Not to complain but I had to laugh when reading your blog Marnie because we still have a solid 6-8 inches of snow and we're happy when it hits the 30's! Mike called yesterday to talk to Tom and I told him it would take me a minute to get him because he was out scraping the snow off the car and Mike just laughed and said it was 80 at his house! I suppose we'll just have to wait until we are enjoying the mild 70's in July to have our turn to laugh. (Atleast that is what I keep telling myself to help get through this cold!) :) So August 6th works out great for us, with Tom being in school year round nothing is perfect so he'll just come for whatever he can and I am really flexible. I'm so excited! Congratulations Kim! You're ring looks so pretty! I can't wait to see it in person!

Things here are great, in spite the weather. In fact, the weather really isn't bothering me as much as it did last year. I am sure it has a lot to do with the fact that Hayden is older and it's easier to get out and we aren't sick all the time. But I do look forward to the coming of spring, although that wasn't until May last year. Hayden is starting to talk so much that I can't even keep track of all the funny things he says. They are really only funny because I am so shocked that he has the capacity to say them! For instance: at the grocery store they have a Cookie Club where Hayden can get a free cookie every time we go to the store. So we went to the bakery for his cookie and she was extra nice and gave him two. After eating them both he asked me for more. I told him he was so lucky he already had two cookies which was enough. So he got really quiet and thought for a while and said "I want three cookies!" We practice counting but I had no idea he was really understanding it so well, I thought he was just repeating me all the time. I was shocked and said "You want three cookies?" and he said "Ummm...no four cookies!" What a clever little guy! Another funny thing he learned came from Sesame Street, they had a clip where the kids are jumping and saying "salta" which is jump in Spanish. If you tell Hayden to salta he will start jumping! But his biggest obsession of all is Toy Story (this will probably last until Tuesday when the Incredibles comes out), anyway, he takes his Woody doll and puts it in Buzz's face and shouts "Buzz, you are a toy!!!" His favorite line from the movie. He has also entered the "I'm a big boy" stage which is really quite nice because we can convince him to do things because he is a "big boy," like putting on his coat and such. We went to the indoor waterpark and he loved it!!! He loves to swim and enjoyed the slides a lot!

As for the mundane, I still babysit three days a week and it's going well. Our car has had a few strange problems like the mirror continually moving on it's own, but the fabulous warranty is covering it all. We still love our Hyundai! I had my last indoor soccer game yesterday, I suppose I never even mentioned that I was playing on a team. It only lasted 6 weeks. It was just a group of other dental students wives, we were the only team in the league who had children and the only team that wasn't an actual club team that played several other games during the week. So needless to say we lost every game but had a good time and all our kids thought it was great fun to run around on the field after game. I've also started to play in a Bunko group, have any of you heard of that? And lastly, I just finished reading Harry Potter 5 today which is relief because I have been ignoring everything else in my life while I've been reading it! I am looking forward to the chance to start in on some of the other books that you have all recommended lately.

Well I suppose I have written enough for today, I'll work on writing more often...oh wait one more thing on the non-mundane side: Friday night Tom left the door to hamster cage slightly ajar (we have a black teddy bear hamster named Little Jerry after thr rooster on Seinfeld.) Don't ask me how he forgot to close it! Anyway, when we woke up Saturday morning it was gone. Pessimist me said he was gone forever, our house it too old with too many weird holes. But, optimist Tom said we could find him and after only 20 minutes of searching and placing piles of sunflower seeds everywhere, Tom heard it down in the heater vent! But it was apparently unable to climb back out of the vent because the walls were too steep and slick. So, we had to unscrew the vent off the wall and drop a towel down the vent for traction and he climbed right up and we returned him to the cage! It doesn't seem like much now, but it was a big thing at the time! I was so certain we were going to live with a hamster lose in the house! But atleast for now it's safely locked up again!