My dad got this in the mail today, at his house, which is completely awesome because 1) I've been married for 8 years, 2) I never lived at that particular house, and 3) I'm 31.
I wonder what benefits I get!
16 hours ago
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Member Card Enclosed!
I know I am old (going to an Other Guys concert last night confirmed that), but this is a little premature.
My dad got this in the mail today, at his house, which is completely awesome because 1) I've been married for 8 years, 2) I never lived at that particular house, and 3) I'm 31.
I wonder what benefits I get!
My dad got this in the mail today, at his house, which is completely awesome because 1) I've been married for 8 years, 2) I never lived at that particular house, and 3) I'm 31.
I wonder what benefits I get!
Wind Farm
Kevin's Aunt, Uncle and Cousin are farmers in northwestern Illinois on what I believe is the highest point of elevation in the state. There is a wind farm being assembled on their farmland, and on a few surrounding farms. Over Thanksgiving, we went out to see it, and it is really amazing. The windmills are enormous, and there are ~70 of them spread over the landscape. There were workers assembling a windmill during our visit, so we were able to see the huge crane and watch them work for a while. We were also able to get up close to a windmill not yet completed. This first photo is John and Lucy standing near one of the enormous blades of a windmill being assembled. 
This next photo is the two kids standing by the center part of the windmill (I don't know what it's called - the rotor, maybe?).
Here is the windmill being assembled during our visit. You can see that the spinning blade part is hanging from the crane, about to be attached to the base. Apparently, there are only a handful of cranes this large and powerful in the whole country. The photo does not do justice to how enormous these things are. Kevin's dad told us that the people putting together these windmills go through a series of height tests before being hired, to make sure they aren't going to freak out up at the top during the assembly process.
Winter Fun
Just a few photos of the kids ready for winter. John and Lucy have been wearing their snow gear to school, for outside time. Here's Lucy prepared for fun on the playground.
Next is John building a snowman in our backyard. The snowman started out fairly normal, except I didn't have any large carrots so we used a piece of celery for his nose. But over the next few days, the snowman ended up with a secret compartment for launching rockets in the bottom snowball, his head turned into a lookout post with laser beams for eyes, and I think at some point he could also fly into outer space and maybe clean John's room too.
I can't leave out little Boo! Here he is getting dressed in his snowsuit, probably to go and get John or Lucy from school. Since the kids don't have a bus to their school, Isaac takes two rides there each day. Again - most peaceful baby ever does not mind, he just coos and looks around. How on earth did I get so lucky?
Putting Up the Christmas Tree
Sunday evening we got out all of the Rubbermaid bins of Christmas things and spread them all over the house. :) We put up the tree, and this year we really let John and Lucy take the lead with this. John assembled most of the tree - all the parts he could reach. John strung the lights with just a little help from Kevin, and the kids put up almost all the ornaments and the garland. A great exercise in not having everything exactly the way I would have done it (ha ha), and also letting the kids have that ownership and joy in it.
Why is it that strings of Christmas lights only last for one year? Half of our lights - just purchased a year ago - were not working when we plugged them in Sunday. Sheesh! I know they're cheap but come on!
This next one is John being all cute and showing off the ornament I bought last year at Disney World, to remember our completely awesome family vacation just before Ikey was born. Can I just say...I told myself we wouldn't go back to Disney World until Isaac was out of diapers, that I didn't want to deal with diapers on that kind of vacation. But, Isaac has ended up being the world's most peaceful and easygoing baby, and I want to go back to Disney World again in 2009. We had such a great time there, I just can't wait to go back. We shall see!
This is Lucy with our Fighting Illini ornament, another favorite.
Here's Lucy with a very important job: putting the star on top of the tree, with daddy's help of course!
Finally, John admires a job well done.
Why is it that strings of Christmas lights only last for one year? Half of our lights - just purchased a year ago - were not working when we plugged them in Sunday. Sheesh! I know they're cheap but come on!
This first photo is John putting the lights on the tree.
This next one is John being all cute and showing off the ornament I bought last year at Disney World, to remember our completely awesome family vacation just before Ikey was born. Can I just say...I told myself we wouldn't go back to Disney World until Isaac was out of diapers, that I didn't want to deal with diapers on that kind of vacation. But, Isaac has ended up being the world's most peaceful and easygoing baby, and I want to go back to Disney World again in 2009. We had such a great time there, I just can't wait to go back. We shall see!Here's Lucy with a very important job: putting the star on top of the tree, with daddy's help of course!Finally, John admires a job well done.
The Nutcracker
On Sunday afternoon, Lucy and I went to see The Nutcracker at Krannert Center. The Champaign-Urbana Ballet Company does it every year and this is the first time we've gone. It was so fantastic. It is mostly children and high schoolers, with a couple of adults thrown in. I could not believe how excellent the dancers were and how professional the production was. The costumes were beautiful and all the kids were so serious and determined about their work on stage. I was really blown away. On top of that, Lucy and I had a very special time together. Our friends Brandi and Heather went with us. The girls each picked out a special gift before the show, Heather picked and purse and Lucy picked a Nutcracker snow globe. We had ballerina cupcakes at Intermission and the girls even sat on our laps for part of the show. A wonderful Christmas memory!
I surprised Lucy with a special outfit for the show: a "santa" dress, silver sparkly tights and black patent leather shoes. The tights only made it about 1/2 an hour into the performace until they got too itchy. But we did get some great photos of the whole outfit before it came off!
Here's my gorgeous girl having fun by our Christmas tree, just before we left for the show.
This is (obviously) Lucy and I sitting together in our living room.
Finally, here are Heather and Lucy, excited for the performance to begin!
I surprised Lucy with a special outfit for the show: a "santa" dress, silver sparkly tights and black patent leather shoes. The tights only made it about 1/2 an hour into the performace until they got too itchy. But we did get some great photos of the whole outfit before it came off!
Here's my gorgeous girl having fun by our Christmas tree, just before we left for the show.
This is (obviously) Lucy and I sitting together in our living room.
Finally, here are Heather and Lucy, excited for the performance to begin!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Hello!
It's been a while since I've posted anything! Not only have we been so busy with this and that, but our computer has finally died. It is still useable, in the loosest sense of the word. You can't really have two programs running at once, and everything stops responding after about 10 minutes of use. I am trying to post some photos, and it is taking FOREVER. I've already restarted the computer once this morning, and for whatever reason the mouse keeps stopping.
This weekend we decided that, in our family of heavy computer users, a smoothly running computer counts as a need and we bought a new one from Dell online on Sunday. I found a coupon for $150 off yesterday only so we went for it. My main reason for wanting a new one was photos. Right now we have a very complicated system of storing the photos on a server in our basement, then accessing them through a network, and trying to put them online with our old, slow laptop. With the new computer everything will be in one place and so much faster. Plus - $150 off! Woo!
I am a coupon freak. With the exception of necessities like gas and groceries, I really wait to buy things until I have a coupon, especially online shopping. I never buy anything online until I've done a Google search for coupon codes. You should never pay for shipping when shopping online, unless you absolutely have to buy your item on the spot. If you can wait a few days or weeks, eventually a "free shipping" code will surface. For major online retailers like Lands' End, Target, Old Navy, Best Buy, etc. you will always be able to find some sort of coupon code or free shipping code within a couple of weeks. I have saved literally hundreds, probably thousands of dollars this way. I get a lot of (loving) flack about this but it is so worth it. I have been wanting to replace some of our worn out bath towels and I've been playing this coupon game. JC Penney had some primo towels on closeout (I think they are just changing towel colors after Christmas), they were $17.99 apiece, on closeout for $8.99 apiece. Well lo and behold, in my email inbox yesterday I got a coupon for $15 off any purchase at JC Penney. I got two really nice bath towels for $3. Yes! Kevin says that I enjoy getting the great deal more than the actual product. He may be right. :) Next I am on the hunt for Origins coupons. Now that Sylvie has me hooked on the Origins brand I need to find a bargain there. Let me know if you find anything!
Since I've missed a whole week of posting I'll give you a little update. Kevin is working very hard getting the Fox Speed Channel up and running. He and Ryan were back in North Carolina last week and will probably have to go once more before Christmas. They do get some nice meals there, and a very nice hotel with nice beds so that helps. I hate thinking of Kevin working hard 12 hours a day, then eating some crap and sleeping at a dumpy motel somewhere. But they are being taken care of, at least in that little way. John had his "culminating event" as they call it at UPS, for the recycling project his class has been working on. John's small group assembled an earthworm compost and wrote up a pamphlet about their work. It was really cool. My dad surprised John and came to the culminating event. Lucy knew about his visit and she kept the secret!! I thought that was a very big girl thing for her to do. Isaac is still talking up a storm and rolling all over the place. I think now that he is steadily eating solid foods, he is gaining weight very quickly. All of the sudden he looks a lot bigger to me. He feels more solid and he is wearing 6-9 months now. My mom generously bought him some new sleepers and I am waiting to see him in those big boy jammies, hee hee!
On Wednesday, our long time friends the Andersons left Urbana and moved to New Mexico. It was very difficult for me to see them go. Jen and I were very close and I have so many wonderful memories of all the fun things we have done together over the past 5 years. It was very hard watching Lucy and Linnea say goodbye to each other, those sweet best friends. Although they are only 4 years old, I got the sense that both girls knew exactly what was happening. Lucy would not let go of Linnea, as if she could get her to stay by simply not letting go of her. Sob. I am staying positive about it by looking forward to a family vacation out to New Mexico to visit them. We are going to try and go sometime in 2009, once the Andersons are settled in a new home.
At this point I am going to try posting some photos. We'll see if it works! If not...wait just a few more days until our new Dell Inspirion 530S shows up. :)
This weekend we decided that, in our family of heavy computer users, a smoothly running computer counts as a need and we bought a new one from Dell online on Sunday. I found a coupon for $150 off yesterday only so we went for it. My main reason for wanting a new one was photos. Right now we have a very complicated system of storing the photos on a server in our basement, then accessing them through a network, and trying to put them online with our old, slow laptop. With the new computer everything will be in one place and so much faster. Plus - $150 off! Woo!
I am a coupon freak. With the exception of necessities like gas and groceries, I really wait to buy things until I have a coupon, especially online shopping. I never buy anything online until I've done a Google search for coupon codes. You should never pay for shipping when shopping online, unless you absolutely have to buy your item on the spot. If you can wait a few days or weeks, eventually a "free shipping" code will surface. For major online retailers like Lands' End, Target, Old Navy, Best Buy, etc. you will always be able to find some sort of coupon code or free shipping code within a couple of weeks. I have saved literally hundreds, probably thousands of dollars this way. I get a lot of (loving) flack about this but it is so worth it. I have been wanting to replace some of our worn out bath towels and I've been playing this coupon game. JC Penney had some primo towels on closeout (I think they are just changing towel colors after Christmas), they were $17.99 apiece, on closeout for $8.99 apiece. Well lo and behold, in my email inbox yesterday I got a coupon for $15 off any purchase at JC Penney. I got two really nice bath towels for $3. Yes! Kevin says that I enjoy getting the great deal more than the actual product. He may be right. :) Next I am on the hunt for Origins coupons. Now that Sylvie has me hooked on the Origins brand I need to find a bargain there. Let me know if you find anything!
Since I've missed a whole week of posting I'll give you a little update. Kevin is working very hard getting the Fox Speed Channel up and running. He and Ryan were back in North Carolina last week and will probably have to go once more before Christmas. They do get some nice meals there, and a very nice hotel with nice beds so that helps. I hate thinking of Kevin working hard 12 hours a day, then eating some crap and sleeping at a dumpy motel somewhere. But they are being taken care of, at least in that little way. John had his "culminating event" as they call it at UPS, for the recycling project his class has been working on. John's small group assembled an earthworm compost and wrote up a pamphlet about their work. It was really cool. My dad surprised John and came to the culminating event. Lucy knew about his visit and she kept the secret!! I thought that was a very big girl thing for her to do. Isaac is still talking up a storm and rolling all over the place. I think now that he is steadily eating solid foods, he is gaining weight very quickly. All of the sudden he looks a lot bigger to me. He feels more solid and he is wearing 6-9 months now. My mom generously bought him some new sleepers and I am waiting to see him in those big boy jammies, hee hee!
On Wednesday, our long time friends the Andersons left Urbana and moved to New Mexico. It was very difficult for me to see them go. Jen and I were very close and I have so many wonderful memories of all the fun things we have done together over the past 5 years. It was very hard watching Lucy and Linnea say goodbye to each other, those sweet best friends. Although they are only 4 years old, I got the sense that both girls knew exactly what was happening. Lucy would not let go of Linnea, as if she could get her to stay by simply not letting go of her. Sob. I am staying positive about it by looking forward to a family vacation out to New Mexico to visit them. We are going to try and go sometime in 2009, once the Andersons are settled in a new home.
At this point I am going to try posting some photos. We'll see if it works! If not...wait just a few more days until our new Dell Inspirion 530S shows up. :)
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