So it’s time to sit back and reflect on our Made in America success rate for the month of February. I think we did about as well as we did in January but I am going to give us a higher score. I think I was a little hard on us that first month. Our die hard Made in America friends over in Blaine County might disagree, but we all have different standards and levels of success.

Right off the bat, Stephen bought a bottle of wine from Spain for about 12 bucks. He just plum forgot but I gave him a good dose of berating. Come to think of it, Stephen made most of the non American purchases this month. Maybe he should get his own grade.

He put $10 of gas in the Volvo at a Maverik. We think the gas tank reader thing in the Volvo might be a little wacky hijacky. It drops pretty fast, putting us in a panic. So that one probably shouldn’t count against us too much. No one wants to be stranded on the side of the road with two small children in a big red bobo.

Stephen also bought an avocado without looking at the label. He found a bunch of fruit grown in the USA and just got excited. He realized the avocado was grown in Mexico a few days later. We let the boys eat it. He also bought banana chips. They were probably dehydrated here, so I don’t know how to count that. It should probably be one more mark against us (or at least Stephen).

We bought asparagus from Fred Meyer for our date night dinner. The sign said it was grown in the USA but the next morning I realized that the rubber band holding the stocks together read Product of Mexico. I felt duped. I would like to think the rubber band was mistakenly placed on the asparagus, but I am pretty sure Fred Meyer just messed up. Or us. I guess we could have been looking at the wrong sign. Either way, it was some tasty asparagus and a damn fine date night.

We almost made it through the boys birthday without any foreign purchases. I bought a Betty Crocker cake mix without checking the label. It was made in Canada! Seriously, what is more American than Betty Crocker? So I took it back. That’s right. I returned food to the grocery store. I was kind of nervous to do it, so I made Stephen go with me to the customer service counter just in case they hassled me. The lady just gave me my money back. It was pretty easy, and I bought a different cake mix at Fred Meyer.

And then one of the bike tires had a flat the day of their birthday celebration at the Double D Ranch. I didn’t even shop around for options. I went straight to the bike shop and spent $7 on a new tube made in Taiwan. However, we did a fantastic job of recycling or buying American made products for the school celebration and the actual Robot party. I am checking that off as a big success.

The gift giving element is a whole other story, but we don’t really have control over that. Plus, the boys got some awesomely cool gifts from their friends and family. They also received Toys R US gift cards from Mimi and Grandpa Jack. I am not about to force Henry and Wyatt to make American made purchases or hold on to their gift cards until the new year. And so we headed straight to Toys R Us the day after their party. As we were driving home, Wyatt pointed out that we forgot to do one thing.

What’s that?

We forgot to look at all the labels to see if the toys were made in America.

Oh, did you want to buy just toys from America?

Well, yeah.

Okay, well I am pretty sure that everything you bought was made in a different county. Should we take the toys back?

Noooooo! (lots of whine in that no)

And then there is coffee. We received a link to some Hawaiian coffee and a gentle reminder that if we are willing to shell out close to 8 bucks for about 8 ounces of maple syrup then we can afford Hawaiian coffee. Which is probably true, but we haven’t. At least not yet. I am going to call this one a major failure. We could do more to pull it together and order some coffee—let’s see what March brings.

I guess that sums it up. There were some accidental purchases and some deliberate purchases. And let's not forget Valentine's Day. We pulled that off, too! I am going to give us a B+. I am pretty pleased with our efforts during February. We could have done better, but that is always the case as with most things in life. And since we could have done a lot worse, I am quite satisfied.