Weekend Unnecessary Update :)

Well, since the entire family was pretty much present for all the fun activities all weekend long, this really isn't all that necessary, but you will notice that I updated the picture on the header.....couldn't resist - such a beautiful picture of my beautiful children. :)

What a fun weekend! It was absolutely wonderful to see Julie (so sorry Scott was in the Ozarks) and so fun to have Kate staying at the BlingMansion all weekend, too! Nearly felt like old times, with the "spare room" being used. Although, sorry to say, poor Julie felt very itchy in there and I am so very sorry about that....I thought that I'd gotten most of the dust out of the house since the horrible mess created by tearing out the tile, but I guess it lurks in the dangest places.......

The trip to the Taste was quite fun - again, apologies necessary since I guess I was very loud and obnoxious on the train ride home. It was fun sitting in the grass listening to the Counting Crows concert, although a bit shocking to look over and see a group of people passing a joint around - heavens! They smoked it down so low that I could only see ash on the thing! And one of the couples in the group was OLD!!!! Prolly even older than MOI! Maybe some of the smoke entered my lungs inadvertently and made me extra silly and loud?

I must say that there really weren't too many tempting things that really made me want to slap down eight tickets at the Taste, but the grapes from Dominick's were delish, although Austin's red ones were yummier than my green ones.....good thing he shares nicely! LOL

BlingDaddy went to the Taste for lunch today and said that his favorite places were still there - picked up his favorite chocolate covered strawberries, but he thought that Malnotti's pizza was not up to par this year - too greasy.

Grandma L's 78th birthday party yesterday was fun - nice to Uncle Ken and Aunt Corinne. Sadly, neither Jenny nor Mike were there. Talked with Grandma this morning and she mentioned being disappointed that Mike didn't make it. She did tell me, though, that she wore her new pearls to church this morning and received a compliment on them, so that's good!

Julie texted me earlier that she arrived home in Boston safely. :) Thank You, God. This is quite the travelling summer: Kate will soon be on the road to Kristen Tatnall's wedding in Colorado, Aimee, Matt and Paytie are trekking to Indy for the Fourth, Kelly will be on her bus runs to visit Matt in Champaign, and Julie and Scott will be back next month for their friend's wedding and first anniversary dinner at Charlie Trotter's! Makes me want to hop on a plane for somewhere myself! :)

Kelly reports that Matt had a fun trip to Colorado this weekend for the family wedding, although, of course, she would have liked to have been there herself. Seems as though his first flight went very well. Hopefully his flight home this afternoon is equally uneventful. Then next weekend he's traveling to Boston to see his MIT friend. Kelly is just going to have to be patient and wait two more weeks to him. sigh.

I'm here to report that Kate looked quite lovely in Julie's wedding dress when she tried it on Friday night. :) Amazing how two people with very different figures can wear the same dress and both look good! Isn't it just so wonderful that Julie is saving Kate a VERY tidy sum? Too bad you all couldn't wear the very same dress! Another family tradition!

Well, some guys just came to repair some drywall in the master bath. Too bad that the conduit hasn't been moved already....one more botch-up in our continuing Bathroom Saga......

Time's A Flyin'

I cannot believe that it is getting on towards the end of June already! And I never posted the picture from my lunch date with Mary and Anne, my two Piper school (elementary school) friends, so here it is. Obviously, you know which one is me (hehe). In the center we have Anne, and the one on the right is Mary. It went by all too quickly. Anne wants Mary to plan some sort of Girls (yes, I use the term VERY loosely) Weekend for the three of us to go somewhere and "really catch up" (Anne's words). I doubt that will ever happen, but who knows?

Just yesterday I received a response to an email I sent a VERY long time ago to the sister of one of our other Piper friends, Chris Airdo. The sister, Annette, actually gave me Chris' phone number, so I am going to give her a call today and shock the hell out of her. Oh, and yesterday I receivd an email from Frank Modica, another Piper schoolmate, telling me that he's had surgery at Northwestern and is recuperating at home with his parents in Berwyn. (He lives in Urbana, not far from where Our Miss Kel lived this year and will live again next January.)

Had a nice chat with Kate the other day when she was driving, and she made me seriously consider walking a marathon or half marathon. (Although last night I walked with the neighbor, Patty, and got a huge blister on my middle toe for my troubles....LOL)

The summer is progressing nicely. Tommy and Paytie are behaving REALLY WELL together, and Kelly has started at Lumes and things are going well! YAY! She made a nice piece of pocket change yesterday and came home with a smile! Maybe things will go smoothly after all!

I'm excited to see Julie next week, and we have Grandma Lois' birthday party to look forward to! HA! Grandma Marian will most likely be there as well. And speaking of GM, she is thrilled with her granite countertops installed yesterday in the kitchen. :)

Jean, Alene, and Kiersten visited me yesterday for a bit and Alene gave me the cute little book she illustrated, called, "Why We Love Mrs. G". Of course, it's very cute, and I really love it. Reminds me of something you did long ago, Miss KK! :) Payton had fun picking up Alene and trying to hug Kiersten, who would have none of that. She kept kicking him and pushing him away. Feisty little one, that.

Looks like rain today for Kelly's bus ride to Champaign. I'm sure she will be thrilled.....I'm glad she isn't driving herself there with the weather expected to be nasty....that would NOT have been a very calming experience for my poor old heart. YES, one of these days she will just hop in the car and drive there herself...IF I HAVE TO ALLOW IT.......

Wondering how Julie is coming on her garden plans? Hope that Kate is having a fun visit with Brent....oh, what am I thinking? OF COURSE she's having a fun visit. It's Young Love. Gag, gag, gag....okay, that's just me being silly. Of course I am happy that my children are in lurve. :) Yes, that's right. VERY HAPPY!

Oh, update on the Bathroom Saga: pretty much everything is finished except for installing the glass shower enclosure, which will take several weeks to fabricate. Then the fun of painting the room begins. Any volunteers? We were gong to ask Steve, the painter who has done several other rooms in the house to do it, but since his estimate for the work amounted to EIGHTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS, we are going to have to tackle the project ourselves! Can you imagine???? I guess he thinks we've begun growing a money tree in the back yard! I ONLY WISH, STEVE!!!!!!

Payton will be here soon, so I'd best get hopping.

Tom Gets an Academic Award!

Yes, you all heard that right, your little bro was designated as one of the kids in his graduation class to receive the President's Award for Educational Excellence, which required a 3.5 GPA minimum for all three years of middle school, plus being 85th percentile or higher on the ITBS in total Math or total Reading, whatever the ITBS is! LOL Way to go, Tommy John! :)

The "Promotion" ceremony on Tuesday night was short and sweet - they really know how to move large groups of kids quickly in Geneva! hahaha Tom's class is the first one to graduate having spent the entire three years in the new North building. Woo. Hoo.

In any event, we were graced with the presence of the school superintendent (didn't think much of his public speaking ability) as well as the presence of the principal (ditto on HIS public speaking ability) and treated to a lovely piano performance (possibly by the choral music teacher? Neither Kelly nor I recognized the man, but he played every note flawlessly) while the kids were entering and leaving the cafeteria.

The ceremony was similar to that experienced by all you girls when you left Edison, but there were not quite as many Department Awards to sit through, since Tom's ceremony was only for his particular TEAM. The other team at GMSN had a ceremony after Tom's team, and there were additionally two ceremonies at GMSS, so the class of approximately five hundred kids was broken into four different ceremonies. Oh, my, just think of the time it will take to hand out diplomas to all those kids four years from now! LOL

Tom received a little pin and a letter from Mr. President of the United States of America for his academic achievement. :)

Tomorrow is the last day I take care of Alene and Kiersten for this school year. Here's a little snap of Kelly with the girls. She's enjoying Kiersten a LOT, and trying to pay attention to Alene as well....hahaha

This week, Miss Kel is enjoying working with Aimee half days. And she's REALLY enjoying the ten dollars an hour that Chuck is paying her!

Miss Jules is working in her backyard garden, trying to get a nasty old rose bush to vacate the premises, and dreaming of what she will put in the rose's place once she hatchets the poor thing to death. :)

The bathroom tiling job appears to be moving ever so slowly forward. I seriously do not think the project will be finished by the time Julie visits us, but hopefully I will be proven WRONG!

Okay, hopefully the paragraph spacing is working now - I HATE it when the program runs them all together, and that's what it seems to be doing today - please note that this is NOT an oversight on MY part! hahaha