The best part of the day

I dropped my van off at the garage this morning to get the issues with it diagnosed - needless to say it did not end up being a happy experience. There's no way that I can afford to have them fix it, so I'm going to go back up there tomorrow and pick it up and limp it home and then we'll work on figuring out Plan B. I've already had my nervous breakdown over it, and I refuse to stress about it anymore. We'll figure it out, just like we always do.

The Dude is leaving tomorrow to go out of town for a couple of days with his best friend and he's leaving his truck here for me to use so I won't be stranded. It's big and old and ugly, but it runs so at this point, I'll take it. At least we have something to use for a few days.

I got lots of walking in today too. And it was kind of funny - as I was walking home from work, I heard this loud truck rumble past me and when I looked, it was The Dude and his mother heading back to their house after an appointment. I tried to get his attention, but he wasn't looking in my direction - so I walked to his house (I was only about 2 blocks away at that point) and made him drive me home so that we could talk about the van - but I also told him that he got brownie points because since he didn't notice me walking down the road, I knew that he wasn't eyeballing girls while he was out running errands. ;)

But the best part of the day was going to the boys' parent-teacher conferences. These were student-led conferences, meaning that the kids had checklists of everything that they were supposed to show us in the classroom, and they checked off each one as they completed it. Then we talked to the teacher and the kids got a coupon to use at the book fair. The Dude has been struggling with his injured shoulder, but he managed to make it through the conferences with me, much to the boys' delight.

Reading corner in Alex's room

Showing off artwork

Alex's tennis player

Daniel reading us a story

Daniel's artwork

The Dude and Daniel - they had to go get his flower that
he forgot to get from his room.

Both boys are doing well in school. Academically they are both ahead of where they need to be. There are some behavioral issues, but nothing that isn't already being addressed. All in all, I really can't complain. And having The Dude there to go to the conferences with us - especially since he really didn't feel up to it - means more to me than he'll ever know.