Okay so I was looking at my stats for this blog and I had a super high number of hits. PEOPLE IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE MENTOS COMMERCIAL, I DON’T HAVE IT YET, SORRY! But I am seriously trying to get it still so check back.

Okay enough of that. So it’s about five hundred degrees in this house. I’ve tried everything to get it cold. None of the kids know how to change it. I’m too freaked out to open the windows on the bottom floor at night (due to an incident at Black Butte when I was eight, if you want details let me know). So if I slip up and have all these type ohs (so don’t know how to phrase/spell that) then know it’s just because of sweaty hands.

Okay also it’s not like we are in just any neighborhood (=added scaryness). See proof when I was stopped by the flagger: lv (leaving) Salem!!! I actually took a lot of pictures today so it will be photo essay day (only I’ll also have lots of words, so I guess not really, sorry Professor Harrison!)

Flipped out a little when I saw the cover on the pool and realized… IT’S HEATED BABY! I love to swim, mom I am going to be over every weekend!

I love my mom’s yard so much that I sent her postcard that looks like this.

Um, I didn’t really want to get to work right away so i was just taking a bunch of pictures. Trying to do a whole body self portrait is hard!

I just thought this was cool. It looks like a lamp hanging from the ceiling, only the “ceiling” is really a pastel painting I did and the lamp is reflected. Enough with those. I got back to work and then headed off the Nick and Lace again. After they got home Nick got the tiger package he was waiting for, (not that Tiger) this tiger:

He is going to wear this when he snowboards in the summer because it’s really light weight. I have to admit, I’ve definitely never scene one like it before, have you? After that excitement he skateboarded until he had to come home to find a band aid and gauze:

But he said it was no big deal (I would have been crying). The rest of the night was mellow. I watched the Amazing Race, phew, next week’s finale is going to be good! Lacey and I knitted some more. She really has the hang of it, I’m so proud of her! She’s a lefty and has never done so much with her right hand before she said. Here’s our progress:

Don’t know how to fix red-eye on this computer sorry. Okay off to Seattle tomorrow, yeah!

Okay I love these kids that I am looking after. After a busy weekend with lots of friends and fun things I said I wanted to do something just us three like we used to do on our days. I didn’t even have to pull anybody’s leg. Nick has been wanting to learn to knit his own beenie like all the cool snowboarders do (and he’s a skater snowboarder himself). So we decided that would be our project. We headed out to the greatest little yarn shop in Salem, Have You Any Wool. Nick got slightly overwhelmed at all the choice ("I just want brown, I don’t get all these other kinds"), and Lacey had to decide between something for herself and her man (she picked the latter, because she’s just so sweet). After all those tough choices we went out to Thai food, yum, yum. As soon as we got home the Nick and Lace wanted to start their lesson right away. It got a little tense when they realized how slowly progress would be. I was pretty amazed how well they both caught on. I made them do a sample to practice and get a gage. Lacey is done and ready to cast on for her hat. Nick is on a second try of his (first one was too loose),  but really happy about it and is bringing it to school to show it off (see knitting is so cool!). They of course did have to get to their homework after a couple hours of knitting. Luckily our Internet was back up and running (I mean man, I can not live with this on and off business). An unfortunate table stapling incident later and they were off to bed. Yup good kids. I’ll have to get pictures of their little projects tomorrow.

Because it sure would be fun to get all dressed up. Lacey and I headed to Portland today to pick out her prom dress. I am staying at Nick and Lacey’s until Wednesday. Nick and Lacey are my all time favorite kids from my Summer Sitting Service I had many years ago. Every Wednesday we would have little adventures, make movies, swim, and play. It was so much fun. Now I come to Salem to stay with them whenever their parents go out of town for a while. They are 13.5 and just fifteen (and Lacey just got her permit, congratulations!) so they don’t really need me that much anymore. But it is still fun to come and take them out and hear what is going on with their lives. Since I’ve graduated high school I’ve probably stayed here ten times or so, a couple times a year. I was here with them when the planes struck the twin towers. It was so weird. That was the moment in my life when I realized I was really a grown up. I was with them when I was just getting to know Bj. He came over to watch a movie while I was staying here and we sat as far away from each other on the couch as we could. These were the first kids I ever watched over night. And that first time at their old house they had a new puppy that I couldn’t get to stop barking at night. It was getting later and later. The kids were in bed I was crying trying to get the puppy to stop and had to call my parents to come help me. But now the kids are grown up and we get to do fun things like shop for prom dresses.

So Lacey and I set out at about 10:30 and left Nick behind (because he is so not interested in prom dresses!). We went to about a zillion shops and didn’t see much besides big poofy princess dresses, which of course was not what Lacey was looking for. Thank goodness because we just popped our heads into a Jessica McClintock and it was absolute craziness in there! After going first to BCBG and putting a few dresses on hold we tried everywhere else. We ended up going back to BCBG and got one of those dresses. A shorter dress that goes from light pink to pink to dark pink to melon from top to bottom. It has little straps and is really cute (sorry can’t find a picture). Then we had to go all over to find silver shoes and jewelry, but it was fun. We took a break to have some great Japanese food at Bush Garden. We headed home around six, rolled in and heated up a frozen pizza. Nick had a good day too and went to see Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with his friends. He said it was “pretty good.”

*On a side note I am totally and utterly addicted to the Internet. When I got here comcast was down and so there was nothing. For over 24 hours no Internet, ahhhh. We got back from Portland and it was restored, phew. Oh, and someone asked in the comments about the ribbon jar… not long now!!!