Thirteen Years

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary.  Thirteen years ago, we moved from seeing each other every other weekend and making numerous phone calls in between those visits, to being together for the rest of our lives and I haven't regretted a day of it.  I remember being excited that morning, but as the moment got closer, I got so stinkin' nervous!  I knew I wanted to spend my life with him, but, like I said, we had never spent more than a week at most together at one time for 5 yrs.  Now we were going to live together, move away to New York and leave our old lives behind.  Yep.  That kind of thing brings on the nerves!  But, once I was up there at the altar with him, all I could do was smile.  We had made it!  We made it through 5 1/2 long years of separation.  We made it through my battle with depression.  We finally were standing in front of our friends and family and God to announce that we were ready to begin our lives together for better or for worse, 'til death.  It's been a journey so far.  But, I have the best helpmate, the best dad, the best caregiver anyone could ask for.  Does he drive me crazy sometimes?  Of course.  I know for a fact I drive HIM crazy!  But, we love each other through it all and I have never doubted his love for me... ever.  It's been a wonderful marriage and, to me, that was way more important than the wedding itself.

Here is a picture of us just a few short months after we were married.  This was late '99 and we had been living in NY for a little while.  Dad had come out to visit or something and we took him to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  We look so young here.  I didn't have all the grey hairs I have now or the three-kids-later body.  We were just starting out.

And, here is a picture of us now.  My beautiful family.  This is the joy that comes from 13 yrs of being married to one of the best.  I couldn't be happier and I am so thankful that God brought us together on that hot day in May back in the spring of 1999.  Love you, Pete!

Special Days

This weekend I really wanted to have some special time with our kids.  I decided to use my last paycheck of the year to take the girls out and do something fun with Noah, as well as spend time together as a family.  Almost like a celebration that school is out for the summer. :-)

On Saturday afternoon, I took the girls out to a cute little place in town called C230.  It's a tapas restaurant, so a little fancier than what they are usually used to.  They loved it!  Sadly, Madie started feeling sick shortly after she started eating.  I think the heat got to her.  They insisted we sit outside and with it being nearly 90, it just got to be too much for them.  So, she ended up going home after our lunch and didn't get to continue our adventure.  She'll get to go next week and do that instead.

Our afternoon of all getting girl pedis together, turned into just a me and Livie time, but boy did we enjoy it!  I haven't had a pedi in YEARS and the only one I ever had wasn't all that great.  This one was heaven!  Livie got her first pedi too and, as you can tell from her face, loved it just as much as I did.

Now, our plans that evening was to watch "Capt America", since the kids are so in love with "The Avengers", but our power went out just as the kids had gotten settled with their popcorn and the DVD was in the player. 

*Note - the power has gone out 3 times since Sat morning.  We'll see if the trend continues today!*

So, with no movie to watch, we had a very sad family... except for Livie who still was eating the popcorn. ;-)  To make the end of our night a fun one anyway, we went on a bike ride, then came home and decided to play with some fireworks!

That was a great way to end our day 'o fun!  On Sunday, we did some shopping and ended up watching "Capt America" (after the power came back on... again!).  They loved it!  Tonight we're hoping to watch Thor.  We're backtracking our way through the Avengers.

The thing we bought yesterday was a new set of golf clubs for Noah.  That was to be HIS special present.  The girls got lunch and a pedi and Noah got clubs and left this morning to go golfing with his dad.  I can't tell you how excited he was.  Just hoping it ends up being a great day for him! 

Last Day Fun

Today was our last full day of school.  They go back on Tuesday just long enough to get their report cards.  Noah was lucky enough to get to do a walking field trip to the local city hall for his last afternoon in class!  Because they were having lunch, they said I could come and give him his insulin.  I stayed the whole time and it was a lot of fun!



We walked a few blocks down the canal trail, which I had never done before.  It was pretty cool.  We got to walk behind a bunch of houses, like I used to do when I was a kid.  My friends and I would always find hidden and out-of-the-way alleys to explore in Royal Center, so this was kind of reminiscent of that.  We even got to cross that really cool, old bridge in the background.  Noah left with his friends, so I walked and chatted with a little girl in his class, who recently did the St. Baldricks thing, like my nephew Trevor did.  She was such a sweet girl and fun to talk to. :-)

Across from our tiny little City Hall is a tiny, little park and that's where we had lunch.  Because I came right at noon when they were leaving, I was able to cook up some chicken fries to bring.  Let's just say that was met with lots of joy - and not just from Noah.  Sufficed to say, we did a little lunch sharing today. :-)

While we were waiting for the other classes to go through, the kids got to play.  Here's Noah getting ready to kick the kickball.  This is one of his favorite things to do during recess, so he tells me.  It was fun watching him play!

Then we got to go into the City Hall.  Like I said, it's little.  I've only been here a few times when we were fighting with the counsel to redo our road.  Not a lot of good memories here, but the kids had been learning about local government, so they really enjoyed it.

Their favorite part was visiting the ajoining police station.  They liked seeing the handcuffs and stuff.  I told Noah the only time he's ever allowed to see the police station is on field trips.  He should never find himself there under any other circumstances!! ;-)  It was a great way to end the year and I'm really glad I got to spend it with him.  On the way back, he walked the entire way with me, without leaving me behind for his friends.  That was really nice.  Glad he still likes having me around sometimes. :-)

The Finished Product

Three weeks ago we finished our kitchen floors.  Why then, do you ask, did it take so long for me to post pictures?  Well, between kids' messes and my end-of-year projects being scattered around the room, I didn't want to take pictures until it was kind of clean.  Plus, I was hoping I'd have our new buffet by now.  But realizing that I have no idea when or if we'll get the buffet and also knowing that the chances of the kitchen EVER being fully clean were remote, I figured I'd better take pictures now, rather than wait any longer.  So, here you go!



Our beautiful new floors!  Pete worked soooooo hard on them, but gotta say this area went a lot smoother than the foyer.  Much less to cut around and we were able to do long stretches.  When we had the Chicago Staff Band guys here in April, we really wanted the whole thing done and we nearly made it, but we had a section by the pantry and the pantry to do.  Then cutting the moldings around the whole thing took another week, because honestly there just wasn't a lot of time to work on it during the week.

But, I'm glad to say it's done and has been done for a few weeks now and I'm so proud of the end result!  Of course, this has given me more "ideas" of projects I'd like to do, but I think we're going to wait a while before we tackle anything else that will leave our house in disarry for weeks! :-)

Community Meal

Today was our last day of Sunday School.  HOORAY!  I usually try and have us do something a little bigger and better, so we can end it on a high note.  I think this may have been our biggest challenge to date!  After spending the last month learning about parables, we decided to act out the last one we learned - The Good Samaritan - by hosting the Community Meal.  The Meal was created by area churches to serve lunch every sunday to people in our community that is free.  We have 4 churches that take a specific week of the month (we do the 3rd and 5th, if there is one) and we're all about a block from each other, so it's quite convenient to those who come.  We tried to come up with a meal choice that the kids could prepare themselves.

We decided to have them make hot dogs.  Found a recipe that showed how to cook large quantities of hot dogs in the crock pot, so the kids stacked about 80 hot dogs into 2 crockpots and when it came time to serve, the would pull them out and stick them in a bun and lay them on the platter.  They did it all from start to finish.  Noah and his friend Nick worked on the hot dogs.  They did a great job... when they weren't trying to pinch each other with the tongs. ;-)

We also had leftover mac and ch from the Sabbatical Meal a few weeks ago, so I took that home and froze it until today.  That too went into a crockpot, which was so nice, considering it was so hot!  No hot ovens or anything today!  So, the kids dumped that into the other 2 crockpots and stirred it up.  Again, all on their own.  We had fresh fruit (that the grown-ups cut up) that they served.  We had baskets of chips that they filled and served.  Even had toppings for the hot dogs and pickles.

We had lemonade and koolaid that they kids mixed up for us.  See all those eager helpers?!

My friend Donna suggested we have them roll up the fork and spoon into the napkins, so we made them all gather around the table and do that too.  I really wanted this meal to be a hands-on experience and I wanted the community to see that little hands work to serve Christ too.  It's not just the adults.  Kids have the energy and passion that we sometimes don't have.  So yes, there might be tong-pinching and running around, but there is also joy in watching them serve others for Christ. :-) 

The meal isn't actually served for about 45 min after church gets out, so that gave us time to have them sit and eat, so they were feeling good when it was time to work. 

Look at those hard workers!! 

I cannot begin to tell you how proud I was of each and every one of them.  We had a small number of people eat today, but they really enjoyed helping and laughed and had a great time while they did.  Our little friend Tobias was serving the Doritos and I don't think he had ever heard of them, so he asked me what they were called.  He then shouted, "Come get your Burritos!". haha  It was hilarious!  Again, such joy and eagerness to serve in these kids!  Hope they never lose that as they grow up. :-)

Livie and her friend Jenna were in charge of passing out the fruit.  They did a great job!

Madie helped with the mac and ch for a little while, since she's the oldest, but quickly decided she enjoyed doing the chips more.  She later gave that job to Tobias and moved onto filling up the drinks and stuff.  She kind of put herself in many areas today. 

We call Pete the "Pied Piper", because the kids just flock to him.  He was great today in helping the kids do all the "extra" jobs.  Grant really concentrated hard on making up more kool-aid for everyone!  It was a LONG day at church today.  I think we were there for 5 hours or so.  But, despite them getting tired at the end, they did a fantastic job and I bet the people who came today have never seen such cute faces serving them before. :-)

Arrgh!

Today the kids got to attend a birthday party for a buddy of theirs who just turned 11 today.  For his birthday, he just wanted all his friends to join him at the park and play the games they always play after school.  I loved that!  So, the kids grabbed their swords and bows and arrows and headed to the park to celebrate.  After school every day, our kids and their friends play role-playing games - typically using weapons of some kind.  It's awesome to see them use their imaginations and I loved that all he wanted for his birthday was to do that same thing, just at a bigger park.  As you can see from the above picture, they had a GREAT time!  Livie didn't get to stay, because she had an upset tummy and chest pains, so Pete took her home.  She's laying down right now, so hopefully she'll start feeling better soon.  But, they had a really fun time and it was an absolutely beautiful day to be outside and enjoy their friendship. :-)

By the way, Madie's been practicing all week to become a cheerleader.  Today were the try-outs and YAY!  Madie made the team!  Way to go, Madie!! 

Mother's Day Annual Hike

Today was our 3rd Annual (if I'm remembering correctly) Mother's Day hike!  It's something I look forward to every Mom's Day and today was the best one yet!  We decided to hike another new trail and this one was a great one.  It was the Illinois Trail which was down in a valley, but with wide open spaces.  No stairs to climb up or down.  No treacherous drop-off.  Just wide valleys in the canyon with lots of creeks to wade across.  Absolutely LOVED it!

Shortly after our trek began, I took this picture of my girls.  Aren't they the best?!

You can kind of see from this picture how open the trails were.  We've never been on trails this wide before.  Really made exploring a lot more fun!

There was a creek that ran beside us for quite a ways before we had to cross.  So early on we just threw a few rocks in and admired the little stream.  We had no idea we'd be marching right through it 5-6 times!

Of course, any big rock and my kids have to tackle it.  They found a slug on this one.  Bonus!

Me with my FOUR wonderful kids! ;-)

We came across these tracks in the mud (it was very muddy today!).  We decided they were bear footprints.  They sound more exciting than "big dog" tracks.

This was the first creek area we had to cross.  It was shallow enough that we basically just walked over the rocks.  Made it fun.  Isn't it beautiful though?  Love how the sunlight was peaking through here.

We all had on our water shoes, so we just went any where we wanted.  Pete was a little more inventive in finding his water-free way across.

The water was REALLY cold as you can tell from Livie's expression. ;-)  We crossed the creek back and forth several times, because it wound all around that canyon.

This was the source of the water.  SOOO wished we could've walked up to that passageway, but the water was really deep there. 

My three trekkers were doing a great job of exploring today!

When we got to the end of trail where the water was coming down, we were alone here for a good 20-30 min.  We let Tater off his leash like we did last time we went hiking and he loved every minute of it.  He found every stick he could and would have us throw it.  With so much open area and freedom to run, he went crazy and enjoyed every single minute of it.  The kids played in the water and decided to skip rocks with Pete.  It was such a fun, relaxing time in this beautiful place.

When more people started coming, we hooked Tater back up and headed back.  We took a couple of the trails up to the side of the canyons as well as down to some of the creek beds we missed the first time around.  We were so muddy and wet, we were a little braver about getting down in there than we were on the way in.  We even bought a portable dog bowl for Tater, so he could drink a little easier than trying to lick up water pouring out of a water bottle.  I still would love to get him a backpack.  They only had pink when we were at the pet shop yesterday, but I know he'd do a great job carrying some of our snacks and stuff on his back.  Anyway, today was a great day.  Absolutely PERFECT weather and a great way to spend the day with my fantastic family!  Happy Mother's Day to my mom and my mom-in-law and all my sisters - Em, Cara, Jill, and Francy.  Hope your day was blessed too!

Growing Up

Today I went to a Bubble Party at Livie's school.  I brought some fun games, as did another parent and the kindergarten teachers.  It was a lot of fun for everyone, especially on such a beautiful day!!  I took this picture of Livie and some of her friends.  She LOVES school, because she LOVES her friends!   Just seeing her with her friends today shows me how much this first year of school has changed her.  She's always been the most social of all my kids and today I saw that first hand.  She's growing up fast!

End-of-the-Year Books

Another one of the reasons I have been putting off blogging is because I've been working on completing the End-of-the-Year books for all of my students.  If you're counting, that's 25 books. 

I decided to do them all in primary colors, based off one of their projects.  We did a lesson on their ABCs and with that we did a marble painting of their initial in red, blue, and yellow.  It turned out so well, I decided to make that their cover page and went from there.



You can see from this picture that I cut out their letters, added a small page with their signature on it for the cover.  I have a page all about them, some photo pages, a self-portrait (that I'll add when they do it on Tuesday), and their handprints.  I have nearly all of the 3s done, just have about 3 left.  I have all 14 of my 2s left to do.  Theirs will be a smaller version of this though.  Only a cover page, a couple photo pages, their handprints, and a letter with a picture of us -their teachers.  It's been a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to giving it to them.  But, it's taken up a lot of time.  Making sure I have enough photos of all of them, getting their artwork completed and laminated, etc...  But, I think it will make a great souvenir of their year with us. :-)

Finally... an Update!

It's been nearly 2 weeks since I updated this blog and, for me, that's like an eternity!  I've been totally slacking as of late.  Partly because I've been busy and partly because I just didn't feel like sitting down and blogging.  Forgive me?  I decided to just do one blog post about our last few days just to fill you in.

First thing to report?  I am currently sporting a 3-eyebrow look.  After a little waxing mishap at the salon last Friday, I have not two, but three beautifully shaped eyebrows.  How does this happen you ask?  Well, it's called being a little too expressive when talking to my stylist and getting wax all over my eyebrow.  Try as she might, she was unable to get all the wax off and thus I lost a big chunk in the middle of my left eyebrow.  I just tell people I'm channeling my inner '90s rapper with the slash through my eyebrow.  They can call me Vanilla Ice or shout "Hammertime" when they see me, I totally understand why.  Gotta say, it's been quite the conversation piece and has brought lots of laughter to those around me.  I think everyone should try out the 3-eyebrow look.  It's actually a lot of fun!

Last Saturday I headed up to the Chicago area and had a short visit with my bestie who was in town to see her husband compete in another karate tournament.  Hopefully he'll have lots more up there, because it's a quick, easy 1 hour trip up and we get to not only see each other, but shop too!  Can't beat that!  We headed over to Ikea this time, so I could buy my girls a much needed dresser.  Now I have lots more room to buy my girls clothes!  Hear that, Caroline? ;-)

Noah was a little disappointed that I didn't get him anything, until he realized that he got to build it.  Well, that's all the present he needed and he got right to work!  His interest tapered off once Indiana Jones came on, but he did a lot of the work himself and did a great job!

On Tuesday night, Madie had a band concert.  It was a lot of fun!  Noah and his best friend Nicky sat by me on the bleachers.

While Pete and Livie sat above us at the very top of the bleachers.  For all future concerts, find a way to sit on the floor on the chairs.  Those bleachers were the most uncomfortable things ever!

Since Madie is in Beginning Band, she and her bandmates opened the concert.  The 6th, 7th, and 8th grade bands and choirs finished up the concert.  She did a really great job!!  Even had a flute ensemble solo during one.  Way to go, Madie!!

She got to sit on the floor for the rest of the concert with her friends.  She loved it and everyone there that night did a great, great job!

As we're winding down towards the end of school, I getting busier as I try and finish up all my own school things with my students.  Since this is my only year teaching 3s, because of cut-backs next year, I'm trying to soak in every moment.  Last week I was busy getting prepared and having Parent/Teacher conferences (one of the reasons I didn't get around to blogging) and as a way to say goodbye to that busy work, we were able to take the kids on a field trip to the firestation.  The kids were very excited, especially since we could just all walk down there.  It was a fun day off to enjoy together.  So, that's our last two weeks in a nutshell - concert, field trip, 3 eyebrows.  Good times. :-)