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Just updates and a couple of funnies

The big news
Karen had her baby!! Donato Carroll Ruggeri was born on Sept. 19 at 6:23 p.m. at St. Mary's Hospital in St. Louis. He weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and everyone is doing well. Congratulations, Karen and Dave! If you'd like to send them well-wishes, Dave's e-mail address is davidruggeri@yahoo.com.
A new car
First of all, Shelly Thorington, if you're out there, the day finally came. I traded in my 8-year-old Xterra and bought a 2009 Honda Accord on Thursday. They gave me well over blue book for the trade-in of the Xterra (wahoo!), and we got an extra set of tires and wheels thrown in with the car. If that didn't sound strange, read it again. We got an EXTRA set of TIRES and WHEELS.

So here's a tip for anyone going to look at new cars. If the car you want has wheels other than what came on it as stock, or if you want them to put something else on, don't let them charge you for the tires and wheels that they took/take off and don't give to you.

My new car had upgraded tires and wheels, so we pressed the sales guys about where the cost of the original ones came out since they were charging us full price for the new ones and the original price of the car included tires and wheels. This threw them for a loop. They didn't want to take the price of the originals off of the car, so they somewhat caddily (I don't think that's a word by the way) said, "Well, you can have the ones we took off if you want them." So now we have to sell brand-new Honda Accord tires and wheels. If anyone's interested, let me know :-)
A plug for Beau
Since we're not close to anyone anymore, here's a plug for my little Beau. He's selling pre-portioned cookies and frozen Auntie Ann's Pretzels for school. If anyone wants to support the little dude's school's efforts to put in an indoor play area, shoot me an e-mail, jeniferbice@gmail.com.
Can't forget Brayden
There are a couple of things here that are notable. He had a football game on Saturday, and Kindergarten football is really heating up. The coaches are calling plays - his team has plays called Incredible Hulk, Power Rangers and Batman. The kids are progressing from all running plays to a few passing plays. And occassionally they are tackling at the flag football games. This, as odd as it sounds, makes me kind of happy.

I keep worrying that Brayden is going to get kicked out of this flag football league. You see, this is his fourth session of football, and toward the middle of last session, Coach Dad got bored with the schemes they were running, so he taught the team in Blue Springs (hey, Kendall!) how to block. When we started with this league, Brayden was the only one blocking, and he was just running over some of the kids. Imagine steamroller and asphalt. That's what it looked like.

Well, apparently this week he got a dose of what he was dishing out. He was the running back, and he had four other kids on him trying to get his flag. Being the stout child that he is, he has been just carrying the kids along as he (attempts to) runs. This time, the four piled on and literally tackled him. But he took it like a champ, according to Coach Dad.

The other funny thing about Brayden happened today. Now if you know him very well at all, you know that he's wise beyond his years, and that often he says things and you wonder where he came up with them. Kind of like the day he told Grandma Patty that "the future is God's floor."

Ok, so anyway, he and his cousins were tubing at the lake today. The story that MiMi tells is that they fell off and Caleb, who is also 5, started crying. This was Brayden's response/advice to him, "Calm down. It's OKAY. There are no alligators or sharks in the lake."

Now keep in mind that we don't think that's necessarily why Caleb was crying. Caleb, however, doesn't make it to the lake much, and Brayden thinks falling in the water is among the more fun parts of doing anything water-related. So in his 5-year-old brain, he must have decided that Caleb was crying because he was scared that something was going to get him. And this is how he addresses it. I love that kid. Get right to the point and tell him to get over it.

That's it from here for now. Until I find a few spare minutes again. . .

Comments

Did this work? How much ya think you paid for the XTerra? Bout ^60,000? Good on ya for the trade!

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