Rain Day

We experienced something on Monday that I have never experienced before. The kids were out of school for a RAIN day. I remember the fun of looking out at huge piles of snow and hoping that school would be canceled for a snow day, and joy-of-joys, sometimes it was. But here, after 3 straight days of pouring down rain, there were so many roads inoperable from waist deep puddles in some areas that buses were unable to get to many locations. Our area was okay and we would have been able to get to school easily, so we just reaped the rewards of those less fortunate this time.

Mornings With Ellie

 

 

 

 

I'm loving our school schedule here. Big girls out of the house at 6:45 (a little early, but they're handling it just fine), Lauren doesn't leave until 8:20, I have plenty of time to get her up and going, maybe finish a little homework or reading, and then Ellie leaves at 12:15 for afternoon kindergarten. Everyone actually gets their hair done and has time to put together a decent looking outfit for school. I'm loving it. My kids used to go to school looking so disheveled. I just couldn't seem to get them all ready and out the door at 7:30. I think that one-on-one time with Lauren is the key here. She needs my constant help in the mornings. Bless her little heart, she just doesn't like to get up in the morning.

Happy Birthday Maddie!

 

The city, top of Sears Tower, double-decker bus city tour, Millenium Park, crown fountain, the bean, Maddie's choice of restaurant-Pizano's, chocolate cake (no frosting, just redi-whip from the can), cash only please, twilight inspired bracelet from Mom, and our ward finally has a Mia Maid.

We love you Dennis

On Friday night we had VIP tickets to Naperville's Last Fling party with the big entertainment of the evening being Dennis DeYoung and the music of Stxy (which was really just his new local band that plays all the old Styx songs). My kids are the latest and greatest fans of Styx. Here's why:
While driving from Sacramento to Utah through the mountains and deserts where you have no radio reception you are forced to listen to CD's in your car (because we don't have any ipod/car hook-ups). And since everything got packed away before I thought to grab any out, we were left with whatever happened to be in the car. And the choices were. . .The GO-Go's, Buddy Holly, Harry Connick Jr. in the Pajama Game, primary songs, Kelly Clarkson, James Blunt, Grease soundtrack, Pure 70's and Styx. Yes, I'm a nerd. Well, we listened to the Go-Go's and Kelly and then someone picked Styx. Once it was in it didn't come out. In fact, I think it's still in and my kids have memorized every word of every song.
The weird part is that they were in Logan on the 4th of July and we wanted to go, but didn't quite get it together. We were all so sad because we really felt like we had prepared ourselves quite well for that opportunity; almost like they were there just for us----and then we missed it. So when it came around this time, we were so excited. Everyone was loving it that my kids could sing every word.
So here are some interesting facts about Dennis that I learned at the concert.
1. He is 61 and still rocks the house. Seriously, he looks great.
2. He drove to the concert because he lives about 25 min. away from Naperville (pretty close to us).
3. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and has been married for 38 years. They got together when he was 17 and she was 15. She was there. She sings back-up for him now.

Ellie's favorite song is Mr. Roboto and he had the mask at the concert. She was thrilled.
I really need to carry my camera with me more. I'm sad that I didn't get any pictures of this great night.

First Day of School

The faces say it all!

This is the best smile we got for the day. She had just had immunizations the day before. She really wasn't feeling like going to school. Then, for the first few days she would cry and run from the bus. She's doing fine now though. I didn't realize what a mama's girl she had become.

And the backpacks!!!!

We love you Bill

Here's a story. It started last year at about this time on one of our many trips to Disneyland. I don't remember exactly how this happened, but Richard and I were there alone (or maybe the little kids were with Richard's bigger kids or something). Anyway, the park was REALLY crowded and over there by the Pirates of the Carribean ride (where it gets really thick with crowds) we saw this face that we instantly knew. So we stopped there for a few minutes trying to figure out how we knew him. We were racking our brains, "Do we know him from church?" "Did we do an event with him?" "Did I go to school with him?" "We both know him, so it's been fairly recent." "What if he recognized us? It would be rude not to say HI."
Okay, we stood there for at least 10 min. thinking about it. Finally Richard says, "Oh my gosh, we are idiots. It's Bill Rancic from the Trump show, Apprentice." We stood there and laughed at ourselves for the longest time and would laugh every time we thought about it for the next month.
Well, the story has come full circle. We went to a fancy event in downtown Chicago that was to promote a new magazine for small businesses and he was the keynote speaker. He was great and told about his amazing successes. It was a fairly small gathering so we had a chance to talk to him personally and we told him the story. He was so sweet. He said that we should have said HI anyway. He was there for his nephew's birthday. Of course, Richard had the crowd laughing along with us. It was such great closure to that funny day.

Portland Family Reunion

Almost as soon as the girls got here I left for Portland for a great family reunion. We stayed at my brother, Weston's house for most of the time. Highlights include: the Silver Falls hike and picnic, singing with my family for sacrament meeting (a choir of about 20 family members and one of the best I've been in for a while), seeing the relief society applaud my mother when she introduced herself (I have no idea how they all knew she was the greatest women in the room), and playing Guitar Hero for as long as I could drag it away from my nephews. I never knew it was so much fun--and yes, I ROCK! It kept telling me so. (BTW fam--I know you were all taking pictures of me. Did any of you get some that you could send to me?)