My daughter's insane

Here's the proof.
Friday was the last day of school before winter break. So what does Sally Ann do? In a moment of boredom, she and several of her friends wrote a Christmas song about physics, to the tune of the twelve days of Christmas. Here's the last verse:

On the twelfth day of physics, my teacher gave to me
12 hundred problems
11 strange dimensions
10 racing buggies
9 types of trusses
8 force sensors
7 roller coasters
6 new labs
5 hours of homework!
4 metric units
3 Newton's laws
2 vector graphs
and an apple falling from a tree!

To make matters worse, not only did Sally Ann write the crazed poem, she sang it to her physics teacher in class. She forced one of her shyer friends to sing along with her, and the poor girl had had so much sugar she just couldn't say "no." The teacher, Mr. Johns, is a bit strange, but even he didn't know how to react. The man just sat there with a goofy smiley and tried to pretend it wasn't happening, from what I heard from Sally Ann's friend.
Sally Ann is certainly following in her mother's footsteps, at any rate.

Countdown to the family party: 7 days

It's that time of year again, and as always, my darling old parents have decided to throw their annual Christmas bash. It's supposed to be on Sunday (a week from today) and I'm rather looking forward to it. We're going to have music and food and fun. As always, there will be a Yankee gift swap, and, as always, I hope it doesn't get to far out of hand. One year I swear we had twice as many people as their were presents. Those who picked first ended up with absolutely nothing. I think we'll be a bit more careful this year.
My dear old dad may be getting a bit senile. You wouldn't believe how many people he's invited. Then of course, there are the guests invited by me and Bob. Even the kids are getting in on the action. Sally Ann, my oldest daughter, blackmailed her brother Bob Jr. to invite a guy she likes. Another one of my kids, Joey, invited his entire 3rd period English class to bring their families. It could get a little crazy.
Hopefully my parent's house will be big enough to hold everyone. It might get close, especially when you consider that their one story ranch was barely big enough to hold myself, them, and my brothers when I was growing up. Forget crazy, this party has the potential to get downright insane.

Driving to Bryce National Park

As I mentioned before, we drove up to Bryce National Park earlier today. About a couple hours into the drive, the kids started noticing white stuff on the mountains off in the distance. By the time we stopped for gas, they had realized it was snow, and it was covering the ground around us.
My babies reacted the way any kids would. They immediately called for a snowball fight. Sally Ann and Bob III were the only ones smart enough to stay out of it. The other seven and a half all started going crazy, making slush balls and throwing them with varying levels of accuracy. By the time we'd filled up our tank with overpriced gas, there was no unused snow left in the gas station parking lot. Michelangelo and Ezekiel were sopping wet, and Elizabeth, Dud, and Joey were not much better off. I had to lay towels down on the seats of the Builder Mobile to prevent them from getting the seats wet. Bob Jr, Bob IV, and Dyda Jr. were all victorious, without a single flake of snow on them.
After we left the gas station, the view got better and better. We went through this place called Dixie National Forest, and with the snow it was absolutely beautiful. For the first time in a long time, the kids got to see trees taller than houses, and with a dusting of snow, it was amazing. The picture above is of Dixie National Forest with snow, so you can see how nice it was.
We were all disappointed when we found that there was no snow at Ruby's Inn, which is where we are staying.

Joey Makes a Fool of Himself

My kids keep giving me grief because I only ever mention Dud and Bob Jr. in this blog. There are nine and a half of you, guys, so give me a break.
Anyway, I do have a story to tell about a different one of my kids. When we were leaving for our vacation this morning, Joey, my fifth child, made a bit of a fool of himself. He'd been zoning out in front of some cartoon channel when I called him to get in the car. Joey grabbed all of his stuff and raced outside. When he got to the car, my oldest two, Sally Ann and Bob Jr., pointed out that he still had the television's remote control in his hand. It was a very impressive feat, because Joey never even noticed he had it in his hand. Sally Ann ran the remote control back to the family room, but it was still rather hilarious.
Poor Joey will never hear the end of that one.