The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. Jacques Cousteau

This is the beach that was closest to our home is Royal Palm. It was wonderful to be able to go back and spent some time there. Our family has many fond memories on this beach.

The worlds Largest Gummy bear

by: Tyler Jones
This gummy bear is the worlds largest gummy bear as its name suggests that we bought from vat19.com that is 5 pounds it is 9"x 5.5"x3.5" it is equal to 1400 regular gummy bears and is 12,600 calories we recently decided to name it Steve after the monkey in cloudy with a chance of meatballs.Dan was going around chanting"Steve, Steve, Steve" Dan is very exited about it.

Dan loses his first tooth

Dan lost his first tooth on Wednesday, right before the school bus came. He was pretty excited. He was the first boy in his class to lose a tooth.

Hal's Got "Skillz"

Hal started selling homemade wheat bread to his lunch table this week. The rumor spread that he has "Mad Skillz" at breadmaking. He has sold 11 loaves since Tuesday at $5 a loaf. He thought the gig was up when the lunch lady caught him but quick thinking saved the day. He gave her a slice and she is hooked. She ordered a loaf for the next day:)

Tawny Scrawny Lion

One of my favorite things about having all the kids in school is that I can now volunteer in the classrooms. When I had little ones at home this was never an option. Yesterday I had the privilege of reading in Dan's class. The Tawny Scrawny Lion is one of our families favorite books. Many of the kindergartners had not heard this book which kind of surprised me. They were all very excited to hear the book and could hardly wait for me to read the next page. One little boy in particular really wanted the lion to eat all the other animals and became very sad at the end of each page when that did not happen. It was hilarious and part of me wanted to make up an alternate ending just for him where the lion has delicious rabbit stew. Afterwards I went to Art Class with them and helped with their paper mache penguins. All the little kids kept asking me if I would get that book back out about the skinny lion. The best part.... Dan still thinks I'm cool:) I've still got him in the dark on that little secret:)

Snowstorm

20.2 inches of snow. The third most in Chicago history.