A Full Day of It

 I love getting to the end of a day and feeling like I've really accomplished a lot.  Saturday was one of those days.  It started off with haircuts for three of my favorite men.  I have been wanting to get this done for over a month, but the timing never worked out.  Finally the guys were sick of their long hair and begged me to do it that day.  It's about time!

This little guy could have probably used a trim too.  I have a hard time cutting a baby's hair for the first time.  I always want to wait just a little bit longer :)  Sentimental for some reason.  Not sure what they psychology is behind that, but that's always been the case with me ;)

 After the haircuts, I ran a bunch of errands - to the library for a new stack of books, the post office, and then to wash my filthy vehicle.  By the time I was done running the errands, the truck was dirty again already.  Oh well.  It definitely looks better than it did. 

I stopped by the grocery store for a huge dose of frustration (more on that later), and then to the thrift store, where I picked up a couple of books (of course) and found some cute, very small luggage with Dash from The Incredibles on it.

 Of course there was a lot of playing involved in the day.  The baby is sitting up so well on his own now.  He can't get himself to the position yet, but sits quite awhile on his own.  Bugga and Papa got him this fun turtle play toy for Christmas.  It's filled with balls, and we keep several other toys that are just for him in it so they don't get used by the daycare kids.  I'm pretty careful about shared germs with this one, since he's had such crazy health problems all along.  He's doing pretty well now though.

 It was such a beautiful day that I took the boys to the park for the afternoon.

 We still have quite a bit of snow - and it's going to be there probably through the end of April at least.  We have snow here into June, so we're used to it.  So while all of my Southern friends are posting pictures of Daffodils, budding trees, and beautiful azaleas, think of me, buried in snow :)

 It was even a little tricky to walk in.  The pathway is pretty packed down, but if you step off the path, you can easily sink to an adult's knee.

 He was kneeling in this picture, you still sank up to his waist.

 The baby LOVED the swing.  I hadn't taken him to the park - at least not where he got to do anything - yet, so this was a big first for him.  He loves our baby swing at home so I thought he might like this.  He was so cute - he would kick and bob his head trying to make the swing go higher.  He stayed in the swing most of the time we were there - which was close to an hour and a half.

It was difficult enough to walk in the snow that the three year old eventually refused to go anywhere without me holding his hand.

This picture kind of shows you how much snow we still have.  That drop from our porch is usually 4 feet to the ground, but right now, I'd guess it's just over a foot.  So we have around 3 feet of snow piled up there.  That's nothing compared to the piles we have next to our driveway from shoveling.  So you can see we're no where near the end of winter here.  And we've had beautifully warm days for the past week.

The other thing I worked on last night was to come up with menu ideas for a new monthly menu.  I mentioned earlier that I was frustrated at the grocery store.  The store is named Ridley's, but everyone in town refers to it as "Ripoffs" and the name is well deserved.  Every time I shop there, I have to pay close attention to the prices that ring up and have them correct 4-6 prices ... and that's when I only have half a cart of groceries. 

Yesterday I corrected four prices, but missed the onions ringing up too high.  There were two signs above the onion display - one said $1.67/pound and the other said 3 pounds for $1.  The sign that said 3#/$1 was on the side that the 3 pound bags of onions were on, so naturally I figured the bags were $1.  I didn't especially need onions, but I grabbed two bags figuring it was a great deal.  They store well, and sometimes I saute a bunch of them and freeze them to add to meals.  Well of course they rang up for the higher price, but I didn't think to check it until I was at the truck.  So I went in to have them fix the price.  They said they had rang up correctly and wouldn't change it.  I was extremely frustrated.  Okay that's a major understatement. 

It would be one thing if this didn't happen all the time.  But it does.  And I just think about all the people who don't pay attention to prices.  It's ridiculous, but I realized the other day that I memorize the prices of everything I buy.  A good skill, but it shouldn't be necessary.  Anyway enough ranting.  I determined right then and there that I will NOT be shopping there if it can be avoided.  We have a small butcher shop in town where I can buy fresh meat, we participate in a co-op for fresh fruits and veggies, and bread, and I will be more diligent about shopping once a month in Jackson Hole. 

So that's what I was working on - a menu for the month, so that I can have an all-inclusive shopping list and get it all done out of town.  We used to do this all the time, but we needed an updated menu to include all the things we love, and to be more precise about including absolutely everything.  I go through a gallon of milk a day with the daycare, so I'm planning to freeze milk, but may still have to get some of that in town.  I can do that at the butcher shop too.  And this summer we're supposed to be getting an Alco store which will carry some of the basics too.  They are supposed to have a gas and convenience/grocery store too, so hopefully they'll have milk at a reasonable price. So goodbye Ripoffs!  Hope that 67 cents was worth it.