Where to begin? (In other words, exciting week!)

The last four days have been so crazy that I can’t believe it’s only been four days! I’ll try to remember everything for this update.

On Monday, April 20, Ryan’s fish Nemo died. You may remember that Brock died a couple of weeks ago. We’ve had both fish for a year, and have decided that maybe it was just “their time.” We haven’t done anything differently with the food or water, so we’re not sure what happened. Over the weekend, Nemo started spitting out his food, so we knew there was something wrong. Without going into all of the details, I did everything I could think of to help him get better. But he died about the time Ryan was going to bed on Monday night. Ryan got up and we took Nemo out to the pet cemetery and buried him in the dark (thus the absence of photos).

Tuesday was such an eventful day! I took birthday treats (doughnuts) to Ryan’s school class. His teacher gives the kids a little worksheet about themselves on 11 x 14 paper. The birthday kid fills it out, and then the teacher “interviews” the child (who is sitting on a stool at the front of the class with a microphone). Ryan LOVED the attention!After the interview, the birthday kid can choose how they want the class to sing happy birthday. Ryan didn’t have any ideas, but one of his friends (who knows he loves rugby) suggested a rugby happy birthday. So…I only took my regular camera and then could have kicked myself. That was the most hysterical thing I have ever seen! The kids would moan as they sang, and then would throw in the occasional “pow” or “whack” or “ouch” or “ohhhh” at the end of each line. So it went something like this:

(Moaning) Happy birthday to you! *whack* *oof*
Happy birthday to you! *bam* *ouch!*
Happy birthday dear Ryan! *kapow* *argh!*
Happy birthday to you! *slam!* *ohhhhh*

What made it even more hilarious was that the kids would jerk their bodies and/or fall to the floor with the various painful expressions. I should know by now to take the video camera everywhere! Oh, and after the hilarious song, Ryan's teacher said, "You all know what's next." The kids in the class all rushed Ryan and gave him merciless hugs. Again, he loved every minute of it, despite pretending not to.

Tuesday evening Ryan had another soccer game. It was considerably warmer than the last few, thank goodness! He didn’t score, but he came soooo close with this one…And a couple more of my favorites…Our most exciting event and news of the week started Tuesday after Ryan’s soccer game. We had to run some flyers around to all of my cub scouts. As we got to the home of one boy, he came running out asking if Ryan wanted to come and see the new Beagle puppies. To make a long story short, we held all of the puppies, Ryan begged for a puppy, we talked to the owners, Ryan begged more, we held more, Ryan begged more, we talked more, and Ryan begged more. We have actually been talking about getting a puppy, so I told him we’d go home and talk about getting this puppy. Well, Wednesday we put down a deposit. The puppies are only 2 ½ weeks old, so we’ll be able to bring him home around the middle of May. That will coincide nicely with the end of school. More chores to add to Ryan’s list.

Ryan decided to name the puppy Copper Rocko. Copper is a name from the mother’s line, and Rocko is the father’s name. Look…already bonding…We have a couple more fun things planned for Ryan’s birthday this weekend. I’ll post the recap of those in another couple of days.