomas finished his swim lessons, but we're looking forward to doing more in the fall. Now we're working on no training wheels with his bike. Today we switched kids with our friends the Brownells--Nolan is at their house with Dan and Stephanie is here with Thomas. It never seems to work out lately when they are all together, so this seems to be a good compromise. Thomas and Stephanie are working on a rock concert for me, so I have to go downstairs when they are ready to perform.

These trying economic times are affecting us all, and now the boys are too. We laid them off! We ended allowances this week. Thomas kept losing his anyway by not doing his chores (He wasn't ready for an allowance yet, I think.), and we just never had cash in the house for Nolan. They are still doing their chores, but it is more laid back. They do them just because we're a family and we all have chores to do. But every weekend, it seems we order a pizza or go to some other fast food place. So that's a reward for all of us. Other ways we've made sacrifices is downgrading our cable to basic, a cheaper phone service and saving less. I think the fact that we ride bikes whenever we can has been great, as well as hanging clothes out instead of using the dryer. These sacrifices are so easy to make if it means I get to be home here with the kids. Maybe they are hard sacrifices by Niskayuna standards, but we really have so much that we aren't complaining one bit. The kids have been great about doing with less; I'm really proud of them. We are watching a lot of library movies too, though I've been picking ut some pretty bad ones lately (Do not watch "Year of the Dog"--awful!).
I guess the show must go on--let the rockin' begin!