WHY WON'T ANYONE LISTEN TO ME?

Every Thursday afternoon, Mr. Ratliff hosts the Newspaper students in his classroom.  Everyone shows up and begins working. One of the photographers thought she was funny and caught Mr. Ratliff imparting instructions.

Wait! is that little Rebecca in the picture, just to the right? That is! That is her! Well, Rebecca served as a First Grade Correspondent on an assignment last Fall and ever since has determined that she is part of the newspaper staff, no questions asked.

I keep telling her that she should go to Youth Club. Her reply?

"Oh, Daddy! You know I have to come to Newspaper because I'm on the staff just like the big kids!"

I will say this: She takes a killer photograph!

It was 80's Day at Knox High School. During Winter Homecoming Week, each day is assigned a special event. As you can see, Biz has her hair done up in style!

Even the Elementary School gets in the swing. Their day was "Blast to the Past!" Becca decided to go as someone who blasted back to the 2000s.

Even as we continue to get slammed with system and lake effect snow (more than 8 inches on the ground right now) we continue to enjoy life in Knox.

Well, we finally decided to give up our wonderful Honda Civic Hybrid with its great gas mileage and purchased a 4WD. I guess it was the massive snow storm just before Christmas that did the trick.

We had been researching, waiting, and saving for more than a year. We were so ready for the release of the 2011 Explorer. This is the first model with the body style similar to the Ford Edge. This was the first one to arrive at our local dealership and had everything Biz and I wanted, so we went ahead and made them an offer.

The Explorer gives us everything we need to get through the winter, including snow clearance when pulling into Charles' unplowed driveway! It also has 4-Wheel-All Wheel-All Terrain drive for driving on those rough, slushy, slippery roads. Don't worry! Bizzy doesn't let Charles drive in those types of conditions anyways! As for gas mileage, the Explorer does give us 18-23, and last May Charles traded in his 8-year-old Jeep Liberty for a 2010 Ford Fusion, which gives us 26-30 MPG, so that will become our long distance car when driving to away games.

We're having fun getting to know our Ford Explorer and it's certainly an SUV one should consider buying, if you are in the market for one.