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I promised my husband when I started my writing class that I would only blog once a week. And look, I miss the momentous news that Lucy has passed on! We have had a few losses amongst those near to us: First our good friends lost an in utero baby and their 13 yr old lab, a lady on our Mobile Meals route passed away, and now Lucy (and Kio). Resquiat in pace.

So now that I've spent an hour reading everyone else's entries and following links, I'll weigh in. We've just finished a wonderful weeklong visit with Gram and Pop Cook. Visited a few museums (with Flat Stanley, who will be moving on finally, after this trip to the beach where John found a hermit crab, now a member of our menagerie, aka Hermie), enjoyed great soccer weather, consumed a lot of good food, good wine, and good chocolate. Gram brought some delicious Black Gold Chocolate Espresso Bars and Chocolate Covered Pringle's chips (yum) made by Oklahoman artisanal chocolatiers Bedre. If you can find it, Southwesterners, pick some up. I have to say, that after a taste test, it's notably better than Godiva.

But the real event of the week is the advent of the video game age at the VA Cook house. Gram and Pop generously gave the kids a Wii as an early Christmas present.
Although, as most of you know, I am not a fan of video games, I relented on my banishment of them, based on the assumption that Wii provides a form of physical activity and because I'm afraid of stigmatizing my homeschoolers. I have happily discovered that Wii is an entertaining family game, great for parties. The best part is creating your alter ego Mii, although Dan and I did some after hours editing of some of the kids' creations: gone are a couple of multiple aliens, "Wird*o," and changed is the name of "Mugster," one of two African Americans, to "Rapster." (Even though my children are educated in a homogeneous environment, they have also, without prompting, created friendly Miis of Hispanic background, various ages and genders, and other cultures, like Caveman. Oops, that was my husband's alter Mii...) Y'all will be happy to know also that they are in the process of creating all the extended family members, too, so when they play baseball, they can have their aunts, uncles, and cousins on their teams.

In other news, our case of MRSA was confirmed. Tomorrow we find out if it is completely gone at a recheck. After reading about 5 confirmed cased treated at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, involving amputation of an arm and treatment of necrotizing fascitis, I'm grateful our case wasn't worse!