First Day of School

Joshua is starting the 2nd grade. Lydia is in the first (which means she gets a locker and can buy a snack from the vending machine now!). Katherine is going to preschool in the mornings.

Storms, Surprises and Stings

The storms continued into the day today. However, we were pleasantly surprised to see the sun peeking through the clouds around lunchtime (Steve was more than surprised...he was relieved that he would not be spending the day at the outlet mall).

We had time to build sandcastles...

...catch lots of sea creatures...

...and ride some big waves!

The storms brought in a plethora of jellyfish...one of which stung Lydia on the arm. She recovered quickly, but did not enter the water again. We spent the remainder of the afternoon catching jellyfish and burying them in the sand.

Stormy Day

Although the skies were filled with rainshowers, thunder and lightening most of the day and into the evening, we were able to get a little time on the beach. The impending storms brought in some good waves this morning!

Lydia waiting patiently for one of us to join her in riding the waves.

Aunt Diane joined us again this year.

Destin 2011

The girls enjoy jumping in the pool together.

Lydia rides the waves like a surfer in training!

Endless hours digging in the sand...for the water at the bottom...

...and even more hours in the ocean. The kids LOVE the ocean this year. I don't have nearly as many pictures as usual because I seem to be spending all my time jumping the waves! Katherine, as usual holds her own and keeps on going even if she wipes out!

Joshua fishing for treasures.

Burried alive!

Job Security

The kids love it when Steve bounces them on the trampoline...the higher the bounce the higher the squeals! That is Katherine about 4 feet in the air.

Grandma B bought the kids a new toy for their birthday. This is Lydia bouncing with Steve.
I know the photo is small, but look closely, yes Steve is actually above the 6 foot tall safety net...

After seeing just a few of the photos, I think the blog title is self-explanatory!

Graduation!

Joshua received two medals upon graduation from first grade. He earned the all A Honor Roll medal and the Citizenship Medal (he earned excellence in conduct all year). He also received the Abraham Genesis 22 Obedience Award.

Lydia graduated from kindergarten and will excitedly tell you she is now a First Grader!!

Katherine completed her first year of preschool.

She did not receive the Excellence in Conduct or the Obedience Award...

I need a new calculator!

My calculator will not add in the trillions. One trillion dollars looks like this 1,000,000,000,000. It is 1000 times more than one billion.

One million times one million.

1,000,000,000,000. That is a number that is hard for me to wrap my mind around. So when thinking about the national debt which is 14.2 trillion today 14,200,000,000,000 it is immediatly overwhelming.

Our "income" meaning what the government took in last year was 2,173 trillion. We spent 3.8 trillion. That means we spent 1.6 trillion more than we made. Let me state it differently. The United States spent 1,600,000,000,000 more than it made last year.

Although the government is obviously more complex than the family unit. In order to attack this in my mind, I will use Dave Ramsey's method of bringing these numbers to a micro-level we can actually discuss. This is equilavent to a family making $55,000 a year, spending $96,000 a year (spending $41,000 more than they make) with $366,000 of credit card debt.

Even if this family cut their spending in half, they still would not even be touching their debt that is growing daily. They may have to sell their house or expensive car. No matter what they decide to cut, I can assure you it will not be fun for anyone in the family.

Earlier this year our elected officials fought, screamed, cried, and some even through temper tantrums about a proposed 60 billion dollar cut (meaning they would only overspend by 1,540,000,000,000). That would be the equilavent of this family cutting $4,000 of their spending next year. It would now look like this $55,000 income with $92,000 spending and still $366,000 credit card debt growing everyday. I wouldn't be too excited for them. Yet, our congressmen spent an entire week patting themselves on the back for cutting even less than this. Seriously?

So that's the mess our country is in. What is the solution? Depending on who you are chatting with (and if you aren't chatting with folks about it, you should be) there are typically two lines of thinking...and a newer third proposal that I am scarcely going to mention.

Some say to raise taxes. Won't work. If you confiscated 100% of everything the Forbes 400 owned...that is the 400 wealthiest people in the country, if the government took everything they owned - it would only run the govenment for 4 months. If you raised taxes on all the rich, however you define that, it may help a little, but then we have socialism which to me is a much larger problem that the national debt.

Cut spending. We could completely do away with welfare and still would be spending one trillion more than we bring in. We could go "line by line" as our current president promised to do while on the campaign trail, and cut excess spending...would not even come close to balancing the budget. We are way beyond just cutting out waste. One half of our spending is on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid...cut out all of those and we still may balance the budget...maybe, but we would not touch the debt which is earning billions in interest even as I write this.

Einstein said, "we can not solve our problems with the same kind of thinking that created them." So I will not even discuss the third proposed solution - spend more.

It is probably going to be a combination of the first two.

Cut spending. That hurts. Easy to say. But what do we cut? Our military, the men and women putting their lives on the line for our freedoms everyday? Medicare-the checks our grandmothers receive to pay their light bill and buy food? Police departments? Education? Do you like the ability to send and receive mail? Better not cut the US Postal Service. We all know people suffering with diseases such as cancer. We can't cut cancer research. FEMA? not in the wake of the tornadoes we just witnessed.

I don't buy in to all the Chicken Littles on TV running around saying that the sky is falling. I don't believe America is going to fail. I don't think China is going to take us over some day. I do believe the borrower is slave to the lender, however. Because of past fiscal irresponsibility, our Congress has some tough decisions ahead. And as we attempt to free ourselves of this burden, we all need to brace ourselves for what is to come, for it will take sacrifice.

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson

**I was shocked when I heard these numbers the other day, I wanted to share it with others so we are not blindly led by decision makers. Truth and knowledge are powerful. The numbers I reported here are from a recent episode of the Dave Ramsey show. You can hear it for yourself along with some well thought out solutions by going to www.daveramsey.com and clicking on April 28, 2011.