A cold front!

It's true, a cold front arrived this weekend.  That meant it cooled off enough to go outside to have snoballs!  (If you're unfamiliar with that Southern term, snoballs are similar to snow cones, but the ice is shaved much finer.)

Incidentally, our snoballs came from Bob's Taco Station, which you may have seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

The impressive part is that everyone finished their snoballs, even after having had their fill of chips, queso, salsa and bean & cheese tacos.

It took a while, but they powered through.

Strawberry, Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum, Root Beer

For the record, if you have a strawberry snoball and subsequently suck your thumb, your thumb will turn red.  The more you know.

a soapbox of sorts

If you've been my friend for very long, you've heard me say that I'm not going to make my kids go to college.

Now, before you skip on by, chalking another weirdo idea up to the homeschooling freaks, check out this open letter to Mitt Romney from Mike Rowe.

(I promise, this isn't a political post.  But if you're interested in political posts, check out Boston Chai Party, where a couple of my sibs and I post political articles when we have something to say.) 

Mike Rowe expresses a perspective that I've also been thinking about for a while.  Politics of college education aside, I don't believe that forcing everyone into the same mold of "graduate high school, go to college," is productive for each individual or society as a whole.  We bemoan the death of American craftsmanship and the laziness of American society.  We mock the soul-sucking nature of cube farms.  We bring work stresses home and damage family relationships.  We fume over the insanity of the daily commute.  We spend money we don't have for an "education" that we may or may not actually use.

Why?

And we belittle the jobs that don't require a college education.  Yet, these jobs do require a specific, valuable skill set.  I guarantee there is none more valuable in Houston, Texas, in the dead of summer than the air conditioner repairman.

I already blogged about this, so I'm not going to repeat myself.  I just don't think that we have to continue to accept the way the game is played. 

You know you're entering a new stage in parenting when the behavior that needs addressed is that one child knocked out another child's tooth. 

It was a baby tooth.  Speculation remains about whether or not it was loose already.