School Rocks

Grace has only gone to school for two days now but each time she gets off the bus she can't say it any more excitedly about how good her day was. She absolutely loves school and enjoys every minute of it I think. She was so excited to go on Friday (her second day) we had to go to the bus stop 15 minutes before the bus was coming. She just couldn't stand to be in the house when the bus would be coming "soon." I'm imagining the excitement wearing off at some point, but hopefully she'll enjoy her whole year.

We've been getting handout after handout each day (all two of them.) One of the things we got yesterday was called "Parent Information Exchange." It's a form that we have to fill out and return to the teacher and one of the questions on there is "Three goals for your child's school success this year." I'm not sure what to put for that. In fact most of the questions on this sheet are very thought provoking and neither Julie nor I were absolutely certain how to answer them.

We've already had to read through several things including the Student Handbook which is like 47 pages long. We've already gotten our first fundraiser package which is to sell entertainment books. If you need one let me know. We can order you one for pretty much any area of the country. I can't imagine how this will work out when she's in higher grades in future years.

School is pretty good from my perspective as well. I got a few things taken care of yesterday while Grace was in school and it will be nice to have this time every weekday. It's especially nice considering it's basically twice as much time as I had for the previous two years where Grace was in preschool. It was two hours but it took 20 minutes to get there and 20 minutes to get back so it was a lot of wasted time in the car.

Today Grace, Julie and my Aunt went to Michigan to see my Grandpa. They were going to see how he was doing. He's been having problems being dizzy and just with his general health I think. They'll be back on Monday and I'm holding down the fort while they're gone.

Today was the first Wisconsin Badger game of the season...and they won...Yeah! In my opinion their first challenging game will be on September the 27th when they play Michigan. They haven't looked so good yet. Let's hope they continue that trend.

It's raining but we're on our way...

Wouldn't you know that just an hour before Grace was supposed to go to school today it started raining. It's not raining hard - more of a hard sprinkle, but enough to annoy. So she got off on the bus just fine. She seemed really happy (as you can see in the picture.) I can't wait until she gets home to see how she likes it!

Ready for our first day of Kindergarten


Getting on the bus


Home (and happy) after school


I'll explain more later; but when she got off the bus she said it was her best day ever!

Kindergarten is tomorrow!

Yesterday we didn't do much really. Grace had a play-date with her friends down the street and I was trying to get caught up around the house a bit. In the morning we went to my favorite store; all together now...Lowes, and got some weed killer and some electrical stuff. After that we went to the Oberweis store for some milk.

After that we had lunch with two of Julie's sisters; our last lunch before Grace starts school :-( and Grace had her play-date. While she was playing with her friends I sprayed all the weeds in the cracks between the bricks and so those pesky weeds will be dead...SOON! Yea!

After picking Grace up we went up to register her for gymnastics for this year. When we got back we had dinner and that's pretty much our day. Today was a little different although we weren't particularly busy today either. Grace's kindergarten open house was this morning. She got to go and finally meet her teacher Mrs. Fitzharris. She had a little "treasure hunt" we had to complete together which was basically finding her locker and finding the office and then finding her classroom again. And finding the bathroom and putting her supplies in the bins and checking her birthday and address and just simple things that will make tomorrow easier for her. I think she enjoyed it and I think it helped her too.

After that we came home and I started cleaning the house as we have a visitor her for the night; Julie's Aunt from Omaha is here for the night tonight and then she'll be back again next week. We had still not put everything away from having removed it from the office and the family room when we were painting everything. Unfortunately when we got everything out we liked how open the rooms felt and honestly didn't want to put it back in those rooms.

So anyway I got a lot of those things put away and cleaned the house up. Then this evening was dance class. Grace is in a new dance class this year and she's pretty excited. She was supposed to move up to this class last year but it conflicted with her gymnastics class. Since she's moving up in her gymnastics to the next level this year (to the pre-team level) it allows her to also move up to a new level in dance. As a side note she's also signed up for soccer this fall too. She did it last fall and loved it and has been wanting to do it again ever since, but we didn't get her signed up for the spring and thought we'd sign her up during the summer. Yeah, they don't have soccer in the summer for little league. So here we are signing up again this fall. Oops!

So she had her first dance class tonight and I think she did pretty good. I think she'll do better next week because she knows more of what to expect now and it is different. It's much more intense and pretty advanced but I think she held her own this week. We'll see how she does next week. Next week she also starts her new gymnastics class but she's been practicing with the competitive team all summer so that should be pretty easy I think. Plus she'll be back to a two hour class instead of three.

Now the real challenge will be fitting all of this in with school. Granted her school is really only about 2 and a half hours long each day, but she does have it every day now instead of only three days a week for preschool. And I think she will have some actual homework now as well and then there's the whole scheduling thing that we need to adjust to. Her school will be during her normal lunchtime and I'm guessing the easiest way to deal with that is to eat breakfast earlier and then have lunch just before getting on the bus. I had talked to her friends parents who went to afternoon kindergarten last year and that's what they did. But it's a big change especially considering Grace has never been an early riser and eating breakfast much earlier than we have been will basically mean she's going to need to get up earlier. So I foresee that being our biggest challenge as we enter this new year.

Oh so getting back to today, we came home from dance class and Julie was just leaving to go to a Arbonne party at my Dad's house and that really upset Grace since she wasn't going to get to see her Mom tonight. But right after we got home her Aunt Pat got here and then we had dinner and then we talked to Aunt Pat for a bit before getting ready for bed. Just as we were finishing up our prayers Julie came home and Grace was pretty excited about that. She still had a little difficulty going to sleep tonight, but not nearly as bad as last night. I think it might have taken her over a half an hour to fall asleep last night.

Oh speaking of Grace being anxious I actually caught her being shy today. We were at the kindergarten open house and this other girl walks up and asks if she can do the same activity that Grace was doing and she didn't say a word. I was shocked! Honestly she's usually the one that will go and ask someone else to do things and play with her and when they say no or something she'll come and tell me and I say just find someone else. So it was very interesting. Maybe all those no's from the past are catching up to her.

So now the day is finally arriving. I hope she does really good tomorrow and has a fun day. I think she will. We'll see.

School is coming...

We're in full "get ready for school" mode now. Grace and I had to take a quick run to Staples today to get a couple of supplies she still needed. I was silly and let her pick out a pink 3-ring binder and the list specifically states "white." So we exchanged that and got the markers they had listed incorrectly on the supply list and some colored pencils they didn't have on the supply list before the revised list came out. I hope everyone else reads the revised supply list. School starts on Thursday and we got the revised list on Saturday.

Oh and speaking of our school district, I read in last weeks Sunday paper about how our school district is in heavy long-term debt. The article is about paying for the special needs school that is being built in Gurnee to support the special needs children of our county. What it basically says is that we're in such a debt-laden situation as it is we don't know how we'll come up with $1.1 Million to pay our share to help build this new school. Here is the article if you'd like to read it. So I guess I'll try to get involved in the school district as well; at least to find out what's going on. For all the money we pay in real estate taxes that goes to this school district ($2,386 this year) that is just ridiculous. In fact this amount is more than we pay to the high school district.

Anyway, we're getting ready for school (back on topic--sorry.) Grace is excited but she also says she's scared because she won't know anyone. I can understand being afraid of the unknown (I think we all are) but she's such a friendly outgoing kid it's just hard to believe she's afraid of meeting new people and making new friends. That's the one thing she's always been good at. I think we need to work on her self-esteem a little...or maybe it's just what I said before: the fear of the unknown.

We had a nice relaxing weekend this last weekend. We went to church on Saturday night so we didn't have to get up at any particular time on Sunday morning. Sunday I mowed the grass...which is news because it's been dry and hot here so the grass hasn't been growing much. So it's been some time since I last mowed, but I got it done yesterday evening. While I was doing that Grace and Julie went to our friends house for a good luck/going away "party" for their granddaughter whom is going to Children's Hospital for treatment for her condition (can't remember what it was exactly except that it has to do with her skull and the rate at which it's growing--she's only just turned one.) Her treatment was going to begin with chemotherapy and then stem-cell transplants. Bless her little heart--I truly hope and pray that she pulls through.

This afternoon there was a PTO popsicle welcome at her school and we went. Grace was anxious to meet her new teacher but there was no guarantee that she'd be there and of course she wasn't. So Grace was pretty upset about that. What did happen was one of those stay-at-home-dad moments where the moms treat you like you're just there because you got out of work earlier than the mom or something. I was looking at things to sign up for to help the PTO out and one of the things was a bake sale. The lady that was behind the table said "you could help with the bake sale if you like to bake" and then a loud belly laugh. I just walked away. Julie said I should have told her I do the cooking; but obviously I didn't.

So that's been our last few days. I'll get this posted and get to bed. We have a busy week ahead of us.

Summer sure goes fast...

Well, it's near the end of August already and Grace will be starting Kindergarten next Thursday. Can you hardly believe it? She really is growing up fast. Everyone tells you that when you have a child and I have to say in the beginning I didn't really believe them because in the beginning it's not so easy and the days seem so long when you don't get much sleep, etc. But as she gets older and is into more activities, time really seems to be going faster.

Julie had the last week off as we tried to shoehorn in everything we hadn't gotten done over the summer that we wanted to do. We went to the Rolling on the River ride on Friday the 15th. We went on Friday to volunteer and get things ready for Saturday. We ended up camping at Jellystone and I have to say it's great if you have kids. It's very kid friendly with numerous kid-oriented activities and a really nice campground. It really is worth the premium price to stay there. We started out with the intention of camping at a retreat center for free. We also went with the thought that we were going to stuff goodie bags and then I was going to do route sign checking. When we got there which was only about 20 minutes after they were supposed to start stuffing the goodie bags, they were already done. So we helped set up the expo center a little and then they asked us to drive the 100 mile route to make sure the signs were easy to follow. Since we needed to set up our tent for the night we decided to start driving the route and when we got to the retreat center we'd set up our tent. The retreat center which was about half-way through the 100-mile route was also a rest stop. We get there and the camping is in a soccer field. And we can't put our tent close to the outside of the field because that's where they're going to drive the hay ride later that evening. We weren't so excited about this setup so we decided to go to Jellystone. It wasn't free, but like I said; well worth it. After we set up the campsite we finished driving the route which prevented me from cooking dinner. And it was so late at this point that restaurants are closing; we ended up eating at a family restaurant which was quite good.

Then Saturday was more volunteering and the ride itself. We started the route a little late because we were helping out at a rest stop. Turns out the port-a-potties weren't delivered to this location. And the winery (which was where this rest stop was) was several hundred yards away from the road. So if a rider wanted to use the facilities they were going to have to ride or walk quite a distance. At first they just moved the entire rest stop up by the winery building. Then they decided (logically) to keep the rest stop by the road and if anyone needed the facilities they would need to go up to the winery itself.

The problem we were helping with was that you came around a corner and the corn was high and the rest stop was off the road a few yards and you couldn't really see it until you were practically past it especially if you were riding fast. Some of these riders were easily riding 20+ mph because they got to this rest stop pretty fast--like 1-1 1/2 hours to go 27+ miles. So we were here to direct the riders into the rest stop since they couldn't really see it while they were riding by. Grace really got into this and was yelling out "Rest Stop" as each rider was getting close.



After we were there a few hours our replacement arrived and then we headed back to the start/finish line to start our ride. I think we started our ride around 11 am or so and it had obviously warmed up a bit. It wasn't a hot day, but with the sun beating down on the black pavement it was quite warm. And by this time Grace was getting tired because we got up early and she kind of went to bed late the night before. So Grace was hitting a wall and with Julie being pregnant the beginning of the ride wasn't so pretty. Grace was complaining that she wanted to hook her bike up to Julie's and Julie saying no and we weren't even to the road yet. So when we finally got to the road Julie let her hook her bike up.



If you're wondering what I'm talking about when I say hook up her bike to Julie's, I'm talking about the Trail Gator. It's a really cool idea that in my opinion works exactly as advertised. Some people on Amazon have complained about it, but we had no problems...except what I mentioned about the hot pavement, the pregnant wife and the tired and cranky child. Oh and did I mention the hills? Yea they don't call it "rolling" on the river for nothing. There are quite a few hills and some are quite steep as well. As soon as we left the fairgrounds and turned onto the road there's a big hill. Julie was like you've got to be kidding me. So anyway, Julie and Grace made it somewhere between 6 and 7 miles and I ended up doing the whole 15 miles.



We stayed Saturday night because we had planned to go canoing on Sunday but we ended up taking a little too long to pack up and missed canoing. On Monday we went downtown Chicago to the American Girl store and had their lunch with Graced. She brought Josefina with her and it was a complete surprise. We took the train and the bus and then walked around the corner and there was the store. I think she was really surprised because she was very excited. The food was really good and there was a lot of it. Just a warning to other fathers; you will be one of the only men in the room. After lunch we ended up buying Grace a couple things and then we stopped at Garrett's Popcorn on the way back to the train station. Man do they make good popcorn.

Then on Tuesday we went to gymnastics for only an hour but at least Julie got to come and see Grace do stuff she's never seen before like her back handspring. Then we drove down to Marriott's Lincolnshire Theater for the play "The Princess and the Pea." After that it was lunch at Red Robin - I love that place.

Wednesday we went to Great America (Six Flags for the younger folks) with one of Julie's sisters and a cousin and their 4 kids. It was a lot of fun and a pretty much perfect day to go there as they weren't that busy and the weather was good.

Yesterday we just relaxed and went swimming at one of Julie's other sisters houses. Before that we all went to lunch. Today Julie had to go to work and Grace and I have just been hanging out as it's been raining off and on and we're both tired after a busy week. And no plans as of now for the weekend sound really good too.

Rolling on the River Ride 2008

Once again this year we're planning to go to the Rolling on the River Ride which is a bike ride that benefits Illinois' environment. You may recall us doing this last year; we camped and tried my new Escape out with the roof carrier holding our bikes.

This year we're going again and we're also riding...15 miles. All three of us are doing this and as a requirement for riding we each have to raise money as a donation to the three nonprofit charity organizations that are sponsoring the event and that help Illinois' environment: Prairie Rivers Network, Illinois Environmental Council Education Fund and Illinois Stewardship Alliance.

Why these charities?
Experience-Each group has more than 30 years of experience in Illinois

Scope-Each group works throughout the state

Effectiveness-Recognized as leaders in their fields. Efficiently run, professionally staffed organizations.

Mission--Collectively their missions address the key environmental concerns in Illinois today including global warming, air and water quality, water supply, protecting the parks, rivers and other natural spaces we all enjoy, and developing policies for healthier food production and more economically sustainable food markets.

Please note that all donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

Here is each of our donation pages. Please help us out!

Steve
Julie
Grace

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for considering donating.