Molasses and a road trip

William has officially become a part of the long line of mess makers. Not only has he been doing a number on our computer, banging on the keys and making using the computer difficult... today while I tried to make lunch and my back was turned, he got into the pantry and pulled a bottle down on him, and it just so happened to be made glass which of course broke. And it was a very special glass bottle one nearly filled with molasses! Yes folks we have had our very first molasses spill. Its kind of amazing, molasses which moves very slowly in the jar... moves just as slowly on the floor. So I had two choices, clean off the baby first or clean up the molasses first. I chose to clean the baby for fear of any leftover glass. By the time I was done the molasses had only moved maybe an inch, so the entire jar of molasses was in a small little area. But the clean up was still not easy. I had to really think about how best to clean it. Finally I decided that paper towels although bad on the environment would perhaps save my sanity at this moment. Happily with the help of our temporary foreign exchange student, Phillip (which Joe pronounces Fiwh-dup the same thing he says when a glass "fills up"), I was able to clean it up while he made the children their lunch. What a mess!

We are heading out to Waterflow, New Mexico this Saturday. My mother-in-law Cherl has fallen and broken her ankle in two places and we are all going to support her and help her recover. Its a bit of a sad reason for going, but I hope to make the trip a good growing experience. The kids are getting to the age, especially Peter who is 6, when he can start getting to know grandma and start making some precious memories of her that he can hold on to when he is an adult. I hope that while we'll need to help her that the kids can help cheer her and learn from the life experiences that I am sure we'll have. It looks like I will be celebrating my 30th birthday there. So if you don't hear much from us for a while, you'll know what we are doing. Sadly that means no creative writing class for us, but the good new is that I will be able to see my sister-in-law a little more since she is already there helping. Plus my friends still living in the area.