Fountain
There is a fountain outside an area movie theater. Kids are allowed to play in the fountain, which is awesome. It's been SO HOT here this week. Not putting air conditioning in our house was the dumbest decision we made (the second was to not put in a full basement). So I thought Charis would love playing in the fountain. She loved running around the fountain -- even avoiding the area of the ground moistened by the spray. She refused to get wet.
Random musing: How often can a 4 year old ask "why?"
No Fillings
Charis had her first dental cleaning this morning. It actually was supposed to be yesterday, but I thought it was at a different time and we missed the appointment. But we went this morning, and after three "Happy Visits" (getting her used to the office, etc.), she allowed the hygienist to clean her teeth. Check out the cool sunglasses she got to wear. The office is great, but I couldn't believe how much they charged for cleaning her teeth -- no fluoride, no x-rays.
Random Musing: What is up with Exxon making the biggest profit in history this quarter?!?!
Fun
Playing house in the music room
After the dentist, I took Charis to a local amusement center. A smaller version of a massive facility on the other side of town opened recently a couple miles away. I had coupons for free admission, free kids meal, free ice cream, and $5 in tokens with purchase of $5 in food (my lunch).
"Little BiggTown" has a sandbox, bounce house, carousel, and town -- police/fire station, beauty boutique, music room, toy shop, grocery store and more. We easily spent three hours there (in the air conditioned goodness). Lunch was pretty good, too (you know how nasty those kids' places can be!). We'll be back, for sure!
Charis in the bounce house
Paging Dr. Charis
Random Musing: Whoopi Goldberg?!?! Xanadu?!?! Does anyone else think this is hilarious?
Frosting
I just finished my first course in cake decorating (four weeks). I am fairly pleased with how my cake turned out. Tonight I learned how to make roses. Once I got the base of it right, the rest of it came pretty easily.
Before, I never could figure out how people could make flowers out of frosting on a piece of wax paper and then lift them with "scissors." Well, you use really stiff frosting and it hardens after a while. Go figure. The instructor said she rarely has new students who can use all their own roses on their cakes (most have to use some of hers). All mine. I even was able to donate a few to other students. I was really surprised, because I was really struggling last week trying to catch up (I missed class 2 while in Haiti).
Then I came home and sliced it up for my family. I tried to get my husband to do the surgery, but he refused. It's hard to cut up something you just spent hours working on, but hey, I'm not going to let it sit there and rot.
In the next class, which starts next week, I will learn how to use royal icing, make a variety of flowers, and do basket-weave techniques.
As an aside ... I am SICK of the smell of buttercream. I have been practicing my roses throughout the week, in addition to decorating cakes. I am not a fan of frosting anyway, and after learning what exactly buttercream icing is made of, I am even less of a fan.
Anyone want cake?
5 comments:
Beautiful cake. I'm impressed.
The fountain looks like fun. The girls played in one like that in Atlanta but that's six hours away!
I hear you on the dental thing. It probably varies state to state but ours went up to $152 with no x-rays.
Hoping we all get good news or at least good pictures in the next few days!
Our girls love that fountain!
Also, great job on the cake.
We'll have to get the girls together at the fountain -- maybe Charis will go in if your girls do (I used their dentist visit as peer pressure for Charis, too).
I honestly don't mean to be contentious, Jodie, but do want to offer the facts about Exxon, the largest company in the States.
Their revenue this past quarter was $138 billion.
They paid $32.361 billion in taxes.
They made $11.68 billion in profit.
Their profit was about 8.4% of sales, while the taxes paid represented over 23% of sales.
Their profit as a percentage of investment/expenses is pretty average, though much less than many, many other companies.
I appreciate what Exxon is doing to provide me and my family with gasoline. Sure would love to see prices come down -- high prices are the result of speculators, and they've driven it up because they anticipate shortages; merely opening up new regions to drilling, and accessing the 1 trillion barrels of oil in the shale fields here in the West, will drop prices by half within a few months.
You are contentious, Ted. You need more sleep. :)
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