The rabbit chews the mouse cord.

And when the rabbit chews the mouse cord, you try scotch tape. And when scotch tape doesn’t work, your daughter abandons her computer and uses the laptop every night. And when your daughter hogs uses the laptop every night, it’s impossible to blog.

Blaming my silence on the rabbit. And the fact that we’ve had THE PLAGUE over the last two weeks. Actually, it was Israelites-leaving-Egypt-style staggered plagues where one gets the stomach flu (The Boy slept with a bucket for a couple of nights) and then one gets a fever (The Girl) and then one gets the aches (me) and then a few get felled by a nasty cold (me and The Girl with a bit o’ scratchiness for The Boy).

And then you get a few days off and it all starts over again.

(I think the attendance office is getting awfully used to seeing my name pop up in their inboxes pretty much every day.)

In between a few of the plagues, we got to go to Canada! Lots of Canadian treats:

And some quality reading materials.

And a DQ blizzard with SKOR!! How long has it been?!

And did you know that scrunchies are a thing again? Oh my lanta, I went into Ardene and it was like walking into the hallway of my high school (second floor hallway, natch – first floor is Banger Hall, and last I checked Ardene does not sell Metallica t-shirts with packs of smokes stuck up the sleeves).

(You guys, did you know there’s bodysuits again too? And mom jeans?)

We hung out with our framily and had a fabulous time. Our lovely hostess made us feel right at home with a treat display in our room (although The Boy was scandalized when The Husband grabbed some chips and he said, “DAD! Don’t you have to pay for that?!”)

(Apparently we’ve taught them well where hotel minibars are concerned.)

We had poutine of the real and not-so-real variety:

And of course, on the way out, we stopped at everybody’s favourite Canadian trading post to stock up until the next visit (except no Kinder eggs. Never Kinder eggs).

Then we came home to more plagues. We’re mostly better now, although just when I think we’ve had a good few day run and we might finally be out of the woods, I’m emailing the attendance office again. I’m told it’s hitting all the Portland schools hard, so mine aren’t the only truants.

Not much else exciting in PMland. You can tell we moved here just over a year ago because it’s annual appointment time. Everybody gets to go to the doctor and the dentist and the orthodontist this week. (Actually, that is kind of exciting. I really do love having health and dental insurance.)

Alas, this one’s gotta be short and sweet cuz it’s getting late on a school night, and *some* of us have to start work early tomorrow so they can knock off early to take The Boy to get re-fingerprinted for his big boy green card. And see The Husband off for a quick jaunt to Calgary – good timing, cuz we’re already out of all-dressed chips. But just wanted to check in and let you know that you’re loved and I *do* think about blogging but you know…that whole mouse thing…I blame the rabbit.