What a long, busy, merry week it has been... and it's only Wednesday! We tried to play the CSI board game last night with the boys. Here's what we learned:

1. It's a long game. It's interesting enough to hold the attention of a 10 year old, but hyperactive 8 year olds will take breaks throughout the game to play Sonic, watch cartoons, surf weather.com, and make goofy faces and arm-fart noises at the ten year old.

2. It's a long game. We played for over an hour and a half, and still had level three to go. We put the cards back, without reading the 'who-done-it' part, so we can try again during the day time instead of at night time. By the time everyone hit bed, it was 10 p.m.

3. It's a long game. A lot of reading involved, but a lot of interesting information to make it worth the amount of reading.

4. It's a long game. Very complex, but as we play more we figure it will get a better game-flow, as the first time playing is going over the rule book quite a lot.

5. It's, well, you know.

I spent most of yesterday getting the Christmas cards done and off to the mail. I've never been this far behind before, but the past few weeks were spent working on a legal piece that has certainly made for some interesting phone calls this week. Also learned some interesting changes are going to be taking place; it's pretty funny to watch from the standpoint we're at now, knowing our personal convictions are based on fact, logic and a determination to stand strong for those we love. And knowing that our strength strengthens the determination of those we love.

We know what we are about to embark upon will involve a lot of time, energy and brain-work. We also know that we've felt it getting easier to look at from the viewpoint they have given us; if ever there was any doubt in our minds about the incompetence, it is now gone... we're not only positive it's imcompetent, we found links to support our own personal anguish, meetings held by the very people who kept telling us the opposite of what we know to be definitively true:
There's a lack of services available locally, so most will go through the same circles of same-old-procedures, even when it is apparent more is needed than what is available. If you try to go outside the area, you are viewed as 'demanding'. It's as if the 'professional' egos in this area are bigger than Cape Cod itself. I can respect ego when it's founded in actual success... but this type of ego, at the expense of many and in regards to nothing but self-preservation and in spite of evidence proving incompetency, that is the kind of ego I have zero tolerance for. There are perhaps ten people I respect in all of the various fields... we've met over a hundred of them. Those aren't good statistics; we've basically been trying to build a foundation on a base of sand. Even the best and brightest get lost in the weaknesses of the sandy-bits surrounding them.

It's been a long game.