Free Zoo Day

I made the mistake of taking the kids to the Brookfield Zoo on "Free Zoo Day". Lesson learned. There were way too many people who were not very respectful of personal space. We'll just leave it at that. But I think the kids had fun. Savannah and her friend Emily were way too cool for it all, but I did catch a few smiles!!!
Micah wearing dads glasses to protect his stitches.


In this picture....two random kids on the left. Alex, Emily and Savannah on the camel and Gray in front.

Stitches

In July, Gray threw a rock at Micah.......and..... well, he got him good. Micah had to go in for 5 stitches. Gray has a really good arm and has a bad habit (that we're trying to break) of throwing things. He did say sorry to Micah.

Baseball Season

Coming HOME!!!


Thanks Dad!





Jeremy had the chance to be an assistant coach on Alex's team this year. Alex has a lot of talent and he really loves the game as you can see by the grin on his face in most of these pictures. What a heart breaker!

Swimming Lessons

The kids were in swimming lessons the week after school let out. They all did great and will move on to the next level next year!

Happy 10th Birthday Savannah!!!

I can't believe my little girl is 10!!! We went to Red Robin for dinner then home for cake and presents. The boys gave her a swan Webkinz and Daddy gave her a cubs hat and tickets to a cubs game. She opted for a shopping day with Mom instead of a gift this year and we had lots of fun shopping! We were going to have a Luau for her birthday party, but of the 11 girls invited, not one could come. They all had swim meets, soccer or softball games or were gone on vacations so we are saving the Luau stuff for next year. I was really proud of how well Savannah handled the dissapointment. I guess she really is growing up!

Camping at Starved Rock

Our Summer break is officially over. Savannah and Alex started school yesterday and Micah started all day kindergarten today. They all love their new teachers and are adjusting very well to being back on a schedule. So today was the big day that I've been looking forward to all summer. I was going to have my first bit of "alone time" as soon as Gray went down for his nap. Unfortunately for me, Gray decided not to take a nap today. Seriously.





Down to business. As soon as school was out we went to Starved Rock to camp for a few days with some friends. It is in central Illinois and is named Starved Rock because there were two Indian tribes at war and one tribe was up on a large rock (or cliff ) surrounded by the other tribe and they stayed there and starved to death rather than surrender.

We went on a beautiful hike (well, there are no mountains so it's more like a walk) up to the "Starved Rock" and then had a picnic. We all had a great time and the kids loved every minute of it! They even got to make ice cream by putting the ingredients in a container and then putting that in a ball with ice then passing the ball to each other.

We were camped pretty close to the bathroom and one night at about dusk Jeremy took Micah to the bathroom and then decided to leave him there and told him he'd come back in a few minutes to check on him. Well, we were all enjoying the campfire and getting ready to do marsh mallows. The kids were all running around playing tag and I decided to do a head count. I couldn't find Micah so I started to call for him and look for him. Finally I got nervous and started asking the other kids and adults if they'd seen him and they started looking too. Then suddenly Jeremy remembered that he had left him alone in the bathroom about an hour ago. The poor kid had been sitting in a dark, creepy bathroom crying his eyes out the whole time. I felt so bad for him, but I'm sure it's one of those stories that our family will repeat over and over for life.

It was so fun to just hang out and enjoy our friends. We didn't want to come home and decided that 2 days was just not long enough.

Birthday and project update

First of all...
Happy 36th Birthday to Jeremy! We didn't get to celebrate much on the actual day. We did give him a gift.....a nail gun! Ok so maybe it was a gift for me too since we had been tiling our laundry room floor and all that was left to do was to put on the wood piece that goes on the bottom of the base board (I don't know what it's called ??) so that we could move the washer and dryer back in. I was getting desperate...we needed clean underwear! We did get to celebrate over the weekend though. Bob (Jeremy's Dad) came out to visit and we went out to dinner and then had strawberry shortcake, which I'm sure you all know is Jer's favorite. It was a fun weekend. Savannah and I had our dance recital (pictures soon to come) and Alex pitched in his baseball game.





And here are some updates on what's been going on here. Over Memorial Day weekend, Jer took of a few extra days so that we could get some projects finished. We have our garden in and have planted some flowers. The rhubarb has been going crazy and we've had several delicious desserts allready.


Here is the laundry room floor. We only did the wood baseboard behind the washer and dryer and still need to do the rest of the room then paint the trim. And FIALLY here is the tile backsplash.

With all this work done, we are ready to go play and enjoy our summer. We have a lot of fun adventures planned!