Day 116 - Oakville - 29th November 2004 Very good day today. Most probably because of this diet that we are on (see the Mastercleanse if you don't mind the gory details) I am feeling on top of the world. Life is working. Do you ever get that feeling? You don't? Well you should check out this diet. We are on day 8 of it so far. Went to school and did juggling with my (notice "my") children again today, as I do every day. However, the children had an Advent whole school assembley today. So juggling was delayed for a while. Then one of the parents of a child in my class turned up at 9:30 am with a goat. So that was quite entertaining. We got to juggling at about 10:00 am. The class were really on form (or the form were really class?) and several had made great progress over the weekend. One of them, who was struggling to get 3 balls up, informed me that over the weekend he had achieved 117 consecutive catches with 2 balls. This was a major breakthrough. He was enthusiastic again after nearly giving up with the whole thing. It was so encouraging. At the end of the class 5 kids were selected who were judged able to complete enough catches (32) to be able to do a juggling display. Julian was asked if he thought he could do it and he said yes. I hadn't actually seem him complete more than 7 or 8 before but we gave him the benefit of the doubt and he joined the group. And then to prove it he juggled the required number straight off! I never dreamt I would ever see Julian juggle. Not being the world's best catcher (in comparison to Sammy say) he was not immediately suited to the pastime. When we left to go on this trip I set up several achievements that I would like to have completed before go home. One of these was that Sammy would have learned to juggle. He could already do 2 balls when he left home but I felt it was something we could finish whilst we were away. Now it's Julian who can do it! You have to know reader, that this is truly amazing. I am so happy. It's like anything is possible for him now. I went to the supermarket on the way home from school and picked up some groceries. Even though we are not eating at the moment. I have not calculated how much money we have saved but I would estimate about £75 so far. It was a nightmare looking at all that food. It is the "Holiday Season" here. They have "Holiday Season" offers, "Holiday Season" foods, "Holiday Season" cards, "Holiday Season" wrapping paper. It is after all the "Holiday Season". We in the UK will need to get used to this as we are about five years behind North America in terms of being PC. Smoking is now virtually illegal anywhere. I know we have started to have this conversation in UK about Christmas not being called Christmas but over here it has been banned (or it seems like it). Julie has not been able to find Christmas Cards anywhere. The mention of Christmas it seems, is not permitted. The whole season has turned into a retailers excuse to push more product and a buyers excuse to buy more. Expect the same in a country near you soon. Alex our friend from the UK arrives tomorrow with her son Scott. She will be staying for 10 days after which Mum arrives then we leave for Dallas. So it's full steam ahead now, packing up, preparing the house, making bookings for cars and places to stay in the US, looking at places in Mexico and Cuba. What else can we do and where else can we go?