Big Congratulations goes out to Allison this past week. First she was chosen to be a Girl Scout Delegate to travel to Houston Tx in Nov to attend the Girl Scout National Convention celebrating our 100th anniversary. All expenses paid! Sadly, I did not get picked, but I should plan on traveling with her as a chaperone. So looks like I will be celebrating my birthday in Nov. in Texas. We travel from Nov 9th-13th. We are already looking forward to seeing my brothers, sister in laws and the cousins!

Secondly, Allison was officially hired at the skating rink as a rink guard. She spent the weekend filling out paperwork and participating in an interview. They said it takes about one month to process all the paperwork, but in the meantime she can take CPR certification and attend a Columbia Association orientation. The neighborhood next to ours, Columbia, has a lot of nice programs and facilities. However, if you live in Columbia, you have to pay extra for all those programs and facilities through the association. As a Columbia Association employee, Allison will have free membership to all the gyms and pools, both indoor and out and discounts to programs such as the horsebackriding center and tennis lessons, mini golf or whatever. She will probably start working weekends in April.

She also had an interview at school for next year's mentorship program. She is hoping to be selected as a teacher's aide at her elementary school-Resurrection St Paul where Scott is in 5th grade. Since Allison is interested in teaching this would be a great opportunity.

She was supposed to interview on Tuesday but ended up with a snow day. Spring sure is trying to move in! We were snowed in on Tuesday and by Friday we had a thunderstorm complete with hail and 70 mile/hr winds. A big pine tree tipped over on one of our old buildings at work during the day. I went out to my car to find it covered in tree limbs-no damage at least.

I was already home on Tuesday. I had planned on staying home with Scott who had the day off for a teacher's inservice. And I stayed home with the kids on Presidents Day on Monday too. I had planned on taking them skiing, but the weather actually warmed up on Monday with rain. So it was hard to believe we ended up with snow the next day. Instead of skiing on MOnday, I had taken them tubing on Sunday. We invited Scott's friend and ex neighbor SAmmy to join us. We kept him for an overnight with Scott, but first we stopped into Cici's pizza buffet for dinner after tubing. I opted out of the sport since my right knee is still swollen and sore. I really wish I could have gone skiing with them. I guess there is still time.

On Monday SCott had a laser birthday party to go to in the afternoon. Sammy's Dad came and picked him up and I dropped off Scott to the party. Meanwhile, one of Allison's old classmates and fellow girl scout was with her mom dropping off their daughter for the birthday party too. I asked Becky if she wouldn't like to join Allison at the mall to do some dress shopping. Allison was looking for a dress for her school interview. She also wanted to see the new movie "I am Number 4". I decided I could get more done if I let the girls do a little mall shopping together and catch the movie while I checked out the sales at Kohls and picked up SCott when the party ended. I loaded up Allison with her gift cards and dropped off the two girls. They both had a great time and Allison loved the movie(apparently it is a perfect teenage movie about an alien teenager trying not to get killed by more aliens). We did a little more shopping and got dinner after the movie let out and I had picked up SCott. Allison and I still had some studying to do that evening, but it turned out she had an extra day with the snow storm.

ON Tuesday I spent the morning shoveling the driveway while Scott had a snowball fight. By the way ,Tom had left for Chicago on Sunday afternoon and worked Presidents day before jumping on another plane and heading to LA Monday night. By the time the snow was cleared from the streets in the afternoon I was able to run up to the post office to drop off Allison's Girl Scout camp Program Aide application. She wants to help with the archery program at Girl SCout Day CAmp again this summer. I also took SCott with me for a much needed haircut, and then off to the Boy Scout store to buy his uniform. He needed a new shirt with new patches and pants along with his Scout book. We had our first boy scout meeting that night. (I thought Tom was taking over now?!). I filled out registration forms and wrote checks while Scott showed off his square knot tying skills.

I ended up working the rest of the week. My fellow OT coworker is still off work with a stress fracture in her foot and is not supposed to walk for another 2 weeks. They would love for me to work every Friday. Every SAturday too. I was happy they had enough weekend help though and did not need me SAturday. Instead I spent the morning with Scott passing out food donation bags house to house with the cub scouts. Afterwards we headed to the grocery store with the boy scouts to ask for food donations. The boys were handed a lot of cash donations, so we all took turns shopping in the store with the scouts for great bargains.

On SAturday night Allison had a babysitting job at Sammy's house, so we left her at their house and brought Sammy back to our house for a sleep over with SCott. Allison got home late, but she wanted to sleep in her own bed rather than sleeping over too. On Sunday morning we celebrated Scout Mass at the noon mass. Allison and Scott altar served for the mass. I was sorry not to see more girl scouts, but they used to have the mass earlier in the morning, and now it was switched to noon. So I don't think as many troops could make it. They also pass out religious medals that the boy scouts have earned during the mass.

Since Tom had left that day to head to Chicago, he had to pass on his coaching job to our neighbor Phil who took Allison to her indoor field hockey game.

A very busy and productive week! A huge Happy Birthday to Susan Seitz who celebrated on the 26th of February!

By the way, I was reading in one of the Parenting magazines that Mommy Blogs are huge. Some moms actually go out and tour and lecture about the perils of being a mom(don't think I can squeeze that in my busy schedule!)

Talk to you all soon!