Shining Time

This was the door we found in our neighborhood.  We wrote a skit last week, envisioning our wacky fireman coming through a door and just destroying it.  But then we were thinking, where are we going to get a door - and can we put that in the budget, and how will everyone feel about buying a door just to destroy it.  Still, we wrote it in there thinking, "you never know!"

So it came to pass that as we were leaving the neighborhood, we happened upon ... you guessed it... a door.  Someone was throwing out their door.  God is good.  I've never seen someone throw out a door before, and just as Mommy and Daddy were driving by, Mommy spotted it and yelled out, "DOOR!"

We got the door.  And we shot the video where the fireman busts through with an axe to come in and save a family from a fire.  Of course, there is no fire - as our fireman is overdoing it.  He winds up destroying everything else as well, from the television to the DVD player to the lamp to the valuable ceramic vase.  Most of it wasn't valuable at all - we got some defective stuff from Goodwill.

Still, afterwards, it was hard to resist taking a photo through the crack in the door, holding the axe.  Daddy has never actually seen this movie, but this pose got a lot of people laughing when we sent it out.

Later on, our fireman rampage continued on a basketball court when one player complimented another by saying, "You're on fire."  Big mistake.

Madison and Mommy continued housework today, and other chores as well.  It is the week leading up to Summer Xtreme, so it's tougher to schedule things out.  But we're excited about the events at the library, and the reading program of course.  Can you believe that Madison has signed up and has seven or eight books already recorded online.  She's well on her way to meeting her goal of 75 books this summer.  The difference this year is that she's doing all the reading on her own, reading the books to Mommy and Daddy.  Who are both very impressed.

Speaking of which, Madison is doing well with math.  She's did about 25 simple math problems in three minutes.  These problems are ones she'll face in 2nd grade, where by the end of the first quarter, she's supposed to have 30 done in three minutes.  She's already pretty close to that target.  Throughout the summer, we'll repeat the testing and see if she can make that goal, and further, before the start of the school year.

Mommy is doing an excellent job moving that all forward.  Of course, Daddy is off doing preparing - but it's really fun stuff.  Diving ten feet under in a pool to retrieve wrapping paper bits and clean the pool, watching Chris use a sledgehammer on a 32 inch television, using a computer screen to deflect an onslaught of water, watching another friend get doused with a full Gatoraid container... it's the kind of stuff you always see the week before Summer Xtreme.