Red Sox Game!

We finally made it to a live game! On Sunday we drove to Chicago to see the Red Sox play the White Sox. It was a fun time, too bad Boston lost! Our seats were in the upper deck, but we were right behind home plate, so we had a great view!

We could even see into the dugout sort of - here is a picture of Crisp, Youkilis, and Ortiz:

Here is Jer's favorite player up to bat - Jacoby Ellsbury:

And here is my favorite player up to bat - Dustin Pedroia:

All in all we had a great time!

We even had a great view of Chicago's skyline as we left the ballpark:

Our Little Escape Artist

Molly's "escape"ades:
At our old house, we tied her out on a stake that screws into the ground. She loved running in circles. Eventually the rope part would get stuck and her circular jogs would unscrew the stake and she would be free to roam with a 20 foot tie out trailing behind her. We found her stuck in a neighbor's bushes that morning. Another time, the hook part of the tie out failed and she was loose without any rope trailing her to get her stuck. We found her a couple of blocks away barking a squirrel up a tree. Another time she was so excited by a dog walking by that she shattered the plastic clip that held her collar together and chased it down the street. Luckily our neighbor saw it happen and talked her into following her back to our house...we could have lost her for good that time - she was not even wearing a collar since she broke it! Last night a neighbor rang our doorbell and returned our dog with half of her tie out - she had broken it in half! So now I need to go out and buy a new super-duty tie out after work...we will see how long it takes before she is off again.

Why I hate self-checkouts

Last week when I was getting groceries, I decided to use the self-checkout because there was no one in that line, and the cashier lines had at least one person waiting in each line. I have already had bad experiences with the self-checkout machines in the past, but I decided to go for it. It started out really well - a lady started bagging my groceries for me in my reusable bags (this is one thing that is easy for me to do for the environment). I then had to get her attention for my coupons. I thought I would need her clearance, because I am pretty sure I did the last time I used one of these new fangled contraptions, but she assured me in a superior tone that I could do it myself...except my third coupon did require her services. By this time there is a woman waiting behind me and the lady left my groceries 1/3 bagged. I quickly paid, carefully selecting my payment method of debit card, using the separate card pad, and then I grabbed my receipt. I then hurried to shove all of my groceries into my bags so the next lady could start processing her order. She gave me a smile and I left. After I got home, I started to put away all of my purchases, and Jer was writing the amount in the checkbook and yelled to me from the other room, "Why did you get $100 cash back?" So I ran back to look at the receipt and sure enough it said $100 cash back. Well, I didn't get any cash back...maybe that was why the woman smiled at me?!?!? Jer said I needed to go back to the store and see if they could do anything about it. I didn't really think they would do anything, but I figured that it would be worth it to at least try for $100. So I ran back and got into my car and started driving back to Family Fare. As I was on my way, I looked a little bit better at the receipt, and noticed that I had not bought the items that were on it...and the total was different from what I remembered...and it dawned on me that it was the previous customer's receipt, not mine. I did not accidentally hit the cash back button. So I sighed in relief and drove around the block...and vowed never to use the self-checkout again. Although I was tempted tonight when the lines for the cashiers were going into the food aisles.