A very exciting weekend for the Seitz clan. Our grand neice was born on Sunday, January 21st! Claire Eliza Seitz arrived a month early(or did she?) to Eric and Sarah Seitz. She seems to be a perfect 6lbs 11oz and has lots of hair!And she is absolutely adorable! We can't wait to meet her.

Meanwhile, our family was busy here in Baltimore. Or some of us anyway. Tom was sent to England and Scotland for 2 weeks. The first part of his trip was spent in Edinburgh, Scotland. He went last year, and discovered there really is not a whole lot going on there. It was rainy, cold and grey. Lots of old stone buildings. It has not changed it seems. He is looking forward to at least visiting Glasgow which he hears has more to see and do, as well as traveling back to England.

So while he was away, the kids and I took over the kitchen. Tom likes to stick to a low carb diet, so the kids and I had fun making lots of pasta dishes and pizza. Scott and Allison discovered the wonder of making your own pizza with pre purchased pizza dough. We also made French Dip sandwiches and had chinese food take out. I have been working late hours, so Scott and Allison have been helping out a great deal with cooking dinner. As long as I make sure the fridge is stocked!  I spent my Friday out running errands after my swim class. I still had some items to return from Christmas. I was also getting a heads start on Birthday gift shopping for the upcoming year for the whole family.

I had to get an early start to the weekend since Allison and I were scheduled to attend a Girl Scout  Planning Committee meeting on Sunday afternoon. Allison volunteered the two of us to assist with an upcoming Girl Scout jamboree in May at Camp Conowingo. The camp theme is Everything Maryland. During the last meeting that I attended, we came up with programming. I talked the group into letting Allison run Archery since she loves it and so do the scouts. This meeting, Allison was home and able to attend with me. We decided upon the menu, and assigned volunteer positions. I thought I was going to help Allison with archery, but since I am not a certified instructor like she is, I volunteered for the Arts and Crafts booth. We are going to be painting window screens. In historical Downtown Baltimore, before air conditioning was available, residents would keep their screened house windows open. So in order to keep the windows open, but still get some privacy, they painted scenes on the screens like lakes or forests, cabins or flowers to block the view but still look nice.  And it became an Art(like all crazy things do). So that is what I will be doing. I hope it works. We still have a few more meetings to go. I mentioned before that I  had to pick out a camp name. Allison is Dragon and is all things Dragon. I decided a Michigan name would be best and since "Michigan" was already taken, I chose Petoskey. Not only can the staff not pronounce it, they had no idea what it was. So I educated them at the meeting with a few Petoskey stones, my Legend of the Petoskey stone book(indian lore) and my new, really cool Petoskey tshirt in the form of the state of Michigan and the Great Lakes that Allison and I ordered online. I love it. Although we will also have camp Staff shirts. (See Mark, there are lots of other things you can do with your retirement, like volunteer with the scouts! I am getting a head start. Working and Volunteering). And I still have an upcoming GS Roller Blade weekend event, not to mention GS choir to fill my weekends!

Meanwhile, Allison is enjoying the last few weeks of winter break. She has been visiting with friends, sending out resumes-mostly online and most importantly, taking Cookie for a walk every day!  Cookie is in heaven! Scott enjoyed a day off on MLK day, although he spent it doing homework. At least he did not have to work, and we had a snow day in between which gave him more time to study.