New Deal with Allowance, Ill-fitting pants, and a great day at church

What a crazy day. I'm glad to be settled in for the night, watching the Vikings, and cleaning up my e-mails from the week. The junk e-mails have really kicked up with holiday ads and such. I was so enthusiastic to delete all this unnecessary stuff that I'm afraid I may have erased some other e-mails. I guess I'll know soon enough.

We had a full day at church today including a luncheon hosted by the youth after church. After the boys ate their lunch, they all went outside to run around and play. When we got into the car to head home, my YS said, "It was the best church day ever. You can tell by all the grass stains on my pants." Hmmm... so that's how you know?

And my OS spent the night with a friend last night and mostly packed his own bag. Funny enough I made sure he had the right church shoes and shirt and belt, but I just glanced at the pants. Well, when I saw him, he clearly had brought his brother's pants by accident (although he seemed totally unfazed b y the fact that his pants sat about five inches off the ground). I called him over to me and saw that the fly and button of his pants were wide open because they wouldn't close, they were just too small. HIs pants were only held on by his belt which stretched about five inches across bare skin, meeting the gap between the opposite sides that wouldn't meet. I just cracked up. "Son," I said, "Don't you pants feel wierd?" He just looked at me. Clearly he hadn't even noticed.

Five more nights until the tour. Someone said to me last night, "I've been checking your blog every day to see if you're freaking out yet." Oh, okay. Well, I'm NOT freaking out yet, but if anyone would like to come help decorate, we'll be working on Tuesday and Thursday, in particular. I *think* we're in pretty good shape. Fortunately the weather is going to be nice and cool all week, so the greenery should hold up nicely. I'm feeling pretty cool about it all. I figure God's on it.

I'm hoping to write some tomorrow. I've gotten off track with all this tour stuff and Thanksgiving, but I'm itching to fill a page or two. There's been so much funny kid stuff going on lately, too, that I need to record in their journals. WE've got a New Deal going down at the Koppelman house where the kids got a pretty hefty raise in their allowances, but they are now in charge of all their spending which includes after school snacks at Blount's, going to the movies, buying birthday gifts for friends, non-basic clothing items, and Christmas gifts. At first they were totally freaked out. "I have to pay for my presents for you and Dad and my sibs? That's not fair!" And so on. But they grew accustomed to the idea. One daughter announced," I'm going to get your present at the Dollar Tree, so I have more money to spend on my friends." Nice sister, eh? But yesterday we had to go to E'City for YD to take the SAT (she was a trooper!) and OD and I went shopping for gifts for her sibs and friends. It's funny because when I used to pay for all this stuff, she'd make a pretty quick decision and we'd be on our way. But now that it's her dime, the decisions are agonizing. She examined every little thing, questioned prices, worked out the math, and paced around in indecision. Eventually, though, she did a great job with gifts for all her sibs and her friends, and they weren't even at the Dollar Tree. In the end, I think she was proud of herself. (But it was exhausting for me-ha)

Well, I need to go to sleep, but the Vikes better get their act together. I can't fall asleep with Arizona in the lead. I love you, Brett. Rally the troops!