School Starts!

Well, we got the kids off to school today. Everything went pretty smoothly. Up at 6:45, showers, breakfast, no TV (without too much complaining), teeth brushed, lunches made, and out the door. Timmy was pretty hesitant last night, but a little less so this morning. We got there early (7:45, school starts at 8:30) to help with a coffee time for parents, and a couple of his friends were there already, so when he saw them, he was fine. Emma was more excited. She had a little time of nervousness when she got to her room and there wasn't a good place to sit near some of her friends, but she sat next to a new girl (who was sitting alone) and I think that made her feel good. She likes to be the leader/introducer, so being able to do so with the new girl was good. I saw her a couple of times (previous to the sitting incident) leading new kids around and helping them find their classes ... right down her "mommy complex" alley!

Cyndie and I enjoyed the coffee time in the gym with lots of friends (who are parents). Good times. We were all ready to be back in the regularity of school. It was just another great example of why we love the small school. We were just all hanging out there, drinking coffee and having a good time. Not that that doesn't happen in bigger schools, but it's just a great community at Woods.

Now, back to work. Soccer starts tonight at 4:30!

Fun morning

Bragging for Emma today. We went out on the boat ... the four of us and Auntie Jane. We were very disappointed when we got up at 6 am ... first because it was still dark (I guess we haven't been getting up very early lately), and second because it was 15 - 20 mph winds. We decided to head over anyway, just to see what we would see. It was by no means perfect. On "our" side of the lake, the north shore, there were pretty big waves from the wind. We went across to the south shore and it was quite a bit better, though definitely not of the quality we're used to in the mornings. So we went. I wakeboarded and Cyndie skied, then Emma gave it a go. She had previously maxed out at about 20 or 30 seconds at a time. She wasn't having any problems getting up, but was, I think, getting scared when she thought she was going toward the wake, and so she'd just drop the rope. So I convinced her last night that she a) wasn't going to go out of the wake unless she tried to, and b) could turn herself just like she does when she snow skis. So, the first time, she dropped again after 20 seconds. I think she just forgot what we'd talked about. But after that, she was a champ. She stayed up for minutes, and only dropped under duress (wake from other boats knocking her down). She skied all over the lake, including making some big looping turns when we got to the end of the sheltered part of the lake and needed to go back. She even skied half the way back to the north shore where the water was starting to get really rough again! So while she was a "kind of" skier before, she is now official!!!

Summer ... the twilight

Yes, we're in our last few weeks of summer. It has just flown by. My (teacher) sister went back for an in service day on Monday and her kids start tomorrow. Frankly, I can't comprehend that! We still have lots of fun things that we're planning on doing before school starts:

• Go to a Brewer's game
• Go canoeing with some friends on the Wisconsin river
• Go to Magic Waters (Cyndie and the kids are currently there) - a water park down in Rockford
  
• Go to Six Flags (Emma went earlier in with Uncle Gow and a friend from church ... this time Tim and Cyndie are going too)

Hey, I just realized that I don't get to go to the last two events! Poor me. I guess someone has to bring home the bacon!

Last night was my last softball game of the summer. We went out in style with a come from behind victory! It was fun because it was only our second win of the year. We won the first game, lost like 10 or 12 in a row, and then won the last game! I particularly enjoyed it because I had a really good hitting night ... 2 home runs, a double and a single in 4 at bats (if you guys don't mind me tooting my own horn a bit). It was definitely the stuff to make me excited to play again next year (while being happy to have a break for a while).

Cyndie continues to be pretty busy with her photography stuff. It seems like she's had 2 or 3 shoots a week for the last several. While that is only 3 or 4 hours of actual shooting time, it also means 8 or 9 hours of managing the photos and touching them up. That's pretty exciting. Hopefully things will continue to roll along (and pick up steam) during the school year when she'll have more time during the day (with the kids off at school) to do the work!

Summer moves on.

Yes, summer is passing us by, and at a fast pace. We here at the Wildwood DeVries household were looking forward to a slower paced August. Well, I'm not sure it's been much slower paced, and it's going by quickly! We have about three weeks left until school starts, which is nice, but will go quickly. My sister Amy, who is a teacher, starts back at work next week. Good grief!

I was sitting on the deck working yesterday late morning, and it was still a bit cool. In fact it felt a bit fall-like. After the heat we had in the middle of the summer, it was a bit odd to actually feel cool outside. Craziness.

Humm, what else is going on? I just looked back at the last blog entry I made and realized that I didn't write that Cyndie (and my dad) rode their bikes from my folks' house to Crystal Lake. It was nearly 40 miles. They made it! Cyndie said she was pretty wiped out the last 5 or 6 miles, and she was pretty sore the next day or two, but very happy she did it!

Yesterday morning Cyndie and Emma got up early to go out skiing with our friends Jeannine and Anna (I think she's going into 7th grade). Emma got up and skied for a couple couple of minutes three different times! Awesome Ems. I think we're going to need to get her a wet suit because she gets cold so easily. It will also extend our ski calendar a bit.

Last Saturday evening we went to the Music by the Lake for the second time. We saw a quartet that did a lot of 50s and 60s style music. My folks went with. It was a great time!

I think that recaps pretty well the last week or so. Here's to hoping for a bit warmer weather and an end of August that feels like it lasts forever!

A trickle

It appears that my blogging has slowed to a trickle. If that. Sorry about that. I'll make no promises, but I hope to be at least a little more regular about blogging.

So, what's been happening? How about a few bullets:

• Softball ended for Emma. Her team wasn't horribly good, but she improved a lot over the season to where she was probably one of the two best players on her team. Her hitting was good, and her defense was very good. In fact, she turned an unassisted double play in the last game ... awesome considering getting single outs at a time is an iffy proposition at best in her league.
• Baseball ended for Timmy. He was 6 years old in a league for 7 and 8 year olds, so it was a learning time for him. He loved to play, and was constantly wanting to play catch or hit in the yard. He did well for his team, getting lots of hits ... as many as any of the other boys. It was very fun for him to be on a really good team. They only lost twice out of 10 or 12 games. Their second to last game was against an undefeated team (that had beat them by one run the other time they played) and Tim and the boys won 31 - 10! That was a fun game!
  
• Last week we were up in the UP for family camp. As usual, it was a blast. It was fun to not have to do anything, to have meals be prepared for us, to have lots of other kids around for Tim and Emma to play with, etc.
  
• We tried an evening boating trip on Monday, just Cyndie, I, and the kids. It was a blast. I wakeboarded, Cyndie wakeboarded and skied, Timmy went on the knee board for the first time ever, and Emma got up (briefly) on two skis! It was really fun.
  

So, that's kind of catching you up on us. We're looking forward to a fairly quiet month of August after having had a busy first 2/3rds of the summer.

I need a weekend from my weekend!

Well now, that was a busy weekend! Friday night my sister Amy and her two kids (non-attending camp division) came up for the night. My folks and Laura and Gow and the kids and Jane came over for dinner and a rousing family baseball game. Then Timmy and his cousin (same age) Ben went over to Auntie Jane's and got to spend the night there. The next morning Tim and I headed to baseball practice, while Cyndie and Amy went to pick up the oldest cousins, Emma and Sarah at camp. Emma (and Sarah too I think) had a great week. The weather was cool, but that didn't seem to bother them too much. I think they were ready to go back again this week, but were pretty darn pooped on Saturday! Emma said her favorite things were the zipline, the climbing wall, and banana boating.

After a couple of hours of down time, we headed to the Freedom Fest, a free concert/festival in Janesville, joining our friends the Goreckis there. That was fun. The rides/carnival stuff was all free. They had stuff for the kids. The concert, Matthew West, was good, and there was a phenomenal fireworks show at the end. Fun times, but late. We didn't get home until around 11:30. Needless to say, everyone slept in in the morning! Then we had church at Covenant Harbor (our pastor was speaking and we had three people from church get baptized in the lake after the service). There was a picnic, then we spent the rest of the afternoon out on the boat with various friends from church (sandwiched around a trip to Wal-Mart to get a new battery for the boat!). And then we had church (a very short prayer/singing service). And then we went to Culvers for a heavy snack with a bunch of folks from church. Fortunately, the kids got to bed at a decent time.

Whew, typing that makes me tired all over again. Today Tim is off to Day Camp at Covenant Harbor (his first camp experience by himself). He was a bit apprehensive when I dropped him off, but his buddy Owen was dropped off moments later, and I'm assuming that things were peachy from there. Emma had a PetVet class this morning (she said there were five dogs and a cat there today). Tonight we pick Timmy up at camp, then go straight to his 5p baseball game (and Emma's softball game after that).

I need a nap!

Busy Pix

Tim reading his Bible first thing in the morning ...

The Covs first baseman ...
(bragging time ... I hit a grandslam on Tuesday night)

Tim on his first bike ride ...

The fam after our first "4 bike" bike ride ...

Emma and Tim at Emma's class fishing trip ...

Busyness

Yes, we've been busy. I remember a conversation between Cyndie and I where we discussed that every organization we, or the kids, belonged to was having an event within the last two to three weeks of the school year. Well, we weathered that and have made it into summer (which is perhaps summer in name only at this point ... I swear, it's either in the mid to upper 90s, or in the low 70s/high 60s. I don't think we've had any days with highs in the 80s).

So now we're transitioned to summer living. Which really means the normal for me, but is far different for Cyndie and the kids. They've been staying up a bit later, largely because of activities that they've had (more on that in a minute). But they've also been sleeping later, which is good for all of us. They've had some play dates, and are enjoying being outside.

Of course the biggest thing happening for them is that they have baseball/softball three days a week. Games are on Monday and Wednesday nights, and practices on Saturday mornings. They've both been doing very well, and are getting quite a bit better, especially compared to 2 months ago when neither had really played any ball at all. Timmy is one of the youngest kids on his team. But he's doing very well. He's a bit of a hitting savant. He connects with a lot, but doesn't hit it very hard yet. Emma is doing very well fielding, and understanding what to do with the ball when she fields it. She's improving on her hitting too, and hits it pretty hard.

Next week is overnight camp for Emma. She's already started packing. She'll be at Covenant Harbor from Sunday afternoon until Saturday morning. Cousin Sarah and a girl from Sarah's church will be in her cabin. As we speak, she's making them matching bracelets ... since I'm writing this, hopefully she'll actually finish them! Emma is very excited!

Timmy has been reading a TON! It's almost every morning that he stumbles down the stairs with a book in his hand, reading as he goes. For some reason (maybe it's because it's long and he doesn't run out of stuff to read, or maybe he likes the stories) he's been reading the Bible (a kids version) a lot, which is very cool. Spurred on by his cousins learning to ride their bikes, Timmy finally decided that he was going to learn, and did so with not too much difficulty yesterday. We took our first family bike ride (just around the neighborhood) yesterday which was very fun!

Lets see, Cyndie and I have been busy running around with the kids. I'm helping to coach both baseball/softball teams, and Cyndie is (of course) there too for those things. Cyndie's had work, keeping the kids busy during the day, sailing, church leadership team, and multiple activities with her lady friends. I'm doing my own softball team, church worship team, school board (I was on all day panels to interview perspective teachers three days in the last month), etc. We're trying to put in some time on the many unfinished projects that we have around the house too, but that's a bit slow in coming. On top of that, we're trying to get out on the boat too. We had some slight problems with that, but it turned out it was just a clogged fuel filter ... $65 instead of potentially much more.

So there you have it. We'll have a busy summer until the end of July, then August should slow down quite a bit!

Yes, I think so, it's finally Spring!

I think I can now officially report that spring time has come to Lake Geneva. We've had some good weather, both warmer and sunnier. Mother's Day we had brunch out on the deck. That was our first real meal there since the crazy 80 degree day that happened about a month ago. The piers and lifts are in at Covenant Harbor, so that means the boat (which we've cleaned out and re-packed since getting out of winter storage) is basically ready to go in. The kids have both had their first ball practice (softball for Emma and baseball for Tim ... both "coach pitch" which is the step up from teeball). I had my first softball game (with a bunch of friends from church, bowling, the neighborhood, camp) which we won in dramatic fashion (we were down 9-0 after the first inning and something like 14 - 3 after two innings ... we came back and won 19-18!). Weather.com says that it is a high of 78 and sunny in LG today! Unfortunately, I'm sitting in a meeting in Baltimore for work on a last minute trip. Boooo!

On the kid front, Emma has been really interested in Cyndie's new cell phone (Mother's Day present) ... so if you get a strange text or phone call from Cyndie, beware, it could have come from Emma. Timmy is VERY into sports right now. He loves to watch baseball games and play sports in the yard ... basketball, soccer, and especially baseball. He's very into hitting, and is getting really pretty good. At his first baseball practice, he hit every single of the 15 - 20 pitches that the coach sent his way. It's fun for me that he's turning into a sports maniac like I am. To close this out, I'll relate a quote from Tim the other day. This from when the Royals and Twins were playing (this for you Jane and Dad) ...

"The Twins should start playing soccer because they are so bad at baseball"

Ha, a man after my own heart.

Ahhh ....

I'm sitting on the deck watching a baseball game and listening to the rain with a stomach full of awesome Indian food, hanging with Cyndie. Can't beat that for the end of a fun late-birthday day.

That is all!

"Catch"ing up

Well, we'll start with a little foreshadowing in the title of this blog post. It's been a while (again). There's nothing too unusual to share today. The weather has been great. The kids have been playing a lot of basketball. Cyndie's Clothing Exchange for Charity went very well (45+ women, (I think) $700+ dollars raised for the Agape House Shelter for Girls). She's been busy packing up the left over clothes to donate to the Agape House. I had a school board meeting last night and she cooked dinner for the local homeless shelter. This weekend we're looking forward to a cousins overnight down at the Casparis. Hopefully the weather will be nice, but it looks like it's supposed to be colder and rainy.

So, the leading title to this blog. This morning we're out in the driveway playing basketball as the kids wait for the bus (Emma) and a ride to before school Spanish class (Tim). Pepper runs off behind the house. I'm yelling to him to come back so he doesn't wonder off too far. He comes back 2 or 3 minutes later with something in his mouth (which is not too unusual since he's always picking up sticks and stuff to chew on). Only this time the thing is floppy and there are two legs sticking out of this mouth. So I make him put it down. He's caught a little group squirrel/chipmunk. Of course that makes Emma cry! The think was still twitching a bit. So I congratulated him and brought him in the house, and we dug a hole and had a little funeral for the chipmunk. Exciting times for Pepper!

Yesterday afternoon Emma lost her first canine tooth (her lower, right). It was a little funky because it fell out, but there was still quite a bit of flesh/gum over the incoming tooth that was kind of flopping around and bleeding a bit. She was a little freaked out by that, but it wasn't too bad. She left the tooth fairy a note and asked what her name was. The tooth fairy said it is a secret! She also left a cute t-shirt/skirt outfit.

Awesome, just awesome

Yes, it's currently in the 70s. I'm sitting here on the couch with the windows open, a tank top on, no shoes ... it's beautiful! Auntie Jane and the kids and I were out in the driveway playing basketball at 9am and it was hot enough to get a little sweaty, even though I wasn't working at all hard. We had breakfast outside on the deck too, which was great. As I sit here and write this, Tim and Auntie Jane are playing cards and Cyndie and Emma are off on their first horseback riding lesson. A perfect day for that.

Yesterday was a totally relaxed day. We went to a park over in Fontana with the Gowans, then went their way for lunch (a fun steak meal ... a thank you from them for helping them out with their house when they first got it last fall). It was cool during the morning, with lots of fog. But by the time we got home around 3p, it was in the 60s and lovely. We ended up hanging out on the deck (for the first time of the year) ... me watching a baseball game and Cyndie reading. Then we got a last minute invite for dinner with our friends the Goreckis, so we headed over there to grill burgers. It was fun to be able to stay out "late" ... we left around 9p. The kids are definitely getting older, and can handle the occasional late night with out totally melting down.

So, it's been a great weekend. Hopefully this marks the official start of nice weather. Monday evening, Cyndie has her big clothing exchange, so we've been getting ready for that a bit this weekend too. There should be 40 or so ladies here for that. The kids have been very into basketball lately. Timmy has a basketball camp three days a week (6 - 7p, T/W/Th, last week and this). We also go the new hoop up in the driveway. They're both doing pretty darn well with it, so that's fun.

So, that's it from the beauty of spring in Wisconsin!

Fun Super Bowl Weekend

We had a fun, but very busy weekend! On Friday it was the last Ski day of the season for the kids' school, so Cyndie hit the slopes with them. As always, they had a great time. They've progressed again, and are definitely ready for bigger hills. We've talked about heading to one of the bigger resorts up by Madison, we'll see if that happens.

While Cyndie and the kids hit the slopes, I "finished" up Tim's room. There are still 5 or 10 smaller things to do, but he slept in there Friday night, and most of the "new" things are usable, so that's a relief. I think I'll take this week off from working on it! Cyndie and the kids grabbed some Chinese to surprise me with and we had a picnic in Timmy's room. Then we spent 30 or 45 minutes rock climbing on the new wall. The kids are going to be pretty good with that there to play with. I had to make it harder for them by limiting the holds they were allowed to use! Fun stuff.

Saturday we spent a lot of time getting ready for the big Super Bowl party. Many thanks to my folks for coming over to help clean up (and for all the help in getting some painting done). The kids had birthday party in the afternoon, then we had our Coffee Shop Bible study at Laura and Gow's. After that, the kids stayed at Laura and Gow's and we headed out to a Euchre party at some friends' (like I said, it was a busy weekend). It was a profitable night. For an entry fee of $10 per person, we came away with $105 ($80 for me for getting first place and $25 for Cyndie for getting last)! We're adding that to the kitty for our weekend away at the end of the month.

Sunday was more getting ready for the big party, then church, and the party itself. I think we had around 40 people at the house. We added lights for the skating rink and sled run so that those activities could continue well after dark. We had a chili cookoff. And, of course, the game. It was fun, and thanks to some help from friends, the house really wasn't messy at all after the party!

Now here's to hoping for a quiet week.

Friday ... finally!

Actually, I can't really say "finally" Friday, because this week has, in reality, seemed to go by rather quickly. This morning we had fun at breakfast trying to convince Timmy that it really was Friday.

Tim: What day is this?
Me: Friday ... you have Spanish (before school) today.
Tim: No, it's Wednesday.
Me: I'm pretty sure it's Friday. Tomorrow's the weekend and the Christmas Party (for our Coffee Shop small group at church).
Tim: No, because yesterday was Tuesday.
Me: Okay, it can be Wednesday, but Mommy is still going to drop you off at school for Spanish this morning.

So, there you have it. Maybe we should refer to today as Frinesday. Although there's not much of a ring to that.

Wednesday night (the actual Wednesday, not Frinesday) was family night, so we pulled out White Christmas and watched it for the first time this year. I anticipate we'll get at least one more viewing in over the winter ... perhaps at the DeVries Family Christmas Retreat*.

*I don't believe there is an official name for this joyous event, but this year, rather than trying to cram 17 of us into one of our houses, we're going to go to the camp we all lived at in the 80s in Iowa, and have 4 or so days of family fun. Hopefully we'll be able to toboggan, play volleyball and do the rock climbing wall. We'll definitely play a large game of (adults included) hide and seek. Anyway, it should be a good time.

Last night at the last minute, we decided to go watch a basketball game at Woods. We got there in time for the B team game (I think B team is the 7th graders and A team is the 8th graders). Woods won 32 - 14 (or there abouts). It was rather hilarious. The first stringers were, on average, around 5 - 8 inches taller than their counterparts on the other team (Traver, another K - 8 school on the south side of the lake). They were also a lot better that Traver. If the first stringers would have played the whole game, it would have been more like 50 - 6. Anyway, it was hilarious to watch them. Being in the tiny gym at Woods and watching junior highers made me reminisce about playing basketball in junior high at Pomeroy when we lived in Iowa ... though I think we were quite a bit better than the Woods team (although my memory may just be a bit foggy). Good times.

Let's see, what's going on with the kids these days? Emma is really enjoying reading a lot. We are letting her read for a little bit after we tuck her into bed, so I left her reading last night, and when Cyndie went to get her up this morning, she was reading too. Note, that she did not read through the night. When we checked on her when we went to bed, she was asleep! Timmy is also enjoying reading. Right now we read with him and help him sound out stuff as he needs it. He decided to make a Christmas list the other day (for Santa) and one of the things he put on it were books that he can read all by himself. That's pretty fun!

So there you have it! It's nearly the weekend and we're supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow today and overnight. It's certainly cold enough, so we'll see where we get!

Midweek today!

Yes, it's hump day even though it's only Tuesday. That's a relief since it already feels like vacation. Mostly it's that way because my cousin and her kids are visiting from Minneapolis for a few days. They were over for dinner and hanging out last night, and since our kids were up late, it felt like vacation ... or at least like a weekend!

It has been (again!) a while since I posted. So, no catchup, just a few random things that occur to me as I write:

• Last thursday was the kids' Pilgrim Dinner at school. That was fun. Grandma and Grandpa D were able to attend. Both kids dressed up really nicely.
  
• Over the weekend I constructed the skating rink for this year. I remembered that I have some materials left over from when the house was built that work great to make the sides of the rink. So, due to nice 8 foot sections of that, we have a 32x16 foot skating rink with nice 16 inch sides! After all the rain we got yesterday, it's probably 40% full! I also built the platform for the sled run. Since Papa Lee cleared out so much of the underbrush down the hill from the mound, we'll have a great area to sled.
  
• Yesterday Cyndie and I worked on putting in the steel pole for the basketball hoop. Timmy was a really big help too. He was in charge of getting the water (3/4 of a gallon ... he got it right every time!). We put 320 pounds of concrete on the bottom of the pole, so I think it will hold okay. The weather was great yesterday (or I should say the temperature). It was a near record high of 67 degrees. However, just as we were putting the concrete in the hole, it started to sprinkle. By the time we had all 4 bags in, it was pouring. So part of our effort was to build dams around the hole so that the water running down the driveway toward the concrete would be diverted! Then the weather changed so that I needed to cover the concrete with blankets since the temps are now in the low 30s!
  
• After a really fun and informative Coffee Shop (our church small group) at Laura and Gows, we spent the night. It was really fun and relaxing to hang out and do nothing! We watched Date Night, which was a really good and fun combination of the reality of married life with kids, and comedy.
• On Saturday morning Cyndie did her first 5k. It was at the local state park and many of her friends from the ladies group she's in also ran. She really enjoyed it, and I think will definitely do it again.
  
• On Saturday afternoon Cyndie had her first paid photo shoot. I think it went pretty well. She's learning a lot, that's for sure!
  
• Please pray for Jane Fraser, her kids, and Covenant Point Bible Camp up in the UP (upper pennisula). Covenant Point is a sister camp to Covenant Harbor here in Lake Geneva. Chuck Fraser, the director up at Point died suddenly of a heart attack last week. He was only 59 years old. He was loved by many, and impacted a huge number of people both directly and indirectly. He will be missed by his family, the staff at Point, and the many campers that go through Point. Here's a link to some thoughts on Chuck and his impact for those who may be interested. I went to Point 4 times (3 men's retreats, and for a week of family camp last summer). At the first men's retreat my dad introduced me to Chuck, who my dad has known for many years. As a result of that connection, the following times I'd visit Point, I'd usually have a 5 or so minute conversation with Chuck. Nothing deep, just being friendly. I didn't know Chuck well, but even in the few times I talked to him, I was impressed by his humble demeanor and servant's heart. Covenant Point will be very different without him.
  

This blog is turning ...

700

No, not years old, 700 posts. Yes, this is kind of a boring celebration of the fact, but I don't really have anything horribly interesting to say or commemorate, so this is what you're stuck with. Happy 700th blogday to the Life and Times of the Wildwood DeVries.

In other news, it's Friday. Yea! It seems like this was a long week. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe the on again, off again nature of the truck thing. On that topic, I got it registered this morning, and just sent our insurance guy an email to get started with that portion of vehicle ownership. We also figured out (via a phone call to the previous owner) how to turn off the aftermarket, really sensitive security system which went off multiple times. Hurray! Marking the unofficial start to the weekend, Cyndie just left for her scrappin' *.

*Does scrapping mean that she and Sherri are going to get in a brawl with a rival gang of scrapbooking gals? I'm thinking this could be epic on the scale of the sharks and the jets. Whoohoo, look out. Which makes me wonder, are Sherri, Cyndie and their crew the sharks or the jets?


The kids had their last soccer last night. A friend whose kids also played asked if we were going to do wrestling next. Uh, no. We're both ready for a little break in the weekly commitments. I'm guessing that the next thing will probably be swimming. For now, I want the kids to be free to enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having ... it's supposed to be in the low 80s today, tomorrow, and Sunday ... awesome. Does anyone that lives near Lake Geneva want to go water skiing over the weekend. I'm thinking one more good run would be great!

So, happy birthday blog, you don't look a post over 300.

Beginning the Weekend

Cyndie has a scrapbooking retreat this weekend that she's helping her friend Sherri out with. She'll be gone from Friday morning through Sunday afternoon. So, she's getting ready for that ... baking some muffins, getting all her scrapbooking* stuff together, ordering photos, etc.

*I'm seriously considering starting to use the term scrapping rather than scrapbooking. After typing scrapbooking several times ... that's a long word. Man, but still, scrapping just sounds so dumb, and really isn't that much shorter.

My preparation is going to get some movies to watch. My sister is taking a Friday/Saturday trip, so Gow and I are going to get together to be single dads, and that means after the kids go to bed Friday night, we're queuing up a couple of guy movies. The theme for the evening is cops, so we're going to watch Brooklyn's Finest and Pride and Glory. My part is to go get the movies*

*How lame is this ... we have to head over to Delavan to get anything besides Redbox. The last movie rental store in Lake Geneva closed a couple of months ago!

Tonight is the last soccer practice/game of the year. The kids have done great and really enjoyed it (especially Timmy).

Midweek Bullets ...

How about some midweek bullets (for lack of any "big" things to write about) ...

• Some sports stuff ... the Vikings have re-acquired star receiver (and sometime pain in the butt) Randy Moss. Exciting times for the Vikes who need to get their season rolling.
• Liverpool has been bought (pending approval from the league and some legal details). This is very good. Their current owners are, to put it succinctly, lame.
• The kids had soccer last night and had a great time there.
• We babysat the local cousins last night while Laura and Gow had a date ... both girls were really interested in the gerbils, but didn't quite know what to do with them. Sally wanted to hold them, but everytime one touched here, she'd jump back and be pretty timid. Daisy was very excited by the gerbils, but lacked any finesse, so was restricted to just looking!
• The Excursion is still on hold while we get the DVD situation straightened out. The seller is getting it repaired, and then we'll (I think) go through with the sale.
• Cyndie and I had art class this morning and really enjoyed that. We were both very happy with the paintings that we came up with.
• Tonight is Cyndie's last sailing event of the year. She's really enjoyed that.
• We worked on our budget last night. We're going to try very hard over the winter to really curtail our expenses so that we can pay cash for the new truck (assuming that happens) and still do some of the projects around the house that we want to do.
• The jacuzzi has sprung another leak. We're really getting tired of that. We'll see where we decide to go with that little gem.
  
• It's a beautiful fall day ... I think the temperature readout in the car on the way home from art class said 73. Awesome!
  

So there you have it, some midweek fun.

Crazy Week

Well now, that week didn't go exactly as anticipated. As you may recall, we started the week with a strange Monday where we spent much of the day getting us and the boat back from the weekend up at Green Lake. Well, we've been without the Suburban now for 10 days or so. The shop where we had the transmission warranty is fixing it, though they outsource that work to a different shop, a transmission specialist, down in Illinois. So the Suburban was supposed to be fixed that Friday and being brought back up to Lake Geneva, where we could pick it up on Saturday. That didn't happen. Cyndie talked to "our" (the LG shop) this morning and apparently the "other" shop started driving the truck back up here and something when wrong. I'm not sure what, I'm not sure if Cyndie was told any details, but we're still waiting on that front. A good thing is that we're going to get a loaner car in the interim. It's going to be a Ford Taurus with no power steering ... so Cyndie should get a good workout from that!

Aside from the car dealings, midway through the week my laptop crapped out, so I spent a good portion of Thursday working with the tech guy at work to try to get it moving again, then most of Friday getting my files transferred from the old, non-working machine to a new laptop. Then the rest of the day getting the new one configured and putting software on it, etc. So now I'm up and running again, with a spiffy new laptop. It's got a new operating system on it, Windows 7, so that's both fun, and challenging! So, that's the biggest reason behind not doing any blog posts, my apologies.

The rest of the week was normal ... soccer for the kids, Emma started Girl Scouts (Brownies) for the year. They're already selling girl scout cookies. If you want to buy any, please let me (or Emma) know. If you're at a distance and don't anticipate seeing us soon after the November 8 (I think) receive date for the cookies, you can also participate by buying boxes of cookies that will be donated to a local food pantry. Timmy is very much enjoying practicing soccer at home. We have a goal set up that we gave him for Christmas last year. He digs doing drills and shooting into the net. Lately he's been very into being a goalie. He loves to dive after the ball.

Over the weekend my Auntie Diane and Uncle John (whose cabin near Kansas City we've gone to multiple times) stopped through. It was fun to see them and head out on the lake with them for a late afternoon. Uncle John is a "car guy", so he went with us to look at a Ford Excursion we were interested in. Which leads us too ...

We started looking for a Suburban replacement. Before the transmission went out, we were thinking we'd have a year or two before we'd have to replace it. However, this event got us thinking that we should start looking around to at least see what's out there. We have, we think pending a final, successful return of the Suburban, some time to shop and get a good deal. We're looking for a truck that can easily pull the boat (we think the Suburban may be a bit underpowered to handle the boat) and something that we can, at least, fit our family into, but preferably a 7 or 8 seater. So we went to see this Excursion that was for sale by a private party near the kids' school. It was a good deal in theory, but the truck was not in good shape. It had been in an accident (replaced headlight and fenders, chassis welds, etc), had some rust that had been painted over, the transmission didn't feel right (lots of hesitation in shifting, really high revving), and the oil was REALLY dirty. So we didn't jump at that. Obviously. But yesterday I drove over to Janesville to look at another Excursion. As bad as that first one was, this one was great. The Excursion is built on a Ford F250 chassis, so it's got a good starting basis to tow the boat. This one has a 6.8 liter V10, plenty to pull the boat. It also has a Banks Power system which is an exhaust system add-on which increases the power of the engine. It rides really nice, has been well taken care of, has some nice add-ons (like a DVD player), and, most importantly, is a pretty nice deal. it's around $3000 less and blue book (for a private party seller). So we made an offer, and it was accepted. Now we're dealing with the bank and getting enough cash to make the deal. Right now, maybe because it's early in the week, the local bank doesn't have enough cash for us. I may need to end up getting a bank check or something like that to pay the guy (and asking him if he'll accept that). Fun times.

Oh, and another new toy is coming today. Emma has been saving her money and doing extra chores all summer in order to get a gerbil. I'm not sure what got that into her head, but she's been very persistent. She's managed to save $42.16. So starting around a month and a half ago, she and Cyndie started checking Craigslist and ebay and the newspapers, for cages/aquariums and accessories. Well, yesterday they found someone up in Milwaukee (not too far from my office) who is selling 3 gerbils and all the accessories. She was asking $80, but Emma emailed and told her about herself and that she'd been saving all summer and got a reply along the lines of "awwwww, of course I'll take that =)".* So needless to say, Emma is VERY excited for those gerbils to arrive and become a part of her room.

*Those extra w's and the smiley face where part of the e-mail, I didn't even have to add them for emphasis.

So, there you go, our week begins with some new excitement!

Well, that didn't go exactly as planned!

We're back from our weekend in Green Lake. This was the second half of a home exchange that was non-similtaneous ... they were at our house over the 4th of July weekend while we were at a family reunion. This house is right on a big lake in central Wisconsin. It was a beautiful house! But more on that later ...

The weekend started normally. We picked up the kids at school at around noontime and started the drive. Yes, I said started the drive. We didn't actually finish it, though we did complete around 98% of the needed 131 or so miles. We stopped to get gas for the boat a few minutes before we were to arrive. When we left the gas station, we went up a fairly steep grade. Smoke started coming out from under the hood. We stopped (duh), and investigate. There was some smoke coming from a small reservoir that had popped open on one side. So we closed that up and kept going. We missed a turn off (no street sign ... thanks Google Maps), and after we turned around, the truck seemed to be starting to lack power. So we tried a little more and then stopped as it became obvious we were not going to be able to pull the boat up the grade in front of us. Enter AAA. We got towed (suburban AND boat) to the lake house. The tow truck left us and the boat there and towed the suburban to a shop. We later found out that the transmission was shot. Now the "Yeah Cyndie" part. When we had the transmission replaced a year and a half ago, she shopped around a bunch to find a place with a good price and a long warrantee. The place we used offered a 3 year/36k miles warrantee. It's been about a year and a half and something like 15k miles! So, it's under warrantee. We had the truck towed down to Lake Geneva on Sunday, and now we're dealing with that shop. We think they'll try to wiggle their way out from under the full repair, but that's not going to happen. It's clearly under warrantee, Cyndie had just checked all the fluid levels before we left on the trip, and we checked again after the "smoking" incident, and the shop that took a look up in Green Lake said that the transmission was not done well. Soooo, hopefully this is just a bump in the road and we'll be back and working sooner rather than later.

On the vacation side, it was a lot of fun. Our friends, the Goreckis, came up with us. The house was a 6 bedroom, 6 1/2 bath house with a media room, foosball (Timmy's favorite) and pool, a spa, and beautiful views. We cruised on the boat (thanks to Cyndie going over to the neighbors and asking if we could use their truck!), including driving into town on the boat to have dinner Sunday night. The neighbor boy was the same age as Kahlib (7th grade), so they played a lot and did a pretty good job of including Timmy. They played a lot of football, and Timmy loved to tackle! Emma enjoyed the spa, though she wasn't feeling 100% the whole weekend.

Monday morning Cyndie left with the Goreckis to drive home and then borrow another friend's truck, drove back, and then back home with us and the boat. I worked in the morning and early afternoon. We got back home around 6:30, and went straight to the Williams Bay boat launch to put the boat back out on the buoy. Then home to unload our junk, then over to the drop the truck at the friend's house ... whew, it was a long day!!!

All in all, it was an adventurous weekend, and a memorable one. Hopefully we'll end up with very little out of pocket on this, and have a good transmission in a week or so.