Here it is, our new ride!

We picked up our van yesterday afternoon. We will very soon be getting to know it very well.

A proud day!

It is the day that every mother looks forward to! The day her youngest child decides to use a toilet rather than a diaper! This morning I took Edmund's diaper off and he went to sat on his little potty (in the family room), and I let him go while I folded the laundry. Sure enough, it looked like he was trying to work on something, his very first poop into the potty! Technically, Edmund is not my youngest child, Andrew is 1 minute younger, and has not yet used the potty in like manner, but identical twins are usually pretty close developmentally on such things, so here's hoping! (Patrick was 3 1/2, so anything earlier than that would be a happy day.) Of course, the major problem with today is that we are leaving in 3 days fora full month, so I'm not sure how this will work out on the road or if he will show interest when he comes back. Only time will tell.

School's out, everyone is still busy!

Auburn schools let out for the year the Friday before Memorial day. Cory woke up in the morning, and threw-up, so he got to add another day of absence to the year. The elementary school had a celebration at on Friday morning with dance performances by each grade. It was a fun program, and I signed Aaron out of school afterwards. I was very please with each of my children's report cards, all did very well and learned a lot during this school year. Carissa had a party with her kindergarten class and came home at her normal time.
On Saturday, Michael took the van in to be worked on, but after being quoted a price for all of the repairs that would probably need to be done to fix the vibrations it experiences at freeway speeds, drove home and we spent the day test driving new vehicles. We tried out Chevy and Ford passenger vans and a suburban. All were much nicer than our current van, and over the next couple of days we decided that the Ford van was the most comfortable and practical choice for our family. (The Suburbans were nice, but we couldn't see paying more for a vehicle that had our children scrunched together and much more likely to fight with each other, and the Chevy was just not as comfortable.) So parts of Monday/Tuesday were spent deciding on the specific van we wanted and arranging to have a DVD player installed. We are picking it up this afternoon. So we are trading a white 1997 Ford van for a 2008 Silver Ford van with much fewer miles, and wonderful amenities such as power locks and windows, shoulder belts on all the back seats(and car seat latches), cruise control, arm rests, tinted windows, CD and DVD players. This will make our trips this year much more comfortable for our family.
Michael then left very early Tuesday morning for a 50 mile hike with the high-adventure boy scouts in our ward. He had a fun and exhausting time. He is currently working on his Tenure and Promotion documents and a grant proposal, trying to get everything done before we leave an Saturday for our summer vacation.
Aaron and Cory are at Cub Scout day camp this week. They are enjoying themselves.
I'm spending this week keeping up with laundry, packing, and preparing to leave. I hope I don't forget anything important.