Nuggets from today

A few blurbs on what's happening around the DeVries household lately ...

• Cyndie and I are working on our final paintings for our art class ... hoping to finish them in time for the Friday/Saturday art show. I'm working on a painting of Emma and Timmy and Cyndie is working on a Christmas card-esque painting.
• We have swim class, Timmy this morning and Emma tomorrow afternoon.
• The kids were all excited this morning when their new box of Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats had a free blanket offer. Upon finding out that we needed eight "tokens" (one per box) Emma promptly asked Cyndie to go buy seven more boxes (good math Ems).
• Dad was over yesterday working on cutting some more dead trees down. There's a lot still to go, so we'll see how far we get before the snow comes. Cyndie's planning on burning some more scrap wood (small branches) today.
• Timmy's thrilling discovery today ... the sweats that he put on this morning have zippers that turn them into shorts. Now he wants to wear them to school tomorrow for show and tell!
• Big events for the evening ... Bible study for Cyndie and bowling for me.
  

Back

So here we are, back from our weekend away and abruptly into the swing of a pretty busy week.

We had a really good time with Andersons and Fords at our weekend away. The area, Galena, IL, is very pretty. Lots of hills and woods interspersed with the farms. The town itself reminded us of Eureka Springs, AR, built into a little valley and very quaint. Aside from a trip to a park on Saturday, we mostly just hung out. The kids were a good mix of ages to play well together and largely allowed the adults to hang out, play games (board games, ping pong, darts), play guitar, and relax. The murder mystery was pretty fun. It turns out that Rico "done it" ... although he accidentally killed the victim ... accidentally because he was trying to kill me!! Oh the horrors!

Anyway, we left Monday morning first thing and got back in time for Cyndie to do her lunch recess duty at school. Then we went and had our last (for the fall session) art class. This weekend is the big art show, so we'll help with that.

So that's the story!

Running out the door

We should have a pretty short day today. By that I mean I'll work this morning and Cyndie will straighten up the house a bit and get some things packed, and then we'll hit the road around noon to head out to our long weekend/vacation. We've very excited. Initially we were planning on leaving in the evening because there was a church event that we wanted to support occurring over dinner tonight. However, that event was canceled, so now we're headed out earlier, which is great because it will give the kids a chance to settle before bed time, and we'll have a normal bedtime hour too.

The big excitement for the weekend will be the Saturday evening murder mystery that we're going to do. It's an Italian/mafia-esque theme. Here's the summary and Cyndie and I's characters:

Passion, Pasta and Pistols

Four days ago restauranteur Giuseppe (Pepi) Roni was found murdered in the kitchen of his renowned New York City eatery, La Sperenza. Pepi had been shot in the back with his own pistol. Tonight, his family and friends have gathered to pay their respects to poor Pepi and two eat a feast of Italian food in his honor. One of them is a murderer.

THE SUSPECTS ARE:

Rocco Scarfazzi (Neal): Pepi's twin brother, a tough talking no-nonsense Italian businessman. In addition to his vineyards and real estate holdings, it is rumored Rocco is in the 'laundering' business. He had no love for his brother Pepi, but his reasons are his own… capische?

Costume suggestion: black three-piece suit, white shirt and black hat and cane. Limousine optional.

Tara Misu (Cyndie): Kara is Rocco's vivacious young fiancée. She was just an upstairs maid in Rocco's villa until she swept him off his feet. Now Tara keeps a smile on his face and a firm grip on Rocco's assets.

Costume suggestion: Kara is dressed to kill. She knows the effect she has on men and flaunts her charms shamelessly.

There are four other characters too. We'll let you know if either of us "done it" when we return.

Bragging!!

So we had our parent/teacher conference for Emma last night and came away feeling very proud of our little girl. Her teacher, Mrs. Hintz, had only good things to say about Emma, and on all levels. She tried hard and does well in all subjects, socially, in PE, art, music, etc. Said she was a leader of the class and has a really good attitude. One thing that we were especially proud of was when Mrs. Hintz said that Emma was especially kind and helpful with Tiana. Tiana is an autistic girl in the class. We've had other parents tell us that Mrs. Hintz doesn't mince words ... she'll tell it like it is, so we figure we got a pretty good image of Emma in school.

So there's your Friday morning bragging from a proud parent!

Recovery

Though Cyndie is not 100% recovered (we'll put the number at 95%), it is amazing what a day of sleeping and not chasing kids will do for you. Big thanks to Mom and Dad for helping out on the kid front to let Cyndie get that much needed rest.

The kids went to Grandma and Grandpa's for an "R" party yesterday. They wore red, ate food that started with "R" (roast, red jello with raspberries), played "R" games, drew pictures of "R" things, and basically had a "R"ockin good time.

Cyndie slept much of the day, and still went to bed by 8:30. She's feeling pretty much better today.

I had bowling last night. We had our new bowling team shirts (go Ham Fighters go!), and it was also the first night for my new bowling shoes. It was a fun night. As there are only 7 teams in the league, we ended up playing the "vacant team" meaning we were playing against the league average. We all played pretty well, so ended up sweeping the points, yeah! It must have been the styling new shirts!

Today is pretty busy ... I'm going in to the office for a couple of meetings. Cyndie is going to a place called Agape House for a tour. It's a home for women that have had troubles in life. She's going with some friends to drop off some clothes and to give them the money they raised during the garage sale thing she hosted a few weeks ago. Emma has a half day of school, then we have parent teacher conference tonight.

Ready, set, go!

Feeling like Three Week Old Leftovers ... not great

So today is a blah day for the DeVries. Cyndie is not feeling very well. She started feeling bad late afternoon yesterday, but had the "Christmas Extravaganza" last night that she needed to go to, so was pretty pooped and not feeling well by the time she got home around 10 pm. This morning she's been asleep since about 7:30 (it's now 10:20). Hopefully she'll feel better after a day of rest today so that we can all go on our weekend outing with Eric and Cherith and Rico and Julie this weekend.

Timmy just left with Grandpa to hang out at their house for a while so that I can get some uninterrupted work done ... thanks Mom andDad!

After all the rain yesterday it's quite a bit warmer today. It's currently in the mid 40s, so maybe we'll even reach 50 if the sun comes out.

Tuesday Transition

It's Tuesday and that means that the fun weekend visit with Lee is drawing to and end. We've mostly just hung out and relaxed, but we've had a really nice visit, so we're bummed that he's leaving. If there's a bright spot, it's that maybe he'll take a bit of the cold weather with him!

He flies out in the late afternoon, so Cyndie and Timmy will drop him off at the airport, and then Cyndie will head over to her Christmas Extravaganza thing she's doing through MOPS. She's doing a booth for her company and she's also selling some purses that are made by ladies from a women's shelter in Thailand which is run by some missionaries affiliated with our church.

Thinking about it, it will be a busy week for us, especially in the evenings. Cyndie has that thing tonight. Tomorrow night she has Bible study and then after that I have bowling. Then Thursday night we have a parent/teacher conference for Emma and then she has her Thursday evening women's group. Then Friday we have a young families thing for church and then we're going to drive down to Galena, IL to spend the weekend with some friends from church at their family vacation home. It'll be busy, but fun too I think.

On the weather front, we've definitely turned for the colder. The highs are now in the high 30s and maybe low 40s. This morning there was a heavy frost on the ground.

One very good thing to report is that Timmy slept through the night last night. We put him to bed at about 6:30 and he didn't get up until 7:15 or so. He needed a good night's sleep!