Pictures Mostly

I covered everything that happened over the last 5 days prior to yesterday and today with my last post and now I have some pictures to add to that post and cover everything that's been going on since then.

Here is a picture of Grace with her face painted like a tiger and holding her balloon dog. This was at the Rolling on the River Ride on Saturday:


Here is a picture of our tent. It doesn't look big in the picture since there isn't anything next to it for scale, but in the main section with the large door right in front of the camera, we easily fit our king size air mattress in there:


Here is how the bike rack and the bikes look on top of the Escape:


Here is a wider shot so you can see a little better how it all looks together:


Here is my free case of Valvoline SynPower 5W20 just like I wanted!


Here is Grace and her friend at the first day of pre-school this year which was Tuesday:


Wednesday, which was yesterday, I had to go to the Chiropractor again and this time my foot wasn't as out of whack like it had been so now I don't have to go in for another 10 days. That was good news; maybe my foot is finally starting to learn. Then Grace had gymnastics at 4 pm up in Antioch which means we need to leave our house at 3:30. We were waiting for our neighbor to come and start working on our tile in the entryway (YEA!) so that we could leave but he didn't get to our house until 4. So we were really late to class.

I left Grace there and came home to watch how our neighbor was doing the prep work for the tiling so that I know how it's done; He was putting in the Durock underlayment.

I've got to get some sleep...I'll finish tomorrow.

Wow, guess it's been a while

Thursday last week we were busy getting ready for our camping trip this last weekend. I got a free t-shirt from Valvoline today! That was a surprise! Can't wait to get the oil and then need an oil change! Here are some pictures...



Here is the container it came in, what looks like their old oil canisters:




I also made myself a t-shirt for my fantasy football team. Here is the shirt I made:



My neighbor was flying home from France that afternoon and we had a pretty major storm come through. I'm sure you're guessing where this is going...Have you heard those stories on the news where entire flights-full of passengers are kept on planes for hours on end and not let off? Yea, that's where this story is going.

He was scheduled to land at O'Hare airport around 3 pm and just prior to that the storm was moving through the area. This was a very strange storm with wind gusts in the 80 mph range and lots of torrential downpours. Just at our house I noticed when I looked out the window that it was blue skies and sunny on one side of the house and these dark black clouds on the other. The clouds obviously overtook the house, but it was just strange to see. So they kept his plane circling a large circle up into the upper peninsula of Michigan a couple of times and then the plane was running out of fuel and had to land. Consider they've just finished a 17 hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean and just want to get off the plane.

During this time, the flight tower at O'Hare was evacuated due to the high winds. So any chance for them to land at O'Hare had been diminished to pretty much nothing. They had a few choices of places to land including Green Bay, but chose Milwaukee for some reason. Keep in mind that Air France doesn't normally land at this airport and they have no terminals or ground crew to help them. After they landed they were third in line to be re-fueled. This alone took over an hour. Shortly after that the air conditioning stopped working in the plane and they couldn't get it to come back on. They tried turning off the engines and restarting them and that didn't help so they called Air France and they said to turn off the engines for 15 minutes I think and then re-start and everything should be alright.

Unfortunately after those 15 minutes, the engines wouldn't restart. Since they have no grounds crew to help them, they waited until the military could come over with some type of contraption to start the engines. This obviously took some time as well. So now they've restarted the engines and everything is working fine and probably O'Hare is re-opened, but the flight deck crew has run out of time for flying. They are only allowed to be behind the stick (as it were) for so many hours and their time is up; they can't fly the plane any more. The flight crew that was going to fly the plane back to France is at O'Hare along with the other 300 passengers that are waiting to go to France.

During all of this, he contacted NBC in Milwaukee and was actually interviewed on air during the 10 o'clock news via his cell phone. Then after they got off the plane CBS interviewed him too. So he got to be famous in Milwaukee for a day!

So now their only real option is to deboard the plane but remember there are no Air France grounds crews here and no terminal or gate to use. Plus this is a small airport that wasn't expecting any international flight arrivals, certainly not a plane this large, and had sent all of their customs workers home. So they had to find a gate to tow the plane to, call all of the customs workers in to work to run all 300 passengers through customs at what is now around 11pm or midnight. So he wasn't ready for me to pick him up until between midnight thirty and 1 am. I picked him up around 1 and got him home just before 2 am. Then he had to drive 5 or 6 hours to get to his work. And then he wasn't going to have much time between then and when his work started, so I don't think he got any sleep for probably close to 40 - 48 hours.

During all of this I was putting the bike carriers on my Escape and getting the bikes up there to see how it all worked. It was so nice! I tell you if you are considering buying a bike carrier and a roof mount is an option and you can afford it, it is so worth every penny! We had rented a trunk mount bike carrier for a trip we took last year and by the time I was done yelling and cursing and finagling everything I didn't even care if I rode my bike. With this Thule roof carrier it is so easy. All I needed was a step stool and I didn't even need any help. I could do it all myself. I didn't yell or curse even one time and I wasn't even tired when I was done. I was actually test driving the car when my neighbor called and said he was going to be ready soon. So I just left the bikes on there because I thought it would be a great test before our trip the next day (next day being relative considering it was after midnight.)

I was driving pretty fast at some points and honestly the wind noise wasn't even that bad. Nothing appeared to move or rock or anything. I was really impressed, it's a very high quality product and I highly recommend it to everyone. I just wish I would have bought the wheel holders that can hold your front wheel on the roof since I got two fork-mount bike carriers for Julie's and my bike.

Friday:
Just that little bit of room being taken up inside the car by those two wheels prevented us from taking the trailer with us so that we could ride a long distance with Grace as she can't go too far on her little bike. If I would have had more time to try and stuff it into the car maybe I could have gotten it in, but we had to get going because we were supposed to be down in Yorkville by 1 pm and as it was we were leaving late plus I needed to stop at the Chiropractor on the way because my foot isn't healing completely like it should.

So we got down there about an hour late Friday and we helped stuff goodie bags for all the ride participants for two or three hours. Then we set up our tent and went out for dinner (at Culvers - surprise!) because we were tired. Then we pretty much just came back to the tent and crashed. We set our travel alarm clock for 5 am for me and 6:45 am for Julie and Grace and went to sleep.

Saturday
All was fine until 3:15 am. RAIN, RAIN, RAIN. It rained, it poured, it did it all until around 6 am. I was supposed to show up to the registration area by 5:30 at the latest, but sitting in that tent with the rain coming down, I just didn't want to get up at all. I was waiting for the rain to stop, but it wasn't stopping so I finally got up and went over there. About the time I came out of the tent the rain stopped and I drove over there.

So I did registration until 10:30 when it ended and Julie and Grace came and helped to around 8 I think until 10:30. Then we pretty much just enjoyed the expo area and relaxed a little. I helped out with various jobs when I was asked to and Grace was really enjoying clown Sally and Ranger Rick whom was there. She got her face painted and kept getting balloon animals that she kept popping.

Since this ride was to benefit Illinois' environment, most of the vendors in the expo area were about or in some way related to the environment. REI was there and they are opening a new store in Schaumburg in November. That was exciting to find out. But what really piqued my interest was a thing called a "rain garden." I had never heard of it before then. It's a pretty cool concept where you select an area in your yard where you can improve the soils drainage and basically form a shallow pond. You then plant native plants that love water and are naturally found in wetlands. We already have a drainage area in the back that I wanted to convert to a dry river bed but the more I think about that, it will probably affect my neighbors because I'm thinking a dry river bed with a downpour will just become a river and more water will be diverted away from our yard into our neighbor's yards. I don't want to disturb the balance we've got going now, I want to improve it. So the more I think about it, a dry river bed is probably not going to work.

So now I'm going to research just how to do this and how much work it is. I looks like a lot of work, but maybe it's something I can do myself or with not too much help and with this, prevent any flooding in my yard and likewise in my basement. Plus like I just said, it should help my neighbors and it would help the actual wetlands in our subdivision because that's where all of this water goes right now.

Oh, one of the vendors was Ford because they were one of the sponsors, and they brought from Michigan...guess what? Yes, a 2008 Escape Hybrid. They should have called, I was there with mine! He wouldn't have had to drive all that way. But seriously, I talked to the guy and he seemed nice. He had noticed my car and it was good to see quite a few people actually looking at his car. I wanted to park mine next to his, but I didn't, nor did I ask. The one he brought was that green color that's in all the advertisements and he said the biggest question he was getting was 'what other colors does it come in?' He kept saying "well there's a blue one over there..."

Sunday morning we got up and basically just broke camp and came home. Then we were unpacking and stuff and then I had my first fantasy football draft. I am really excited! I think I have a great team this year. Only time will tell obviously, but I really like my team. I have another draft this weekend, but it isn't a live draft, each team just ranks the players and the computer does the rest. So I'll be ranking players up to the draft time this weekend to make sure I have everything just right.

Monday/yesterday was a hectic day. I had another chiropractor appointment in the morning. For some reason the bone that's out of place in my foot wants to stay that way. Then Grace had dance class. We tried those "natural" hot dogs and they weren't all that. We won't be having them again, but it was worth a try. They weren't horrible, they just weren't really hot dogs either.

Today was busy too. It was Grace's first day of senior pre-school. She's an old pro at this because she didn't skip a beat going there at all. It was like she had been going all summer long. I rushed home and started mowing the grass because it's really long and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I wasn't finished yet, but it was time to pick Grace up. After I picked her up and came home, the mail had been delivered and I got my case of oil from Valvoline today! Yea!

I'll add more pictures tomorrow.

Squishy Soil

Alright, I've had enough rain. Please make it stop! Everything is so wet; the ground is squishy when you walk on it, the mulch is saturated and the plants are showing signs of too much water. But the grass is growing like crazy and it looks great!

If you don't believe me that we've had this much rain, check out this picture from my window well in the basement. I was getting our camping stuff out and just happened to notice this little guy just sitting there.



Here is his "vessel" for when I rescued him and took him outside and set him free tonight.



While I was releasing the crawfish, I happened upon this toad just sitting there with not a care in the world.



So anyway, all this rain has us thinking our camping and biking trip won't be too much fun on the camping side of the story. But we'll see; you never know until you actually get there. You have to have a positive attitude or nothing will turn out positive.

We got a phone call from the second online company that we ordered our bike rack from and they said they were mailing it today and that we'd have it on Friday. So I told them to cancel the order and I made a few more phone calls and found a bike shop in Barrington that had pretty much everything we wanted. The only thing that was different was one of the bike carriers was different than what I wanted but it seems nicer than what I wanted anyway so I think I'm happy. We'll know for sure once we get everything on the roof and try it out. I put the crossbars on today before we went out tonight and I noticed while we were driving that it did have some wind noise. They didn't want to sell me the air deflector that goes in front. They said to try it first; but I'm thinking I want it because that sound is annoying and we don't even have the bike carriers or the bikes up there yet.

Today was pretty good overall; we had to deal with the whole bike rack thing but otherwise things went well. Grace slept in again today and then her Aunt called this morning to see if Grace could come to a dance class she was having today at 6pm in the Lake Villa studio. I said that normally we would be in gymnastics on Wednesdays from 4-6pm so it wouldn't work, but today was fine. She said she wasn't sure how many students she'd have in the class this week and that would be great if Grace could come so we went. Then after that we all had dinner and went up to gymnastics to register for that which starts next week.

So Julie got to see Grace do dance today and she should be able to see Grace do gymnastics at least some times since she'll be working hard until 6pm each Wednesday. As long as Julie can avoid enough traffic to make it to Antioch before the class is over; traffic is horrible.

But Fairfield Road is open again. Grace and I went that way today to get to Barrington. They've finished redoing that road and the overpass is almost done for Gilmer Road. Also on Bonner Rd in Wauconda (at Fairfield) they've put in a stoplight. That's been needed for a while but not as badly as at an intersection near our house at Rte 120 and Alleghany Road. That is a deadly intersection if you ask me, but nobody has seemed to care until Grayslake built this sports complex just south of there off of Alleghany Road. Now all of a sudden we need this intersection improved to provide for the increase in traffic that will be going that way once the sports complex is finished. That's a silly reason considering the intersection is wholly inadequate.

Anyone else have GPS in their car? It's so fun to go down new roads that aren't on your map software yet because it looks like you're off-roading. I always say to Grace - look we're not on a road! She thinks it's the funniest thing. A few days ago we went down Fairway Drive in Vernon Hills which goes all the way through to Rte 45 now. That was an "off-road" excursion. Then today we went down the new Cedar Lake Rd in Round Lake and again we were "off-roading." Funny. I guess silly nonsensical things amuse me.

I started getting the tent and other camping equipment out today in preparation for our trip. With the bikes on top of the Escape I'm thinking we'll have plenty of room for all of this stuff in there, but who knows. When we took the Freestyle camping it was pretty loaded and it had more storage room than my new Escape does. I might do a dry run tomorrow just to see how much room all this stuff is going to fill up in there.

Oh today was our milk delivery and when I was changing my order last night so they wouldn't bring stuff we don't need this week I noticed they had hot dogs that had no preservatives, no fillers, no nitrates, etc. I'm thinking WOW, whats left? That's what hot dogs are all about, but I ordered them and figured we'd try them out just to see how they are. Anything with less fillers and useless "stuff" that we don't need is bound to be better, right?

I was reading through some of the installation instructions for our battery backup sump pump system and it's recommending that I purchase a deep-cycle marine battery for the system. But I had read online that marine batteries aren't good for this so I'll have to do more investigating I suppose.

I've got to go as I have to get some sleep.

No Rain!

We actually didn't have any rain today. Can you believe it? I can't. So I took advantage of that fact and got the lawn mowed this evening. I actually was able to mow the lawn before it got super high and needed special attention to be mowed. So that is out of the way and I can rest easy over the weekend when we aren't here that the grass won't grow too much. Ha-ha; watch it grow 6 inches while we're gone.

Grace and I pretty much just hung out at home today. She slept in so we had a late start anyway. We didn't finish breakfast until 11 and then we had lunch at 2:30 or 3 so the whole day was a little off. But we did manage to get over to the village hall and buy some yard waste stickers so they'll take my grass clippings this week. Then we went over to the Fox Lake Menards and bought our new sump pump and battery backup system. It didn't include the battery and I didn't see one sitting there by the backup systems so they are either out or I have to buy it somewhere else. So that's another thing to add to my to-do list. We checked the recessed lights they were selling there and I wasn't too impressed. I'll have to try the Home Depot or Lowe's or an electrical supply company.

After Menards we stopped at the park near our house on the way home. We didn't have much time because Julie was going to be home from work soon. As it turns out she got home about the same time we got to the park so Grace only got to play for 15 minutes. She wasn't so happy about that even though I told her when we got there that we only had 15 minutes. The trials and tribulations of a 4 year old...

So then we came home and I made dinner - quesedillas - and then like I said I mowed the grass. After a shower and a shave I paid our bills and now I'm writing this. Did you hear that the space shuttle landed safely today? I'm so glad nothing bad happened when they re-entered the earth's atmosphere. I really was afraid it had been damaged too much. I know they do this anyway, but they had better check everything out now to make sure it doesn't need further repair besides just the heat shields now that it's been subjected to those extreme temperatures.

Oh the bike trip we're taking this weekend is called "Rolling on the River." It's down in Yorkville, IL which is 55 miles southwest of Chicago. That's 85 miles from here and will take us almost 2 hours to get there. It's a two day event to benefit Illinois' Environment. Since we've been trying to do little steps in helping the environment this sounded like a good thing to do. We'll be camping and helping with registration and hopefully riding in the event too. We're just hoping it doesn't rain the whole time and that our campsite isn't completely full of mud!

I'll talk more about this later - I've got to get to bed.

Have I Mentioned Rain?

On Sunday we went to church and stopped at Panera Bread on the way home. After that we just hung out at home for the rest of the day. The Cubs game was rained out and the Bears didn't play so there certainly wasn't anything to watch on TV. Julie was doing the laundry and I was trying to determine what we needed to buy to put our bicycles on top of my Escape when we go on our bike trip this weekend. It took a long time to finally figure out what we actually needed and then I finally got it ordered which wasn't as easy as it sounds. Some sites I was checking prices at kept emptying my shopping cart. And then some didn't have the parts I needed.

As it turns out the place I did order the parts from didn't have the parts their site said they had since they called today and left a message saying they didn't have them. So I'm going to cancel that order as I placed the order with another website today. And now I have to pay more for shipping as we need it by Thursday. I called around to places around here where I could drive to get these parts and they didn't have them either. The entire reason I ordered them online was because it was cheaper than any place locally even with shipping. So now that I'm increasing my shipping costs, I had to check and see if anyone had them because it might be cheaper just to drive over and get them. But they didn't have the parts either. So I'll just hope that this new company has them and can get them to us in time.

Today was Grace's first day of dance class this year. It was this afternoon from 3-4 pm. I'm not excited about the time but I'm sure when we get our whole routine going it won't be so bad. I'm just wondering if Grace shouldn't be in a more advanced class. There are some girls in there that were in her class last year but there are some new kids that don't appear to have much experience or maybe any experience and Grace is doing really well with just about anything asked of her. I think I'll have to ask her teacher and see what she says. Maybe there isn't a class available for her to take or maybe she's in pre-school or gymnastics during that class.

We went to Menards before her class and were looking to buy a battery backup sump pump system and a new sump pump because they recommend that you buy a new sump pump when you buy and install the battery backup system. Well with all the rain we've been having I guess sump pumps are in high demand as they didn't have hardly ANY sump pumps nor the battery backup system I wanted. They checked in the computer and the Menards in Fox Lake and Gurnee both have the backup system I want so I guess Grace and I will have to check at one of those stores tomorrow.

Speaking of rain, we've had so much! Just yesterday we got about 4 inches. And it's supposed to continue raining for the next 4-5 days. Our sump pump has been working hard and I'm not surprised that sump pumps have been selling well lately. It's just like in the winter when the snow starts to fall people all rush to buy shovels and snow blowers, etc. So then the stores run out if it's a big storm and then lets say your shovel breaks and you need to go and buy a replacement, you're out of luck. It seems to be that way every winter. I suppose it shouldn't be any different during rainy times with sump pumps.

Anyway, it was annoying that they didn't have what I wanted but at least I didn't have to have one because mine was broken. So I'll just continue on my quest tomorrow. We came home after dance class and had dinner and then I went grocery shopping after dinner and just got home not too long ago. So its been a long day and I'm ready for the rain to stop! As a result of all the rain the mosquitoes are horrible. Rosco was waiting to come in and had about 8-10 of them flying around him as he waited. You walk outside and they start attacking no matter what time of day. We just have too much standing water.

If you've been watching the news lately, you might have noticed that Illinois has now gone 20 days without a state budget because they can't agree on the particulars. I don't know how or when they're going to fix this because both sides are trying to pull punches and neither side is giving in. The Governor Rod Blagojevich isn't giving in and has put new bills in front of the legislators that were hundreds of pages long and was expecting them to vote after only an hour or so. This could go on for a very long time.

Have you also noticed that the lady that was holed up in a church here in Chicago for over a year Elvira Arellano to avoid deportation recently left the security of the church and went to Los Angeles to speak at an immigration rally. She was on a nationwide campaign for immigration reform. As soon as she was done speaking, ICE came and arrested her and took her down to the border and handed her over to Mexican Authorities. Wouldn't you think she'd expect this? I don't think I would have left that church until the immigration reforms I was fighting for were in place. Her son was born here and is a US citizen and she didn't want to be deported so that she wouldn't be separated from her son. Of course her son has followed her down into Mexico for now.

Rain is here

Remember we had that really nice day yesterday and that rain was coming for the next several days. Yea, that whole cycle has already begun as it rained on and off for most of the day today. And no end in sight.

We were kind of busy today so I didn't get much done. I pulled the weeds out front and just as I was finishing (and hoping to mow the grass) the rains started. We all had lunch together at Culvers before heading to the grocery store. Pretty much the only things we picked up were things we needed for dinner tonight. I made home-made pizza including the crust. Since deep-dish is my favorite, that's the recipe I found and was trying. The pizza was pretty good (everyone else liked it) but I'll be using a different recipe next time. Plus we tried using fresh mozzarella cheese. Never experiment with two unknowns at the same time - especially with company coming over. It tasted fine, but didn't cook up very well because it has a much higher moisture content.

But it was nice to have pizza at home since Julie doesn't really like it. After I made the crust and it was just rising I ran over to Office Max and tried to get my money back for the web cam. Yea, it was easy, they did it with no problems at all. Got back nearly thirty dollars. It was definitely worth the trip. Glad I noticed it in their flier this week.

While I was out I also mailed a package to our Aunt in Nebraska; basically just a CD with some pictures on it. After our company arrived I threw the pizza together and tossed it in the oven. I was disappointed because it didn't taste the way I wanted it too, but it was pretty good I guess, just not was I was looking forward to. We didn't have any left-overs, so that's a good sign.

Then for dessert we had make your own sundaes with a new flavor: double vanilla. Guess that's new because I've never heard of it. It was really good! Really hit the spot.

Tomorrow we don't know what we're doing yet. Hopefully I can tie up a few loose ends around the house. Just wish it wouldn't rain so I could do a few things outside too.

I'm very tired, so I'll go for now.

A Nice Day

Finally we had a really nice day weather-wise today. Amazing! I was starting to wonder if we'd just jump right into fall or winter suddenly like we have in some years past. One day it's in the 80's or 90's and then all the sudden it's in the 60's. That's a big shock. But today was really nice - mid 70's for most of the day and a nice breeze and mild humidity! YEA! Now it's supposed to rain for the next several days.

If you remember from a few days ago a friend of mine invited us to go with them to Great America today and my foot was feeling good enough that Grace and I went. Like I just said, what a nice day! We went with two of Grace's friends from dance class and one of them is also in her pre-school class plus her sister and their Mom's. So there were seven of us and unfortunately for the friends sister she didn't have anyone her age with so that she could ride the rides she wanted to, she had to do what the 4 year olds were doing and she was bored out of her mind.



But the other girls and us parents had a good time. At the Wiggles World area they had the music cranked so loud we had to yell at each other to hear anything. And the Spy Girls Adventure Show was closed today. But we got to see the 3-D movie called Marvin the Martian. I think the girls really enjoyed that. It was pretty cool. They kept wanting to ride the rides in the Wiggles area over and over and then it was pretty much time to go so there was disappointment over not being able to ride any roller coasters but they all had a really good time (except the older one.)

After that we came home and it was too late to start dinner so we took care of the cat next door after letting Rosco out. Then we went to check on the other neighbor's cat because they were leaving on vacation today and hadn't heard from the person that was going to cat-sit for them. But alas, the cat wasn't there so we don't need to worry about her. They had come this afternoon and picked her up. I call this cat-sitter "the spa" because they just love this cat and treat it so well when it's at their house. It's kind of funny. But she is a really nice cat.

So we ended up buying Gyro sandwiches for dinner tonight. They were pretty good but I'm not sure if anyone really liked them a lot because nobody commented on them - good or bad. I won't say where they are from unless I hear that they liked them. We really like the restaurant we got them from but have never tried their Gyro's.

We saw most of High School Musical 2 tonight on the Disney Channel. I recorded it at home assuming that we weren't going to be able to watch it. I was partially right because we were so late bringing dinner over that the movie had already started before we got there. But Julie's "hip" parents had it on when we got there. So Grace disappeared as soon as we got there and we found out why as soon as we got to the living room. Grace has been so excited about the movie coming out and she's been listening to the soundtrack every chance she gets. I think she liked the movie, but I can't ask her now as she's sleeping at this time of night.

I thought it was a pretty good movie, what I saw of it at least. I didn't see much of it to be honest; I guess I only really saw about half of it. I suppose I should hold back on my judgment until after I've seen the whole thing. I was wondering and so was one of Grace's friends' Mom today about our friends that moved to Zimbabwe. We aren't sure if they get the Disney Channel out that way and their two girls are REALLY into High School Musical. If you read this Lauren and need a DVD, just let me know. It's all ready to mail as I recorded it straight to DVD tonight.

My foot as I said above was feeling better today. When I woke up it felt really good but as the day progressed (and I walked more) it was hurting quite a bit today. I think I'm being payed back for how I treated my foot yesterday. It felt good yesterday so I kind of resumed my normal activity. And then today I did quite a bit of walking all around Great America; plus a lot of standing too. I really should take it easy more, but it's hard to just sit around. I don't want to just sit there and wait.

I got the approval today to be part of a Bears Super Fan Blog Team. I guess they did this last year and it was successful so they're doing it again. Sounds like it's right up my alley. I'll let you know more details when I find them out.

So tomorrow I'm going to try and get Office Max to give me a partial refund for the web cam I purchased last week. If you remember last Friday Grace and I went in with our 15% off bag and filled it up with stuff including the web cam. Then we get the newspaper on Sunday and it shows the exact same web cam being on sale for 50% off. That's quite a big difference. So I'm going to first try to get them to refund the difference which is like $25 or if I have to I'll just return the one I bought and buy it at the new discount price. Either way, I'm not paying more than 50% of it's original price since that's what it's on sale for right now.

Julie is having a Stampin' Up class tomorrow morning and then we're having friends over for dinner. We have some cleaning to do and I have to get to the store and buy the ingredients to make dinner. So I'd better get going.

You must pay

I was finally able to pay for the Escape today. I called the credit union before they could call me this morning. He said that they weren't able to get their hybrid credit program approved through the state of Illinois. So he asked his supervisor and they agreed to allow us to close on the loan today and just get credited later for the amount we're supposed to get back which will be $1000.

Unfortunately we spent most of the day doing that. Grace and I couldn't pick up the check until after 1 pm. Then just before Noon my SIL's called and wondered if we wanted to have lunch at Panera Bread. So we had lunch with them and then drove down to Vernon Hills to pick up the check. Then we drove to Schaumburg to get Julie's signature on the check. Then we drove back to Libertyville to drop off the check at the dealership. We also brought the oil pan off the 302 c.i. engine I have in the newer Mustang for my cousin because he needs it for his 1969 Cougar. He has a new EFI 302 c.i. engine that he originally built for his 1989 Cougar, but with the oil pan it has, it won't fit in the 1969 Cougar.

Anyway, we got home only 5 minutes before Julie did. I didn't feel like making the pork roast on the grill since it was so late, and we just had leftovers. Guess we'll have that pork roast tomorrow night. Unfortunately it's only a two pound roast and we have to feed more people on Friday nights than just ourselves. I'll have to make other "sides" to go with it so we have enough food for everybody.

As short as this is, it is my day in a nutshell today. And even if I wanted to expound further, I don't really have anything else. We didn't have time for much of anything else. I can say that my foot is considerably better today. I haven't iced it at all although I'd like to because it is hurting a little. It didn't really start hurting until late this afternoon. I will ice it before going to bed though.

I heard today that NASA has decided not to repair the shuttle's damaged heat shield tiles. Like I said yesterday - I really don't think that's a good idea. It's just asking for another disaster. I feel you should do everything in your power to prevent that from happening again and I don't think they are doing that. I understand that they've analyzed it probably 100 times maybe even thousands of times but it's a very delicate balance between keeping enough heat away from the ship upon re-entry and allowing too much in. Obviously Columbia allowed too much in and the ship disintegrated because of that very fact. Now they can clearly see that the heat shield on the bottom of the ship where it receives the most amount of heat upon re-entry is damaged and they don't fix it. The only reason I can believe that fixing it might not better their situation is if the supplies that have to fix the repair are inferior to the originals or if repairing it would just end up making it worse somehow. I don't know. It's very scary and I'm sure every astronaut on that ship is worried like you wouldn't believe. I will definitely be praying for them when they return home.

Depending where you are reading this from it may not be news to you but the momma beluga whale at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago gave birth to another calf today. She just had one a year ago and the article mentions that the baby has a half-sister (different mother) that just celebrated her first birthday. I remember years ago when a beluga had a baby and it died and then everyone came out in protest that they shouldn't be in captivity, etc., etc., etc. I'm glad they are doing good. They're really cool to watch. That's my favorite part of the Shedd Aquarium is the Oceanarium where the belugas are housed.





Other than that, there isn't much going on. Oh here is a picture of the bookcase as it looks now.



I still need to put one more shelf up on the right hand side there. That'll be one of the six shelves I haven't painted yet. The other shelves will just be extras or replacements, however you'd like to look at it.

Well football season is upon us. College and professional football start soon. I'm already working on preparation for my fantasy draft which will be on Sunday the 26th. This is one of the most exciting times of the year with all the talk about football and the excitement of the unknown in regards to how each player and each team will do this season. Plus all the trades that occurred and how that affects those players abilities as well as the entire teams capability because of the trade. And don't forget about rookies as sometimes they can impact a team in their first season. Football is definitely my favorite sport. I could watch football all the time. And it doesn't even have to be the game itself, it could be just people talking about football. I watch every game I can during the season; since we have DirecTV we obviously subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket so I CAN watch every game every week. But I can only physically watch one at a time.

My Mom is the same with baseball. She watches baseball all the time and she usually subscribes to the MLB Extra Innings package. She's lucky that she gets to watch her favorite sport for so long as the football season is shorter or at least there are significantly fewer games. NASCAR is the sport where it just goes on forever. I am a NASCAR fan, but haven't really watched this year because my driver Elliot Sadler switched on me to a new team where he's now driving a Dodge. I'm sorry but I just can't root for him in a Dodge. I have to root for someone driving a Ford. Since I haven't picked a new driver to support, I'm just not supporting the sport at all really. But my point of bringing it up was that they only have about 2 months off. Their season is 10 months long if I recall correctly.

Obviously I like baseball too as Grace and I go to several Cubs games every year, but if I had to pick only one sport it would be football hands down. Looking back at my childhood I wish I would have tried out for football or even baseball. I think I could have made one of the teams. I did play soccer in middle school and I was in track for a while too. I think that not having my Dad around when I was younger had an affect on me not doing anything like that. After 7th or 8th grade I didn't do anything sports related anymore except for marching band. I was really into music and even went to college as a music major my first semester. But playing an instrument came so naturally to me that once I got in college and it was something that I actually had to work at I didn't enjoy it any more and changed my major. And changed my major, and changed my major.

I've had trouble deciding what to do "when I grow up" for most of my life. I've never had a desire to do just one thing very strongly for a long time. My interests were and really still are changing all the time. Less so now than ever but nonetheless I still have a problem focusing on one thing and sticking with it for a long time. That's why it takes me so long to finish projects because I get distracted because I think of some other project I want to do or maybe I have to do some other project because it's a necessity. It's a major accomplishment that I've finally finished these bookcases. I first bought the plywood and supplies for this project about two years ago (March 2005.) And now it is actually a bookcase you can put a book on. It should have never taken me that much time and I don't know how I can change so that it doesn't take me that long to do other things. Somehow I need to keep my focus on what I'm doing so that I don't "move on" until I'm ready to move on (or until my current project is ready for me to move on.)

Rainy Day

Today was just a rainy dreary day. It rained off and on all day long. When I woke up this morning I knew I had to see some type of doctor because my foot was killing me. So I called my MD's office and they said the physicians assistant was accepting walk-ins until 10 am. Since it was around 8 am I thought I'd be able to make it, but I showered and Grace and I had breakfast and then it was 9:30 and I knew I'd never make it.

Julie stayed home sick today and she wanted to see the doctor too. So I called them and the doctor was only seeing critical patients today but the physicians assistant was in. So I set up an appointment for Julie and then called my chiropractor and got myself an appointment. So I left then to go and see him and Julie watched Grace. Grace's friend from down the street was coming over later and I wanted to get back soon so that Julie didn't have to watch Grace too much.

So I get to the doctors office and fill out my paperwork and see the doctor. From my previous post you know that he adjusted a bone in my foot and gave me electrical stimulation. And now I'm supposed to be icing it for 20 minutes every hour. I haven't done so well with that. Quite honestly I don't want to get up. But I have been doing things around the house - just not much. So anyway I got home about 10 minutes after Grace's friend was supposed to be over and they were playing already. I think her friend's Mom was a little surprised that Julie was here, especially since I called this morning to get everything set up.

Then Julie went to the doctor about the time I was making lunch for the girls. They both ate really well - made a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Although we used all of our milk at breakfast (except chocolate) and our milk delivery isn't usually until early afternoon. So I got creative and put double the butter and a little water. It tasted alright, just a little buttery and not as cheesy as it normally does. So that was lunch - I had leftover steak that I grilled up for dinner last night. It was still REALLY good!

So Julie called like an hour and a half later and said she just finished up at the doctor's office and was heading to the pharmacy. Just after she got home Grace's friend had to leave. Then Grace and I went to the neighbor's house to feed their cat since they are on vacation. I brought my laptop with me to see if our wireless network would work over there; it did! I don't like to just come over and feed the cat and leave. I like to spend a little time with them so they aren't so lonely. So Grace comes with and plays with toys and the cat a little. I usually just pay attention to the cat, but I was playing around with my laptop this time.

Oh I forgot about the MacGyver moment I had. We have the key to the neighbors house obviously, but we still couldn't get in. Somehow the screen door was locked. Since I only have a key to the front door we couldn't get in. I told Grace to wait there as I was going into our garage to look for something that would help us to get in. I found some electrical wire and some wire strippers. I stripped about 6-8 inches of the stranded wire and then separated about three of them and curved the end and stuck it into the screen and then up a few inches and back out the screen. Then I took the loop I just created and maneuvered it over to the latch and pulled to open the door. Grace was amazed, although I don't know if that's something she should really be seeing.

So then we came back home and I was going to make dinner which was supposed to be pork roast on the grill (it's a grilling week I guess.) But we decided to just have burgers on the grill instead. These are the all-natural burgers we've had before. Man are they good! They are from Oberweis Dairy which is who delivers our milk.

That is pretty much the day because after that I've retired to my recliner with my laptop and an ice-pack. The Cubs game was postponed about an hour and a half tonight because of the rain. I've been watching that off and on (because Julie doesn't really like to watch baseball on TV.) Last night at Target I bought the soundtrack to High School Musical 2 for Grace. She just found it as I had it on my desk earlier and so she's playing that kind of loudly on her little boom-box, I've got the Cubs game on and I'm checking the Disney website for when the new movie will be on and they have video playing all the time when you go to their website. So we've got these three sounds competing and Julie doesn't feel good (and wasn't so happy about all the sound.) So I mute the Cubs game and turn off the sound on the website. That helped, but Grace kept inching the sound up on her music until she had to go to bed.

Just so you know - and if you care - High School Musical 2 is on Friday night on the Disney Channel (DirecTV Channel 290) at 7 pm CT. And Diego has a movie on Nickelodeon (DirecTV Channel 299) at 6 pm. Can you tell I hang out with kids a lot? I swear I end up watching more of her shows than she does sometimes. She'll be watching and all happy and then she goes to do something else and I'll still be interested in seeing what happens so I'll still be there watching long after she's done with it. I guess that's just what being a parent is all about.

The bookcase is done except for the six shelves I still have to paint. I definitely made too many shelves because I have these six left and the bookcase really only needs like one more shelf. But I'd rather have too many shelves than not enough and have to go buy more wood and start cutting everything again. That would be a pain and this is far less pain to paint some extra shelves in case we ever need them in the future.

I was invited to go to Great America (Six Flags) on Friday with some friends and I had fully planned to go, but now with my ankle I don't think walking around that much is a good idea. I'll see how I feel tomorrow though before I make any final decisions. It's also our turn to cook at Julie's parents house Friday night. I need to decide what to make and probably have to go back to the store and buy it. Plus we're having company on Saturday and Julie's having a Stampin' Up class on Saturday morning. We have some cleaning to do too seeing as how our house is in construction mode, not entertaining mode.

So the space shuttle is up at the International Space Station and maybe you've heard that it was damaged during takeoff by some insulating foam from the external fuel tank. They've been analyzing this damage for days and it seems to me are trying to not have to fix it. I'm sorry but if I'm on that shuttle I'm fixing the hole. They've determined that the damage goes all the way through the protective insulation layer and has basically exposed some of the aluminum frame on the bottom of the ship. I don't understand how this couldn't be considered something that HAS to be fixed. I don't get it.

And then there is the mine collapse in Utah where six miners were caught in the mine during a severe shaft collapse. They just broke through with the third bored hole they have drilled in attempts to locate these men today and they found an area where they could have sought refuge and there is a curtain there that would have separated them from bad air. What really surprises me is that they still believe there is a possibility for these guys to be alive. That astounds me that after 10 days their is still a chance they may still be alive. I just don't see how that's possible.

Yesterday continued

I ran out of time writing my post yesterday and didn't mention that when I brought my new mirror home and was bringing it down the stairs, I missed the last step and fell - never hurting the mirror mind you - but I injured my foot pretty good. I went to see our Chiropractor today and he said some bone in my foot was out of place. He adjusted it back where it goes saying that if he didn't put it back like that that it would have taken a long time to heal. Then he used electrical stimulation on my ankle and foot. Now I have instructions to ice it for 20 minutes every hour. I haven't quite done it that much, but ice sure does feel good!

Another thing that happened yesterday was on the way to Target I was going the opposite direction as a 1969 Mustang - black. I'm not sure if it was a Mach 1 or not, but he was REALLY flying! Man did that engine sound good! Things like that make me want to get out in the garage and work on my Mustang but we don't have the money for that right now since we're doing all this work on the house.

And the other thing I didn't have time to mention was an unsolicited IM I got. Normally I just ignore them, but I was curious about this for some reason. I opened it and read it and was really surprised by what I was reading. It was a guy from Valvoline's Advertising Company saying he had read my blog about wanting to stick with Valvoline but that I was considering trying Castrol because it was easier to find. He's sending me a case of Valvoline SynPower so I can try it! Can you believe it? Now that's the power of the internet! And what a marketing ploy, searching out current customers that are considering changing. That's really cool!

So that's what I forgot from yesterday. I'll finish up writing about today later.

Oops, did I just miss that step?

Hello again, everybody! It was Tuesday today, but it was still HOT! I'm so tired of this humidity! When will it go away?

Grace slept in today until 9 am. That was very welcome. We didn't really do anything today but we were sure busy the two of us. Playing here, playing there, making a mess here, etc. I did officially get the bookcases completed today. The caulking is done and painted. Now it's just those pesky shelves. I just need to put one more coat on one side of the six shelves I'm working on and then I'll only have 6 more shelves to paint and the whole project will be officially done! YEA! This is definitely a project that just hasn't gone away.

My uncle has offered to help me put recessed lighting in our family room downstairs here. So I need to determine how many we want and which ones we want and then buy them. After that he can help me put them in. That is our next step down here. We need to do that, then paint the walls and then put the wallpaper on the ceiling and paint it. After that we can start buying things like drapes and carpet and furniture. I can't wait! I think this room is really going to look great when we're done with it.

Remember that Coors Light mirror I mentioned yesterday? Well I got it today from my SIL's house and here is a picture. It does fit right above my desk between a cabinet and the new bookcase.



I also went to the Hainesville Village Board meeting tonight after dinner. The Mayor started the meeting by mentioning that on this day in 1945 Japan announced that it would accept full surrender and end the war. He believes they signed the documents and made it official the next day.

Anyway, Trustee Stilz III was in attendance tonight as was Russ Kraly the building official. Also Officer Burch from the police department attended. The Mayor in his statement said that SWALCO has a new director; Walter Willis. The Mayor and Trustee Bonds met with Veolia about our waste removal contract. The final contract will probably see higher prices for waste removal, but they're trying to negotiate to keep yardwaste sticker prices the same as they are now. Veolia is asking to have their requirement in the current contract to have to take recyclables to the Waste Management Recycle Center right here in Grayslake removed so that they can take the recyclables to a transfer center and ultimately to other recycle centers in Wisconsin. Personally I'd like to see it stay the way it is because that recycle center is incredible and highly state-of-the-art.

Well house #3 is back online and it was down for a total of 2 weeks. The hole they dug outside was 14 ft. deep and the two holes that were dug inside were 12 ft. deep. The Deer Point Professional Buildings that are to be built by the entrance to our subdivision at the Rte. 120 entrance is moving forward quickly. There will be two professional office buildings built there. The developer has applied for permits already and the Deer Point sign will be changing to include these buildings for signage.

The Mayor wants to ensure we are applying for and receiving as many grants that the city possibly could and so is taking a class at CLC about doing just that. If a Trustee wants to step up and take the class, that would be a great idea, but he does understand that most everyone else works during the day, whereas he's retired and has more time for that.

I didn't hear perfectly, but I believe they are waiting for an article to finish and mail out the village newsletter. As a result they are going to mail out a postcard to all residents reminding us that they still need volunteers for HainesvilleFest and just to remind us when it is, etc.

The village posted their job opening in two different papers and received 81 resume's for it and are working on sorting through them all. Village officials are monitoring the water levels in the wetlands all across the village. Obviously water levels are up, but I don't think they are at a dangerous level. National Night Out was a great success and Officer Mark Burch (present at the meeting) was thanked personally for his work on this event above and beyond what was required of him by his job.

HainesvilleFest is moving along nicely; more donations are still coming in, Round Lake High School's homecoming does not interfere with our event and so Honor students from the school will be available to help out. Next meeting will be Monday, August 20 at 7 pm.

New ordinances were passed regarding connection fees for both water and sewer. Apparently our sewage goes to the Fox Lake Treatment plant; that I didn't know. Also a resolution was passed that mirrors Mayor Daley's Greenest Region Resolution. This will allow the residents of Hainesville to receive free compact fluorescent bulbs. Also the bid for street resurfacing was accepted and should begin in maybe a month which I believe will be mostly East Big Horn Dr.

That about covers the meeting. After that I went to Target and did some shopping. Grace didn't want to go shopping today and quite honestly it isn't fun to shop with her sometimes as you know what happens...she wants to buy everything. And if she doesn't get what she wants, she starts to whine and complain, etc. So as every parent knows, it's easier to shop without her. After that I ran to my SIL's house to pick up my new mirror and the sweater that Grace left at their house on Saturday. She's really into wearing winter-type clothes lately. At one point yesterday she had her clothes on which consisted of a skirt or shorts and a short sleeve shirt. Then on top of that she had a coat, gloves, scarf and a hat. Mind you she was inside, but even outside she wants to wear too much for the current weather conditions. And you know how I feel about the current weather - it's HOT!

I'll have to write more tomorrow. And I do have more to say, but it's late.

Mowing in the dark

I HAD to mow the grass today. The back yard was a field (that's no exaggeration) and the front yard already needed mowing from just a few days ago. And it's supposed to rain, again, tonight. I don't mind the rain because then I don't have to water the grass, but when the grass is like 10 inches tall in some places, rain won't make it easier to mow.

So anyway, after dinner I ran outside and trimmed and mowed the front yard and then mowed the back but wasn't finished until well after dark. Honestly I need to go over it again in another direction to make sure it looks alright plus to make sure I have picked up all the clippings. But in the dark that isn't so easy, so it will have to wait.

Today Grace had an eye doctor appointment down in Glenview. We left around Noon and got into the waiting room at 12:45. Grace was very nervous about going. It seems that putting drops in her eyes makes her very anxious. They didn't put any in her eyes, but she knows they do sometimes and so it's all about the anxiety leading up to and during the visit.

The reason we were going was a checkup to see how her lazy eye and crossed eye (same eye) are doing. Through patching the good eye over the last year or so the lazy eye has gone away. The doctor checks that each time just to make sure. For the crossed eye, he checks how crossed it is to determine if he should still recommend surgery. Her crossed eye percentage has basically not changed over the last three months and so he is of course again recommending surgery.

As much as we initially didn't want to do the surgery, we've resolved that it is probably the best thing for her and have decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and get the surgery scheduled and get this behind us so she'll have some depth perception. Basically right now she has no depth perception and the sooner we do the surgery to correct the problem to better her long-term outlook for depth perception will be. Obviously this is the ultimate goal is to have the eye not be crossed and have her be able to have good depth perception. If somehow through all of this she doesn't need glasses in a few years (the doctor said usually around 10-12 years old they usually start to not need the glasses anymore when their muscles start to develop more as they approach adolescence) that would be great, but we aren't counting on it. Both Julie and I needed glasses as kids. I would still need them if I hadn't gotten Lasik surgery.

So while it's very scary to schedule a surgery for our 4 year old, we are both resigned to this and we know it's the right thing to do. It is outpatient surgery and it will take about an hour-and-a-half for the actual surgery. The doctor only performs them in Evanston on Wednesdays and they generally schedule about a month out. So in my mind that puts us right around her birthday in October, but we might try to schedule it a bit later around Thanksgiving or something so she doesn't miss any school because of it.

My last post was on Thursday and I've been quite busy since then. Friday was busy, but I don't remember why. Just a minute, let me look at my calendar to refresh my memory (it isn't great.) Ah yes, Grace and I went to the Chiropractor. I told him about Grace's stomach bothering her and how she didn't want to eat. He checked and adjusted her stomach (didn't know you could do that) saying it was much higher than it should have been which could have caused nausea, heartburn, gas, and a couple other things. I think she's had pretty much all of that. We'll see if or how much it helps going forward. She ate a big lunch today, but really no dinner. It's so hard to tell with her as she only likes 4 different foods and quite honestly I think she's tired of them all.

After that we went to see my cousin at his work (Ford dealer) as he had ordered me a part for my new car. You see, it's an Escape Hybrid 4WD model and when they put the badges on the back of the car, they only have so much room to work with and apparently have to decide which ones are the most important as all ours says is "Escape" on the left side and "Hybrid" on the right side. Nowhere on the car does it say "4WD" and I wanted it to say that. On the "regular" or non-hybrid Escapes the "4WD" badge goes on the right-hand side where mine says Hybrid. So anyway, long story long, I had my cousin order me the "4WD" badge that goes on the other '08 Escapes and it had come in so Grace and I went and picked it up.

Once we were there, Grace immediately went into our sales persons office and sat down and started talking to her. Considering we've completed our transaction with her, I didn't really want to bother her, but I think she likes Grace and is always really nice to her. As it turns out, I think she needed someone to talk to and actually having someone like Grace in her office helped her day be a little brighter. I had tried to call her earlier in the week as we were trying to figure out the whole paying off the money we owe them thing and they said she had an emergency and had to leave early that day.

I talked to her a couple days later and she said that her Aunt had died. So while we were in her office on Friday I said I was sorry about her Aunt. She said thanks, but that's not even the half of it. Come to find out her husband who is only 4 years older than me was diagnosed with Bile Duct Cancer on Wednesday. So her whole world has been turned upside down. As we talked I learned that they've only been married for two years. She's just the nicest person and I feel absolutely terrible that such a horrible thing has been placed upon her and her husbands shoulders. I just pray to God that everything will be fine and he can live a fairly normal life. They will be taking several organs out and it sounds very scary, but there is always hope. Please keep him in your prayers, his name is Karl.

So after that we went to Office Max because they were having a 15% off sale. I just love office supply stores. So Grace and I were going through every aisle trying to find some good stuff that we "needed." But she was just CRANKY to put it mildly. At one point a worker asked me for like the third time if I needed help with anything. I just pointed to Grace. He surprisingly said he couldn't help with that.

We spent about an hour in there and I ended up buying a web cam. We've been stalling on this for years trying to make sure we buy the "perfect" one. We want to use it to talk to my Mom who lives in Arizona since we can't afford to go out and see her as often as we'd like to, but we can also use it to talk to Grace's friend from across the street who is in France right now and will be for almost another month. --We got the post card on Friday by the way! And Grace loved it. We mailed you a letter today. Not sure how long that takes.

Then we hurried home because I needed to copy our vacation pictures onto my laptop to bring over to Julie's parents house so they could see our pictures of the Air Force Academy and of her Dad's sister having a good time with us. I think they liked them, but I think there were too many pictures. I do take a lot of pictures.

Copying the pictures took forever, and so we were late for our haircut appointments Grace and I were. Julie actually beat us from Schaumburg up to Fox Lake. Then we went over to Julie's parents for dinner.

Saturday we went to Lindenfest in Lindenhurst because Grace was dancing her dance from the recital. She didn't really practice it at all, but did really well. She pretty much did all the steps and looked great. I guess it's like riding a bike, once you know how to ride, you never forget how. After the dancing they have a "Mayor's Auction" every year. This year they had some stuff that I was interested in, but we were leaving. So I asked my BIL to bid for me on something I liked up to a certain dollar amount....and I won! It's a Coors Light Mirror that has the Chicago Skyline on it. It's very nice and it didn't cost much at all. Now if I can only figure out where it will fit on a wall somewhere... Now that I've been to the Coors Brewery, and since they're the official beer sponsor of the NFL, I'm getting into Coors Light!

After Lindenfest, we were going to lunch and couldn't decide where to go. We ended up going to Panera Bread, but the funniest thing happened. As we were pulling in the parking lot, we were actually pulling in to a spot right in front of my Sister and her family. So we all got to have lunch together. That was a surprise and it was very nice too. I should really call them more often, but I never seem to with any regularity.

Saturday night we were taking our niece and Grace to see High School Musical on Tour at the LaSalle Bank Theater in Chicago. We picked her up around 5 pm and took her downtown. We ate at Ed Debevics downtown and then had to hurry to the theater. We made it there with literally about one minute to spare; it was close. I haven't eaten at Ed Debevics in many years; probably close to 10-15 years. I have to say they used to be much ruder. I did get the classic treatment when seeing the host to put our names in: "What do you want?"

But quite honestly that was about the worst of it. I remember when I went years ago they were just horrible. If you don't know or have never been, that's their thing. They're supposed to be rude and whatnot.

Anyway, the play was awesome! I mean even I enjoyed it. The singing was incredible, the choreography was great, the music was excellent too. The only thing was they were selling CD's where the cast of the play were singing the songs on it and I'd like to get one, but they didn't have anymore and I can't figure out how to get one online. I guess the theater is the only place to get one. Grace and I might have to drive down there and get one before they move on to another city. They're here in Chicago until September 2. I'll definitely call first so we don't waste a trip.

So that leaves yesterday, Sunday. We went to church in the morning, then we came home for a while and I worked on stuff around the house. Grace and Julie went for a bike ride to the park and then to see a friend who recently had back surgery. I changed the oil in Julie's car, fixed the bookcase shelves that were a fraction of an inch too large, and started painting the next set of shelves. Oh and I took the oil pan off the newer Mustang® so my cousin can use it on his "new" 1969 Cougar. I don't know if that engine was running when they took this car apart, but if it was I'm guessing it wasn't running well. There was lots of sludge at the bottom of the oil pan and there were a few metal chunks stuck to the oil pickup. We're pretty sure it's a 302. It sure is nasty whatever it is. My 390 looks better than this engine and it sat in a field for over 10 years.

This morning I caulked the bookcases and the caulk has to dry for 24 hours before I can paint over it. So tomorrow around lunch time I can put the last little touch ups on the bookcase and it will be done. Except for the remainder of the shelves I haven't painted yet and for puttying and touching up the trim under the ledge.

That's about all I can stay awake for. I'll add some pictures tomorrow, good night.

Happy 70th

So this is my 70th post. It's not particularly significant, just thought I'd bring it to your attention. Today was actually a pretty nice day. It was "A"s last day with Grace and I as her and her family are going on vacation tomorrow and a couple days after they come back she starts school. Her and Grace just chilled in front of the TV for most of the day so I'm guessing Grace will be raring to go tomorrow.

Since we've been back from vacation we took Rosco to the vet for his semi-annual checkup and he got all of his shots. Since he's a "senior" he's on the semi-annual visitation schedule. When we saw the vet, she had lost a lot of weight and I thought she looked really good but for some reason I didn't ask her if she was on a diet plan or anything. Good thing I didn't because I asked her assistant later and she said that she's having some health problems. That's not good; I don't want to be selfish, but I'd hate to lose her as our vet. She is the best vet we've ever had. Rosco actually likes to go to the vet now.

The next day Grace and I went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field again. The giveaway was another Cubs Build-A-Bear. So now she has one from last year and this one too. She was pretty excited about that. Unfortunately "we" didn't get ready fast enough and so we missed the train and had to drive downtown. But we made it in plenty of time and then since it was so hot (sorry to keep kicking a dead horse here about the temperature) we were able to leave early without having to wait forever for the next train to come by.

Last Saturday my Dad took my sister and I and our spouses to a play downtown and dinner afterwards. The play is called Put the Nuns in Charge. It was hilarious; very interactive and very fun. This is the sequel to Late Night Catechism and from what I hear (I've never seen Late Night Catechism) this is exactly the same, you're just discussing different topics during the show. By the way if you plan on attending, don't be late (we weren't but this poor guy behind us was.) Also, don't talk during the show, don't cross your legs, no getting up without permission, etc. It's like being in Catholic School and it was very funny. I got to get up on stage and help The Sister sing Kum Ba Yah.

Afterwards we went to this italian restaurant just down the street called Vinci. Wow was it good. Everything from the appetizers, the wine, the food, the desserts, just excellent. I highly recommend it if you're planning a trip to the theater district downtown. But you'll probably need reservations. It was about $41/person with drinks, appetizers and desserts so it's quite reasonable. So that was a great night out and I'm quite thankful that my Dad did this for us.

Sunday was the first pre-season football game. It was pretty boring (what I saw of it anyway) as you'd expect from a pre-season game. Grace had her last gymnastics for the summer on Tuesday. She'll be back at it on the 29th as that's when the Fall session starts. Now tomorrow Grace and I go to the chiropractor and then in the evening we all get our hair cut. Thank God! I can not wait! My hair feels like extra weight on my head and is just generally driving me nuts.

Then on Saturday we're going to Lindenfest (it's a local fair kind of thing that each town in the area does at one point or other over the summer.) Ours (Hainesville) is on September the 15th. Anyway, we're going to Lindenfest (in Lindenhurst) on Saturday morning and Grace is performing her recital routine again.

Then in the evening Saturday, we're taking our niece and Grace downtown. I don't want to say what it is so as to not spoil her surprise. But it will be a lot of fun for all of us I think.

I got the second coat on the bookcase today and got a coat of paint on the six shelves I'm working on right now. So all I have left right now is to put a second coat on these six shelves and they'll be done. Plus I need to fill the gaps and other imperfections in the bookcases themselves and touch those areas up after the caulk dries. But of course after all that, we still have 12 more shelves to paint...I think I made too many shelves.

The rain last night was only about a 1/4 of an inch. And then today I don't think it actually rained here, but it sure did threaten and I saw on the news tonight that some places actually got a pretty heavy downpour for a few minutes tonight. I'm ready for the grass to dry out so I can mow the back yard! From our schedule I'd say that Sunday would be a good mowing day.

I heard from the loan guy at our bank today and he said that our dealership is willing to wait for the rest of our money for another week so that we can qualify for a special incentive from the bank. I was shocked. After the trouble we had with the "other" dealership, this is very refreshing. It's actually astonishing to me how different (night and day) these two dealerships are.

I got some free time tonight after dinner and I had planned to go to the library, but I ended up just running from store to store checking prices. I'm thinking I'm going to make the switch to full synthetic motor oil in our cars and so I'm checking prices at different places to see where I should buy it. Wal-Mart was the cheapest, but AutoZone has it on sale right now for cheaper than anyone else. I'm just torn between using Valvoline SynPower and Castrol Syntec. I've been a Valvoline guy for a very long time and would like to stick with it. But the Castrol is easier to find. Only one of the four stores I stopped in tonight sold the Valvoline that I needed and it was actually the cheapest if you buy it by the quart; But if you buy it by the gallon, Wal-Mart has them beat easy.

Alright, that's enough for today as I'm having a hard time staying awake. Until tomorrow...

Summer, where have you gone?

So we got home on Monday the 30th from our vacation to Denver and everything since then has just been a blur.

Funny picture from a truck we saw on the way home ncpvideo.com:


We've been very busy. With what I'm not really certain, but I know we've been busy. It's been incredibly hot. The temperatures haven't been too bad - near 90° usually, but the humidity just won't go away. Yesterday for example the high temperature was 88° and at 10 pm it was 88% humidity. It's just unbearable, the minute you walk outside you're sweating and like I said it just doesn't go away. It's like this day and night. You can't get up early to avoid the humidity, the temperature's just a little lower but it's hard to tell because the humidity is so repressive.

Now I grew up in Oklahoma and it's REALLY hot there in August. I thought I was moving away from all of that when I moved back up to Chicago here. And it's been raining like crazy lately. We got about 2½ in. over the weekend which is no big deal. I'm thinking I won't have to water the grass this week. Then I think it was Monday night we got another 3 inches which overflowed my rain gauge. Then it rained this afternoon a little (nothing really to measure) and the radar shows more rain heading right for us for overnight again.

The big problem with this is that I can't get the grass mowed because it's never dry enough to cut, plus the whole heat/humidity issue where you don't want to even be outside. So I finally gave in last night just before it got dark and mowed the front yard so we don't look like hillbillies in our neighborhood, but the back yard is worse and it's soggy. Like your shoes make squishy sounds when you're walking through the low parts. Our sump pump has been working overtime since the weekend.

Oh and speaking of the sump pump, our dog Rosco has apparently found a critter outside to stalk and try to kill. It apparently was holed up under the patio (cement slab) right next to where the sump pump puts the water it pumps out into a pipe that drains near the back of our yard. He dug this massive (ok fairly large) hole there in a desperate attempt to get the animal so there is dirt and gravel everywhere and a big hole and he doesn't want to come in because he's watching vigil over the hole waiting for any sign of life and preferably for the pesky varmint to come out so he can "play" with it. I swear he was a cat in a former life with some of the things he does.

So anyway I discover this hole Rosco has created and since it's hot and humid and I don't want to be outside, plus it's wet and muddy, I just throw some bricks into the hole and tell him to come back inside. This was Sunday night and then Monday we got all that rain. I looked out there the next morning, and it's completely submerged, bricks and all. So if the pesky varmint was in the hole and trapped by the bricks, it may have met its maker. Or it just got away and probably won't be back. Either way he's not spending as much time standing watch over the hole anymore and has rejoined the family inside.

I've been working diligently on fixing up the house too. I've gotten all the tile and the underlayment removed from the entryway. We're just waiting for the tile guy to come over and put in the new tile. I just finished painting the first coat of paint on the built-in bookcase I made down here in the office. So they need a second coat and they're done!!! Except for the shelves. I have painted six of the 24 shelves so far. I primed six more today and need to paint them next. I really only have room to do six at a time. With the high humidity I couldn't really paint them in the garage anyway - even if their weren't two Mustangs® out there.

Here is the entryway without tile:


New tile awaiting installation:


Oh and then theres the new car! We finally got it on Friday the 3rd. Now we of course are having troubles getting a check from our credit union for the financing. I tell ya it's just one thing after another with this car. I hope God isn't trying to tell us that we weren't supposed to buy it because so far I love this thing! It's really cool. After I pull off the main roads and into our subdivision it runs solely on electric power. I've wondered what it sounds like to people as I drive by because the engine isn't on. It's really quiet, especially at stop lights because the engine turns off when you don't need it. I've had it up to about 28 or 29 with the engine off but you have to really baby it or else the engine turns on thinking you need more power. It's nice to be able to listen to my iPod in the car again since I have a hookup on the lower dash like we had on the first loaner car, the Edge.

New car when I picked it up:


And the navigation has Grace thinking that if we aren't using it we don't know where we're going. She was like "Dad where's the map?" I said we don't need it. "But how will we know where we're going?" I said we're just going home and I know how to get there. "But the map isn't on - we NEED the map!" Kids sure are silly.

I have to say that the lady that reads the navigation to us is quite polite. We had our first experience in a Volvo that was from Hertz and it used their NeverLost navigation system. She was actually quite rude! She would get mad if you went off course. Then recently we've been using our cell phones as we have Verizon and since our phones have built-in GPS we can download a program (and pay a fee) and have the same features as an in-car navigation system. The lady on there isn't so nice either. She just kept saying "Make the next legal u-turn" whenever you missed a turn that she wanted you to make. It was quite annoying. So now this Ford navigation system is quite polite really and doesn't seem to get mad or "make" you take any particular route. We'll have to see how she is on a regular trip. Which was our original objective to have this car for our trip to Denver, but NO - Mayor Bloomberg had to go and order all those Escape Hybrid's for the NYC taxi fleet.

Here is my setup/assembly line for painting the shelves:



Enough of that. I'd better try and upload some pictures for this post. I'll stop for now and continue updating you tomorrow.

Vacation Continued

So Tuesday we drove down to Colorado Springs which is about an hour south of Denver. It was an easy drive and before we knew it we were at the exit for the Air Force Academy. Wow! What a beautiful place. You've got the mountains right smack next to you, the city in the distance and a beautiful campus. The Chapel is just incredible. I just wish they could provide some type of transport for the handicapped so that they would be able to enjoy the main chapel. Our Aunt (and us) had to walk from quite a distance away and then didn't want to expend the energy to get up all those steps to see the main chapel. Especially since she then had to walk all the way back to the car again. I understand that we can't drive up to the chapel, that's understandable, but I wish they could have provided some type of shuttle up to the chapel so that it wasn't so much work for her.

Here is the chapel:



Anyway, we spent a couple of hours there and took quite a few pictures. I wish I was allowed to shop in the PX as I really miss that. PX's are really nice. But since I didn't retire from the military, I don't have a military ID and can't shop there. And we didn't get out and walk around the B-52 that was there. I wanted to when we first got there, but since we had already spent so much time there, I just wanted to get going. Plus I remember seeing the B-52's all the time in Oklahoma City at Tinker Air Force Base when I was growing up. So I just stopped and took a few pictures really quick. When we got home my FIL said that I should have gotten out and walked around it just to appreciate how large it was, especially by walking under it.

Picture of the B-52 on display:


After that, we went down to Colorado Springs proper and went to the Garden of the Gods. Wow! That is just beautiful too! We took the tour on the bus and then drove in ourselves to take pictures. I'll just let the pictures do the telling because it is just beautiful.

Photo from the Garden of the Gods:


After that we were ready to come home because it was getting late, but Julie wanted to run over to Pikes Peak really quick just to check out the gift shop. It's only about 4 miles from the Garden of the Gods, so we drove over there. It wasn't so fruitful for Julie unfortunately, but our Aunt snagged a new sweatshirt.

Wednesday we just took it easy as Julie had a class to go to and then in the evening she had a stamping session.

Thursday we went to the Denver Botanic Garden. If you've ever been to the Botanic Garden in Chicago, you might not be so impressed, as I wasn't really. Lucky for us, we're members of the Chicago Botanic Garden so we got in free in Denver, but it wasn't so exciting. Plus it was really hot and the sun just came out when we got there, so that didn't help either.

After that, we went to the Denver Children's Museum. I won't say it wasn't exciting, I just think it is geared towards kids younger than Grace. She did have a great time though, especially in the Blue Man Group exhibit.

Here is Grace on the way in:


And here she is being a "Blue Man":


On Friday we went to Boulder and the Coors Brewery Complex! That was really fun! We took the brewery tour and got our free beer. They give you quite a bit! During the tour you get a little cup of about 4-5 oz. that is fresh - like 8 minutes fresh. Then at the end, you get three full pilsner glasses full of any beer you want and they make a lot of different beers. The really cool thing is that you get free beer every day if you work for them. They have tappers in the lunch room and after your shift every day you get two free beers. I also overheard another guide saying that they get a discount on 6 cases every month (if I recall correctly.) The tour was very informative and of course they have a gift shop where you can buy a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, you can't buy any beer, darn. I bought a t-shirt and some beer glasses called shakers. They hold 12 oz. but they aren't in the shape of pilsners. We have some friends whose last name is Golden and he happens to be a police officer, so I had to take some pictures of the Golden Police cars for them.

Here are Grace and our Aunt outside the brewery:


Here are the Brewing Kettles:


Here is the Malting area:


Here is where the workers imbibe:


Here is the Golden Police car:


On Saturday we went to the Hammonds Candy Factory. I should have never set foot in that place. It was REALLY cool. They make so many different things. I have forgotten everything the guide told us of course, but more than likely you've had their candy. Most stores order their candy from them and it isn't marked Hammonds. I spent an ungodly amount in that gift shop, don't ask.

Here is a photo of how they make candy canes:


After that we went downtown Denver and rode the free trolley through the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall. It wasn't too exciting, but it was hot since the bus wasn't air conditioned - or maybe it wasn't working well. But we got to see a lot without having to walk, that was nice. There were a few stores I was interested in seeing, but we didn't have a lot of time. We had to pick up Julie from her conference that was over at 4:20 pm or so (I think.)

Then on Sunday we headed back for Omaha. The trip back to Omaha seemed longer than the trip from Omaha to Denver. In fact it took 9 hours instead of 8 (yes I'm accounting for the time change.) So we got back pretty late and had dinner late, but it was nice to be back at our Aunt's house. I was hoping to get back in time to run to the mall close to their house. Julie never really did get any souvenirs from the trip. I also wanted to go to Cabela's which is literally only a few blocks from my Aunt's house. Maybe next time...

Monday we headed for home and were originally planning to stop in Bourbonnais to see the Bears at training camp. But we didn't leave early enough to do that, so we just headed home. The drive home took longer than on the way out too, so maybe I just drive slower on the way home, I'm not sure.

That's enough for today. I'll get you caught up on other things tomorrow.

Sorry, Part 2

Alright I'm finally blogging again. It's been a long time and I'm sorry about that. We had vacation and we're working on our house trying to make it better and I've been going to bed late and just not having time to blog. So please forgive me.

I suppose I should start with our vacation. We had a great time. The driving wasn't a big deal at all. Grace was good throughout the whole trip and honestly I don't think she minded being in the car for hours on end. I can say for sure that she really liked the Leapster as she played with it basically the entire way from here to Omaha. The first time she took a break from it was three hours after we got in the car. Big hit!

As you can see from some of my cell phone posts, the Verizon network doesn't follow you everywhere like their commercials say. I took the picture 60 miles out of Des Moines and the picture didn't post to the blog until we were in Des Moines. Nice. Getting the picture to begin with was crazy. We were flying by these signs at 85 miles an hour and with the sun in our face trying to take pictures of these signs several feet off the road with a little cell phone camera - doesn't work so well. Even if the picture looked alright, I couldn't see it on my cell phone. The dialog went something like: "I can't see the sign" (in the picture), "Oh I got part of the sign here", or "I can't even see what this picture is." So we abandoned that idea and decided to stop on the side of the interstate and take a picture - effectively lengthening our trip to Omaha. Well, keep in mind that the sun is still in my face, I still have a tiny little camera phone and the sign is still like 20 feet off the highway. Not to mention the vehicles flying by at 85 miles an hour like we just were. I couldn't see the screen on my phone to see what I was looking at through the camera's lens. Heck, I couldn't even see what I had taken a picture of after I took the picture. I was just holding the camera in the general direction of the sign and hoping for the best. So the picture didn't turn out so well, but it was a picture and we started back on our way. Then I sent the picture, but the phone kept saying "Network unavailable." Nice. And I thought that Verizon network followed you EVERYWHERE. Isn't that what YOU get from the commercials? Can you hear ME now? NO!

Anyway, it took about an hour and the reaching of a major city for the message to finally go through. We stopped in Davenport for lunch and they have free wireless internet at the rest stops in Iowa so I brought my new laptop to the picnic table to test it out.



It worked just fine. Julie made some great sandwiches and we had a good lunch. But Grace didn't want to leave. Not sure why, but we got back on the road and we made it to Omaha in about 8 hours including stops. So we did good on that portion of our trip, just wish we would have left earlier...

We stayed in Omaha that night, all day Sunday and left on Monday morning for Denver with our Aunt. Julie's two Aunts live together and the one that didn't come with us still works but we got to see her Saturday evening and Sunday. I already mentioned that we went to the Omaha Zoo on Sunday. That place is incredible! It's huge! A little pricey, especially considering that you have to pay for everything inside as well. If you want to take the train it costs extra, the carousel for the kids; extra, and even the tram ride, you guessed it; extra. I believe it's 130 acres, so even one day probably isn't enough, especially if you only get around by foot. However, I highly recommend the aquarium. If you've been to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, then you know that it will take something pretty exciting to top that. I'm not saying this tops the Shedd Aquarium, but for what it is and how you get to experience it, this is great and you really should see it!

Pictures at the Omaha Zoo
Hailey and Grace:


Grace, Hailey and Hannah (and a Goat):


The three of us at the Zoo:


A gorilla "smiling" for the camera:


We went to visit a cousin and they weren't home, so we took this picture of all of us on their back deck (we're planning to send it in our Christmas card to them):


Unfortunately we got in too late on Saturday to go to Warren Buffet's favorite restaurant in Omaha and they are closed on Sundays. And when we came back from Denver, it was a Sunday so we never got to go. Maybe the next time we visit. We are actually planning to visit again just to see our Aunts. Not sure when, but we need to visit them more often and the ride isn't all THAT long.

The trip to Denver was pretty much the same as our trip to Omaha. It took about eight hours with stops as well. We got to our condo around 4 pm MT and got settled in before heading out for dinner.

Here's a picture we took at a restaurant we stopped to eat lunch at on the way. It was really good!


I'll have to pick this up tomorrow as it's late and I have to get Grace to gymnastics early tomorrow morning.