Ciao, Baby!

 Well, wish me luck!  Or pray for me.  Or send warm fuzzy thoughts.  Anything'll do!  This afternoon Grant took off for Italy and he's in Turin there until next Saturday night.  Which means - the Dynamic Duo and I are on our own.  For a whole week.  Oh buddy!

But I'm ahead of myself...

This morning we took a trip to check out the new exhibits at the Michigan Science Center at a Member's Only preview.  NJ and the Bean love to the Science Center and Grant and I love their enthusiasm and all the perks of being members (we even renewed our membership today!).  The new "Moneyville" exhibit was really neat.

First a souvenir stop

Then we worked on learning a little more about our finances.  Noah and I opened a lemonade stand, Mikayla and Grant played the stock market, we learned about counterfeit money - it was great!

Noah was even a teller

Bank of America also presented a 'skit' about saving and credit and Noah won a prize (a bank) or answering correctly,   

We decided to hang out long enough to go to the show in the Ford Engineering Theater - a 4D theater!  Which means the chairs moved, we got sprayed with water, it was so neat!

Ready for the show.  This was my favorite part this morning!

We got home and the kids really wanted to enjoy the snow with Grant before he left.  So I made lunch while they had a snowball fight :)

And made the mini snowman for the front porch :)

They had noticed when they got home (but I said it could wait while they went outside) that the flag was up!

Noah read us the following:

Dear Detectives,

Friday morning I received your email indicating that you felt that Miss Direction was currently located in Utah.  I have been following your progress this week and have been very impressed with the way you have been determining where Nita is currently hiding.  Her clues were definitely tough this week!

I sent the Swat Team to Salt Lake City per your recommendation, and after they took a quick stop at the Olympic Park, they set to work interviewing locals to see if Nita had been spotted in the area.  They also went up to Park City and interviewed some of the movie goers at the now open 2015 Sundance Film Festival.  It appears, as we saw on Wednesday, Nita had been seen checking out some of the movies.  The team was unable to actually find her there, though.  They also checked out the headquarters in Salt Lake City for the Mormon Church, but again, she seems to have slipped past us!  They then headed to Promontory Summit, and, believe it or not, wedged into the spot where the Golden Spike should have been, was a puzzle piece!  So while Miss Direction seems to have moved on ahead of us once again, we were able to alert the Utah authorities, and the state has now been secured.  Excellent work, Detectives!

Also, I am passing along some further information from MOMG Intelligence.  They first ask that you remove Utah from our “States at Risk” wall.  You should move it to our “Suspect” wall next to the “Last Seen” header.   Secondly, they have asked me to enclose the next 20 states they feel are most at risk based on the information they have been gathering.  Thirdly, I am enclosing a ball of yarn.  We would like to use the giant map on the “Tracking Nita” wall to show Nita’s track from state to state, just like we did from New Mexico to North Carolina.  We have a feeling that Nita will be laying low for a day or two and will need some time to regroup, but you should expect her or my Intelligence team to contact you again soon.

Again, excellent work, both of you! MOMG is proud of the progress we have made so far.  We have no doubt that Nita will slip up eventually – and you two will be there to nab her!  Keep up the hard work!

The Chief

Rats, she escaped again!  But we did do as the Chief asked and took care of the map and the next twenty states. 

Hmmm, anyone notice anything?

Shortly after, Grant took off, the kids had a bit of quiet time and then we headed to the library for a bit.  I let them pick some books and a few movies - including one for tonight.  We got back in time for showers, dinner and now are cuddled up on the couch eating popcorn and watching The Princess Bride :)  Tomorrow we're going to Mass and then staying to help the pack with Coffee and Donuts, an early afternoon playdate, some skype and getting ready to take on the next week. We'll rock it ;-)  So until then...