Birthday, Anniversary, and Father's Day...OH MY!!

The beginning of June is always busy for us. First we have my birthday, then our anniversary and then Father's Day.

Birthday...On June 5th I turned 31! I know that it's not old, in fact it's not even close to old. However, it is an age that I can remember thinking was old when I was younger. Anything over 30 sounded old to me and now I am not just 30 I am officially over 30! I spent my birthday where else but the baseball field for one of Joey's games. After the game we went to get some ice cream at a little place I love in Rockton. All in all it was a nice day.

Anniversary...On June 14th Phil and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. We actually didn't have a lot of time in the schedule to celebrate because Jimmy had a tournament game all day and that night we had to go to a Quinceanera for someone at Phil's work. Earlier in the day though I went down in the basement and read all of the cards that had been given to us on that day, we looked at our wedding photos, and I watched a little bit of the video. It is amazing what 11 years has done to both of us. At the wedding I had just turned twenty 9 days earlier, I was a size 8, I had red hair, and I truly believed that it was impossible to be more in love with Phil than I was that day at the alter. At the wedding Phil was only 21, weighed in at 185 lbs, and had every hair on his head! Well today we are older, neither of us is close to the weight we were, I have gone back to my roots with mousy brown hair while he has lost quite a few of his hairs, and life has thrown us some twists and turns that at 20 and 21 we just didn't see coming. I have also beat the impossible because I do love him more than I did that day. Yes on that day he was young and looking good but something is to be said about taking the twists and turns of life and staying by each other's sides. Truth be told we have had many more happy times than hard times, but the hard times have been there. Either of us could have jumped ship and said it was just too hard, but we haven't. I love him for that! So, as we have changed on the outside our hearts have changed too because we are more in love today than we were 11 years ago. Here's to the next 11 and beyond!

Father's Day... June 15th was Father's Day. The boys and I took Phil to a Rockford Riverhawks game. Father's were allowed to take their children out on the field for a half hour and play catch before the game started. Then we watched the Riverhawks barely win in the 9th inning 9/8. After the game Father's got to run the bases with their children. Phil and the boys really loved playing catch and running the bases out on the field. We love going to those games because the players are so cool too. They were really good with all of the kids there signing ball and mitts and just talking to the kids. When we got home we watched National Treasure 2 and ate some Ice Cream. It was a nice relaxing day for all of us especially Phil for whom nice relaxing days are far and few between. I hope that all of the wonderful father's out there had just as nice of days with their families!!


My scanner isn't working great but here are a few pictures of us 11 years ago...





Until next time.... Later Gators!

Zoo Madness and the end of another school year!!

Ok, get the tune ready...

SCHOOOOOOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER! SCHOOOOOOOLS OUT FOR SUMMER!

The boys are now officially in 5th and 7th grade! WoW! Now we can do what we love, stay up late and sleep in the next day!! No more, "Do you have homework?" "Let me check your take home folder", "How many AR points do you have?" ect. ect.! Woo Hoo!!

Now on to Zoo madness...

Yesterday I went on the Fourth Grade field trip to Madison Zoo with Jimmy's class. Since I had worked in the school just last year and because I know Jimmy's teacher so well, she felt comfortable putting the, shall we say, "naughty" boy in my group. I know this boy from last year and I know his background story so I know what discipline to use and when it is necessary! To give a little background he has not had a good childhood. Both parents have been in and out of prison for very bad crimes and he is currently living with his grandmother because they are there again!! The many tragedies of his childhood have turned him into a perpetual liar and a boy that likes to run away, just to name a few traits. Well, I knew all of that so I was more than ready, so I thought!

We arrived at the zoo and started off to see whatever animals the 5 boys wanted to see. Every single place we went he would do his very best to try and get away from me. I ended up having my hand on his shoulder most of the morning until he started to wiggle away from even that. At that point I told him that if he got more than 6 feet away from our group in a crowd I was going to hold his hand the rest of the day. Guess what, within 2 minutes he became my hand buddy!! Also , during this whole time he was telling me what a mean helper I was because I wouldn't buy him ice cream, pop, or toys at the store.

Towards the end of the day we had seen all of the animals and the boys wanted to play at the new playground. There is a 3 foot entrance / exit to the playground so I felt safe letting all 5 boys go in and play without me holding any more hands. I then sat myself right in front of the entrance with my eyes watching everyone that went in or out. I was doing that until a huge group of students came rushing in at the same time and for about 10 seconds I couldn't see the whole gate. I got a bad feeling about this so I called Jimmy over and told him to find our group of 5 so that I could do a head count. Well, you guessed it, four of them were in front of me almost immediately and the one boy was GONE!! I screamed his name a couple of times and when he couldn't be found I called the teacher and the other moms that were with us. Lucky for me the teacher was standing right near the other teachers, a few bus drivers, and some of the other parents! Everyone scattered and went looking for him. After what felt like forever, but according to my outgoing and incoming calls on the cell phone was only four minutes, he was found begging a vendor for some free ice cream.

I had held myself together for the entire time that we were looking for him but once we found him I just started to cry! Not a bawl, but a cry of fear and relief!! That was so scary to think that I had lost a child that I was responsible for. When he was asked why he did that he at first told the teacher that I had said it was ok to leave. He then said that another parent told him to go with her. He finally admitted that he saw the group of kids running in and snuck past them. I was feeling so horrible but the teachers assured me that it was not my fault and that it had happened on the last field trip to the actual teacher. Who would have thought that he would sneak away even with me sitting there watching like that.

After I got over the feeling of relief I was feeling ANGRY. I was so pissed off at this kid who had the nerve to act this way when people were just trying to be kind to him and help him to have a good day. Then I had to have a little chat with myself and remind myself that I have no idea what it would be like to have lived his life. I had to remind myself to just be grateful that my boys are not like this and to think of his poor grandmother who has had this put upon her to deal with. I also reminded myself that Jimmy's poor teacher, and my friend, had been putting up with this B.S. all year long and I only had to deal with it for the day! That made me feel better.

When I got to school today to help run the fourth grade picnic lunch and ice cream social a friend of mine and a fellow chaperone at the zoo gave me the funniest card and a Dove candy bar. (my fav!) On the front is a hand and it says wave this card back and forth. Then you open it up and it says "This is me waving hello!" She had scratched out the word hello and written, "This is me waving... I found John Doe*" We passed the card around to all of the other teachers and moms that had been on the "hunt" and everyone had a pretty good laugh about it. Then as we were serving ice cream he came up to me, put his bowl in front of my face and said, "Whip me!" He was of course demanding whip cream but all of the moms started laughing and one told him, "You better watch it, she might actually WHIP YOU!" He totally didn't get it and just walked away!!

Alas, that day is behind us and the school year is now done. Yet another year gone by so quickly. Fifth grade is going to be Jimmy's last year of elementary school, the first year that he goes trick or treating alone, his first overnight field trip with the school, and more than likely the last year he will want me "hanging around" as his room mom! For Joey seventh grade will mean that he is half way through middle school, he will finally get the cell phone he has been begging for, he will join even more clubs & be home even less, and this is the year that he turns 13. To quote Scarlett O'Hara "I won't think about that right now, I will think about that tomorrow." For now I will just enjoy the benefits of summer; our time together with family, the warm weather, picnics, bike rides, baseball, and so much more. I hope that all of you do too. Happy Summer.

*Name was changed to protect the "innocent" :)

Summer is almost here!

Hello everyone! I know that I haven't been on here in a while. Here's what's been happening...

Phil...
Most of you know that Phil has an online radio show that he does. He does a really good job and loves it. Well, on Monday night he got a chance to interview a real TV celebrity. He talked to one of the captains from the Discovery show The Deadliest Catch!! It was the captain that brought his wife along with him on his ship and ended up losing a bet to her. He talked to them for 2 hours on his show and was able to get answers to many questions that we had. It was so fun and I was so proud of him. Thank you to those of you that tuned in! This Friday he and Ben are going to NY to stay in a Haunted Hotel. He is going to do a show on Saturday night while they are on an investigation. It will be like having a TAPS show on the radio. If you are interested I will send you a link so that you can tune it.

Me...
I have had the last couple of weeks off which has been awesome! I really got to relax my brain and now I feel ready for my summer math class.! Hip, Hip, Hurray!! Besides resting and getting the house in some order I have been up at the schools doing end of the year things. Phil and I were just up there in fact for Jimmy's field day. I will post some pictures of that some time soon. Also I have been out at the ball field four nights a week. (2 nights each)

Joe...
Last Friday Joe went on a field trip with the band. They started at Johnsburg High School for a competition and then went on to Great America. His school scored a superior at the competition which is the highest score available. When I picked him up at 9 that night he was exhausted but couldn't stop talking about what a great time he had. The first thing he said when he got in the car was that it was awesome because they spent the whole day without any adults!! He said that he went on every ride except for the Raging Bull. The place was so empty that when a couple of rides ended they got to stay in their seats and go again because no one was in line for their seats. He is enjoying baseball. Right now his team is 3/4. Not too bad since last year this same team took last place!!

Jim...
Praise the Lord, he finally got his hair cut! It is nice and short with spiked up bangs. The best thing about it is that I didn't force him to do it. On the way home from one of his games he asked me if I would take him to get his hair cut because the catchers mask kept pulling his hair. I didn't hesitate in saying YES!! The next day as soon as he got off of the bus I was sitting in the van ready to go. He said that he is loving the short hair again! Jim is VERY ready for summer, we all know that he is just not a school kid. He is having an awesome season of baseball. So far his team is undefeated!

Misc...
Phil and Joe planted some new trees in our backyard the other day. If you remember our backyard it is very empty because we used to have the pool and we didn't want leaves and things in there. Now that we took the pool down we felt like we needed something out there. We chose two baby maple trees and truth be told when they finally fill out and look just right, we'll be downsizing! That's ok though because Phil and Joe had a fun time planting them and you can't take back memories like that. Also so far Joe has been quite the gardener out there everyday with the hose, so maybe he found another hobby!!

The boys are done with school on June 3rd and I can't wait! I just love it when we are all off and we can stay up late together or go places during the day!

T.G.I.F.

Man, what a long week it has been.

I had 3 of my 4 finals which all of you know is very draining. On top of that I had so much to do with the boys and it was Phil's long week at work. It was Teacher Appreciation week at the school and I am a room mom and the secretary of the Booster Club so I had a lot to do. Pretty much everyday this week I have been in the school doing something for the teachers. It started at the beginning of the week presenting gifts and serving food and it ended today when I was at Joey's school from 11-1:30 helping the 6th graders make their Tye-Dyed shirts for their field trip and field day!

On top of everything at the school baseball season started. That means that I am out at the ball field 4 nights a week from now through the end of July. The early games run from 5-7:30 which puts us home close to 8. We had one late game this week that didn't even start until 7:45. Try waking up 2 boys the next day who, like their mother, require a certain amount of sleep. All three of us were very crabby....NOT FUN!!

A couple of stats for you...Joey's team started out rough on Tuesday losing the first game but they came back strong on Thursday winning by a huge lead. Jimmy's team won their Monday and Wednesday games so he is a very happy boy.

I love doing all of these things and given the choice I would just do the "mom" things at the school. However, that is not the case and this week I had to squeeze all of that in with some major studying!! Well, I did it and I just have my Psychology test left on Tuesday which is not cumulative so I am not as worried. I wish that I could say I would be on summer break after that but that's not the case. I have three weeks off and then I am taking a summer math class. God help me and my poor family because math is hard enough for me in 14 weeks to do it in 7 is going to be really hard. I will muddle through though!

So, my long week is over, I have given Jimmy and his friends strict instructions and bed times and I am headed off to bed where I hopefully will not wake up until around 9 am.

P.S. Huge props to Uncle Jim on his amazing ride! I have told everyone that would listen to me talk about it, truly amazing!!

I'm on my way and so is Ray!!

I met with one of the Rock Valley College counselors today to see exactly where I am in this long process. He had good news for me. If I take a summer class, five classes in the fall, and then five in the spring I will have my associates degree this time next year! It is worth it for me to take the heavier load of five classes and be done in May 2009 instead of December of 2009 because when it gets down to it I just want to be done with school and have a college degree in my hand!!

Speaking of college degrees my brother is graduating this Saturday. He is the first member of our immediate family to graduate college. For those of you that don't know he already has a job lined up, teaching History at Gage High School in Chicago. He has been there since last fall doing his observation and student teaching and they want him so badly that they told him not to even bother going to any job fairs or interviews. He was also their wrestling coach this year and was able to get a bunch of the boys to state for the first time! It is really wonderful to see him so fulfilled with his career. It was a long, hard road for him from Afghanistan to here and we are all very proud of him. So, think of him on Saturday and I will post pictures of our roof top party later. Way to go, Ray!!

Blue Man!!

I had plans to go and see the Blue Man Concert with my friend Lynne, her daughter Courtney, and Courtney's friend on Sunday. At the last minute Courtney's friend was not able to go and they called and offered the ticket to Joey. He actually was a little hesitant because he was out in the yard playing football and didn't want to have to leave his friends and come in for a shower. I pulled up a clip on youtube to show him what it was and that it was in fact worth missing the neighborhood game for one day!! He relented and went to get ready.

The show started at 7:30 and we were still stuck in traffic at 7:25. The crappy thing was that we were stuck right in front of the Metro Centre. There we were starring at the big orange building knowing that we should be in there. I was so mad! It ended up that more than 1/2 of the people were in the same situation because they had closed the parking garage and parking in downtown Rockford is not easy. We were very lucky and we found an empty parking lot about 5 blocks away. We got out and ran to the Metro as fast as we could. Not easy to do when you are wearing flip-flops like me and Courtney.

Well, we were late but luckily we were only missing the opening act which from what I did see, was not a big deal to miss. It was just some guy scratching records!

The show finally did start about 8:00 and it was well worth all of the craziness!! If you have not seen a Blue Man Group show I am not really sure how to explain it to you. It was fascinating. There was an unbelievable light show, rock music with lyrics that were really meaningful, and lots of comedy. I had never seen them perform before and I went in thinking that it was some men painted blue that would bang on PVC pipes and make music. That was going to be interesting enough to me but they totally blew me away! I was completely amazed at the simple things that they were using to make recognizable music. They also had an awesome percussion section and that always helps. In total there were 4 drummers.

All of us talked about it all of the way home which is always a sign of a really good show. Joey and I were still talking about it the next day. He said that he was so glad that he had decided to go with me and not keep playing with his friends. If any of you ever get a chance to go and see them in concert I highly recommend it to you!

Better late than never....

I have been so bad about logging on here and posting. Mostly because the things that have been going on seemed so day to day and I didn't want to bore anyone. Anywho, here's what's up.....

Joey had his Spring Band Concert and the whole band showed incredible improvement! What a difference from December. Joey really enjoys playing his saxophone and I am so proud of him that he has the ability to play an instrument. I just never had that talent and believe me I tried.

Jimmy had his 4th grade Spring Musical and the theme was Oliver. He was the Funeral Director. We enjoyed that just as much. It was so fun for me to see many students that I have not seen since I left last year. Amazing what a year can do!!

Nana and my mom got to make it out to both shows which made us so happy. Thanks for taking the trip both times. (And special thank you to Nana for sitting in the bleachers for over an hour at Joey's show.) You two are wonderful and have never missed anything for the boys!!

Phil and I are just going along, same 'ol, same 'ol. I have been spending 4 nights a week out at the baseball field watching the kids practices. Their games start in the beginning of May which will be nice because practice is getting a little old to watch. Joey has been practicing by the school track though so I have been taking advantage of that hour and half by walking the track. Jimmy has been walking with me and we get to have some very nice time together without any distractions. Plus, we are exercising!

Last weekend I was at Dawn's house for a Girls Night Out. We were celebrating the fact that Dawn quit her old job! It was a blast. We played Guitar Hero which I actually own but I have never played because the boys and their friends are always hogging it. Now that I know how much fun it is I am going to put my name on the list and get my 10 minutes of play with the egg timer! Watch out Holly, I am gunning for you at the next party!! We also played Dancing With The Stars because most of us are huge fans of the show. It reminded me of the old school Nintendo Power Pad! Way too much work and the highest I was able to get was a 5!

Today Phil and his friends put in my new kitchen door. We needed to get rid of our slider because last winter it was actually snowing in my kitchen thanks to the horrible seal on the door. It always had a cold draft but snow was ridiculous! The handle on the door was also broken and didn't lock anymore. We red necked it until now with duct tape and paper bags as installation. We replaced it with a set of French Doors that have the blinds inside of the windows. It ended up to be a good thing that we did that because when they pulled the old door out they found out that the wood underneath it had rotted completely. Phil simply put his finger on the wood and it crumbled. They had to run to Menard's and get all new wood. All the while I am sitting here with a HUGE hole in my kitchen and rain on the way. Well they started the job at 9 and thanks to the extra work did not finish until 4:15! A few prayers helped hold off the rain too. It literally started raining just as his friend put the last piece of siding up!! Thank you God. I really LOVE my new doors though so it was totally worth all the hard work. (Of course I did none of the work so I guess that its not really my place to say that) I will post pictures soon, when it is sunny out!!

Well that's all for now. Later Gators!!