This was a great weekend

Which is probably not what all them public schoolers are sayin'. See, they all had to go to school this week, and I've been doing it all summer anyway. Allow me to start this post with yesterday morning, for that is where the action began.

Yesterday morning, we all got in the truck to go to Chisholm, way north of here. So we thought maybe we should stop at the post office before we began our long journey. Much to everyone's surprise, Lynae came out with two large packages, a magazine, and an envelope, all of which were addressed to me. So, I began frantically opening everything. The contents were as follows:
Box #1. Hat, large catalog with gunsmith supplies. I may never need it, but another catalog doesn't hurt.
Box #2. Gun case, gun cleaning kit, and ear muffs for sound protection. I used that all the way to Chisholm, since the siblings were being loud.
Magazine. Ummm... Didn't really look through it. It is a little kid magazine, kinda.
Envelope. A bunch of paintings for Christmas cards that Ducks Unlimited wants me to buy.

So, I put on the earmuffs and the hat and started working on school. My big assignment was to make a set of rules that I would enforce in my house. I labeled this assignment "The Exceedingly Just Rules" and they are as follows:

1. Anyone who breaks anything or makes a mess will restore everything to normal. But if this incident occurred when the person was disobeying or using something without permission, they will be sentenced to community service of a magnitude directly proportional to the magnitude of the damage done.

2. Dawdling in any task may result in (but is not necessarily limited to) loss of privilege, extra work, or missing a meal.

3. Any aggression (hurting, yelling, unkind words) will get the offender(s) put in a separate room to calm down, and will not be permitted to leave or get up until they have calmed down and are ready to make it right. After this, the offender(s) will lose a privilege.

4. Any profane or obscene language will result in loss of privilege for one week and washing mouth with soap, in addition to everything listed in #3, and shunning all contact with the noun responsible for educating the child to speak that way. If that cannot be performed, then the noun responsible for educating the child to speak that way must stop.

5. Any sign of disrespect to anyone, superior, inferior, or equal, will result in extra work on the part of the offender, possibly for the offended, after appropriate apology, and committing Bible verses on humility, meekness, or respect, to memory.

6. During church, devotions, prayer, and school time, full attention must be given. There must be respect for these things; no goofing off or distracting people. Any such behavior will result in extra work, after an appropriate apology.

Well, then we finally got to Chisholm. We went around in this labyrinth place called Ironworld.

After wandering around, getting lost, and finding ourselves again, we saw Charlie Maguire in concert. That was cool. And if that isn't cool enough, I got to talk to him. And if that isn't really super cool, I told him that I can play some of his songs, and he gave me a business card and told me to send him a tape.

And if that last paragraph wasn't so cool you fell out of your chair, wait till I tell you about what happened today...

... Oh yes. This morning, Mom told Michael and me to get up and do what we want. We started fantasizing about what we should do: catch a cottontail, kill Grace's dollhouse people with our knights, make another birthday cake. We immediately got to work after breakfast.

We got bored with our other ideas and made a giant catapult instead. It shoots stuff about 3 or 4 yards, which is really pitiful, but it looks impressive. We made it out of logs and rope, no 2 x4s. And the fulcrum is about 5 1/2 feet high. Wait'll you see the pictures!

Talk to ya later, and by the way, I didn't post this so late at night. I had it saved and it just got published late.