Kayaking - Spring Break

My dad.

My mom.

Me.

My boat.

Griffin.

Griffin. You would have thought he kayaked every week. He did great. His favorite thing to do was get real close to the edge and try to get stuck. When he got back in, his boat had all sorts of branches, leaves, etc. inside it!

We went to Jasper Park yesterday and enjoyed the beautiful weather. All four of us decided that it would be fun to kayak. It was wonderful as you can tell from the pictures. They were having a Spring Fling at the park so we had a picnic lunch and listened to a great bluegrass band. Griffin enjoyed the playground and bounce house/slide. It was a perfect day.

Spring and such

Spring has sprung in Chicago! I am so thankful for the warmer weather and the signs that in just a few sort weeks (well, maybe months) my yard will once again be full of flowers, leaves and so many of God's creations. I will have to admit, this winter seems rather mild to me. I'm afraid it means I'm getting "use to" the cold. I think of my friend Kara, who would laugh the first winter I was here whenever I would complain about the cold (which was all the time.) Now, I just pretty much accept the fact that it's COLD here for many months of the year. But I sure do appreciate spring and summer so much more!

There is one thing that has happened over the past few weeks to bring huge delight to our family. Griffin has found a friend who lives right down the street. To most of you, this does not seem like anything big. But as long as we have lived here (3 years) there has been no little boy for Griffin to play with. We have wonderful next-door-neighbors that have 3 girls (and one very little boy) that hang out with Griffin but they are NOT the same as having a BOY, around your same age to play with. Brandon is fun to have around, enjoying doing all the "boy" things that Griffin likes. They play football, hockey, ride scooters and right now they are across the street in the open lot with a shovel and bucket digging up treasures. Griffin had his first sleep-over at Brandon's house a couple of weeks ago. His mom made it extra special for them and I hear they didn't go to sleep until 11:30 and were up at 4:15am. They even took a picture of the sunrise to prove they were up so early. Thank you God for Griffin's new friend. May they have a life-long friendship.

Happy Birthday Griffin

We celebrated Griffin's 7th birthday this weekend. So much fun!

Griffin:
loves sports - playing, watching and reading about
enjoyed watching the Olympics
loves school - great at math and reading
fidgets all.the.time
loves pizza
loves playing Wii with Daddy
loves playing board games and cards with Mommy

Thanksgiving - Apex, NC Style

We have the most wonder friends - the Strong Family. We knew them while we were in Dallas, TX. Carly and Griffin have known each other since they were about 6 months old. We ventured down to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with them. It was one of the best holidays I've ever had. You see, Stacy is known as "the hostess with the mostess." And I'm not kidding. Her house is beautiful, so warm and inviting. You walk in and you are instantly relaxed. And then there's her cooking. We'll get to that in a little bit. Stacy and I spent 7 hours cooking in the kitchen on Wednesday and had a ball. We just worked so well together and we both enjoy doing it so much that it was great. Thursday, all we had to do was cook the two turkeys - one fried and one roasted. We brined them both. One in a sweet brine and one in a spicy brine. They both turned out fabulously and no one could really pick one over the other in terms of which one was better. Thank you Strong Family for a wonderful visit. If the offer still stands, we're up for doing it again next year!

Our Fall Visitor

Aunt Barbara or Aunt Babs as Griffin likes to call her came to visit for a few days while Dallas was traveling to Malaysia. It was great to have her here and helped break up the 5 weeks that Dallas was traveling. Most weekends he could come home so that was good but it made for a lot of long weeks in a row for Griffin and I. We were always so glad to see Dallas when he got home from his big trips.

One of Griffin's all-time favorite things to do it play with Aunt Babs. One afternoon they played outside in the backyard for over 2 hours. Barbara created an obstacle course using everyday items from our garage. She then used a timer and Griffin did the course over and over again.

Happy 2010

Found this old blog update that I never posted!It looks like I've taken a bit of a break from blogging. My goodness. It's been 2.5 months. So much has happened.

NOVEMBER

Griffin played basketball for the first time in Nov. and Dec. He really enjoyed playing.


Veteran's Day. Griffin's school had a celebration and invited all the local veterans to the school to enjoy the performance put on by the first grade. Griffin had a small speaking part and he loved all the patriotic songs - It's a Grand Ol Flag, Star Spangled Banner, etc.

Halloween Party

Thursday was the Halloween party and parade at Griffin's school. I am "room mom" so I did the planning for the party. It was VERY stressful. How can a group of 24 first graders stress me out? I don't know, but they did. Well, that anticipation of it did anyway. I was not sure I had enough planned for the hour OR enough fun things.

Well, it turned out perfectly. The kids had a BLAST, there was plenty to do, and the teacher even said she loved what I planned and how the party went. Whoo hoo. The weather held out so the 600+ kids could go outside for the parade.

I'm sure you are wondering where the the great pictures of the adorable kids are. Well, the camera was with me and I went to take a picture and . . . . nothing. I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera after downloading pictures the other day. With my old camera, you could take about 20 pictures that would be stored directly to the camera even w/o the memory card loaded, but not with my new one. No card equals no pictures. So there are no photographic memories of our 1st grade Halloween party. (Yes, it's killing me but I'm trying not to show it!)