With no adult supervision...

Amy and the girls are on a Mommy/daughter trip to the Carolinas this week.

I am not.

Therfore, there is no one here to keep me in line. Oh, I will be plenty busy as the week goes on. There are several work commitments that will keep me busy on my two days off, and it is the busiest week of the year for our squad. But today I sneaked (is sneaked a word?) in a long bike ride before I have to slave over a hot keyboard tonight.

The Red Ryder and I took off southbound for a 170 mile round trip to Starved Rock State Park along the Illinois River near Ottawa.

This is along Il Route 71 near the park.

Entrance along Rt71

Near the campground and St. Louis Canyon

Weird perspective, I had to put the camera on the ground.

The Red Ryder, aka 2007 Heritage Softail Classic along the Illinois River near the Rt. 23 bridge.

I believe my ladies will manage to have a good time even without me. They are staying on Myrtle Beach with cousins for the next few days. Then back to Charlotte to enjoy the beautiful pool....I even managed to vacuum today(in case Amy sees this).

A new baby in the family

Megan and Nick had Alessandra Marina on 062309 at 9:11 pm, 6lbs 7 ozs, 19 1/2 inches long and so beautiful. God is so good. She is a blessing. will post pictures when I get them downloaded.

Em, Jor and I are leaving for North Carolina tomorrow morning, 3 days in Myrtle Beach and 4 days in Charlotte. We can't wait to see everyone and spend some family time with cousins. Please be praying for safe travel for the girls and I. We are driving straight through there and home.

In his Service

Movin' on up!

After several weeks of simultaneously working on her 4th and 5th grade math, Em earned a 98% on her 4th grade final exam. How cool is that? Way to go!

This morning she was working on metric measurements of fluid and converting from standard and metric and back.

Jori, or Madison as she is known today, has started work on division and continues her work with mixed fractions.

All this with the music of big thunderstorms going on outside. What a good day today.

Finally we got out for a ride

Between the weather and our opposite schedules we haven't been able to get out and ride. Finally tonight with the help of a last minute sitter we got out for a couple hours. The night was perfect, no need for jackets.

My day at the office was better than your day at the office.

A day of gardening

We spend the morning gardening at our cooperative garden, then came home and worked on landscaping around the house. Did I mention it is actually warm today, as if summer might be considering coming to northern IL. unfortunately it is supposed to rain the rest of the week. Figures, so one summery day, that was it. And everyone wonders why I want to move to a warm climate???
It was nice to spend the afternoon with Jim working on the outside of the house, we rarely get to do that with our opposite schedules. We took full advantage and got gutters cleaned, bushes trimmed, ivy cut back, etc etc etc.....
Now on to work................

And once again

We are headed to North Carolina, this time it is just the girls and I. Jim is stuck at home due to work. We are heading down the week of the 4th. The girls are looking forward to it, as are cousins. I will keep Jori away from all ceiling fans this time. We will take the drive nice and leisurely as I will be the only driver. Jim is convinced I am going to hate driving that far and has even talked about flying down to drive back up with us. Hopefully it is no big deal.
We are also loooking into a Dauphin Island trip again this fall. Hopefully that will work out as well.
On the homefront, the weather finally cleared up somewhat, the girls are finally outside playing and the sun came out. It has been gray and rainy here for a few days and the temp is pretty chilly. Not summery at all. The girls have decided it is good school weather. We would rather be outside when it is warm and sunny.


Blessings....................

Busy Monday

And it started out with oversleeping. Maddy(our old dog) leaned up against the power strip my alarm clock was plugged into and turned it off, effectively turning off my clock. so myself and the girls slept until 9am. Lovely, thankfully we didn't have to be at the dentist until 10:30 for Jori to get her molars sealed. No harm no foul I suppose. And it did feel nice to sleep in! Off to the dentist we went, off to the library after that, then to the grocery store, home, make lunch, cut the lawn and off to work by 3pm. Wow, no wonder I am exhausted today! Unfortunately we didn't get much school done. Again, no harm no foul. We are way ahead anyway.....

Blessings for a great and hopefully summer weather like week....

Is it summer yet? Will it ever be summer?

Soccer season is winding down. Both Em and Jori have their final games this Saturday, at the same time of course, so we will split and each take one.
The weather has been crazy, warm for a few hours, gets chilly, warm again and back to chilly. We are getting tired of endlessly changing our clothes from warm weather to cold weather, Jori doesn't mind it, she would change her clothes 20 times a day if I let her.
We had an appliance breakdown in our house, first the washing machine, as soon as Jim got it going again, the dryer stopped working. He was able to fix it last night. Yeah, I am so grateful to have a hubby that can fix things. What a blessing he is.
We have wound down to a summer schedule for school, we usually take Fridays off to garden, and we try to shorten the rest of the weekdays to maximize outside time, that is when it is warm out, last week was beautiful, so far this week, not so great, hopefully the rest of the week will bring warmer weather.
We are patiently awaiting the arrival of Meg's baby, can't wait to meet the little one, and we plan on spending a lot of time helping Mama out so she can get some rest. Will post as soon as baby arrives, she is due July 3rd.

Blessings for a wonderful week.......