And They Lived Happily Ever After

This past weekend was pretty low-key, which was nice for a change. The main event of the weekend was my old neighbor Chris's wedding on Saturday. Some of you will remember Chris, he was one of the twins in the Kuebler clan. I honestly don't think you could ask for better neighbors - we love that family to death! They're great. They always know how to have a good time, that's for sure. Annie looked absolutely stunning in her dress, and these pictures don't do her justice at all. She's beautiful! Anyway, I wish Chris and Annie nothing but the best as they begin their new life together! Photos courtesy of my dad....

PS Yes Jane, the cake was good! ;)

A Few Flood Pics

Okay maybe the flooding is a little worse than I originally thought...a levy in St. Charles broke this morning and flooded some of the fields out off of Hwy 370 near New Town where we play volleyball. Lenny and I drove out tonight after work and took a few pics.

Flood

We went for a drive down to Frontier Park in St. Charles last night to check out the flood and it wasn't nearly as high as I thought it would be. I remember the water being all the way up to the street (and half-covering the road signs) back in 1993 when I was just a young whippersnapper. From what I hear, Winfield is getting the worst of it this year. Dean and my dad have been driving up there and helping sandbag several times, and I believe my mom and dad are going this afternoon as well. Hopefully their efforts will help save somebody's home and all their possesions.

TGIF Baby

Well here it is, my favorite day of the week and I'm kind of "blah" today. Not crabby per se, just kinda wishin I was still layin in bed under the covers...at least for a few more hours. It's so gloomy and rainy today - crazy how much the weather can affect a person's mood, huh?

Anyway, not much has been goin on the past couple days - we went to McGurk's Irish Bar/Grill on Wednesday with Jim and Val and enjoyed the evening out on the patio. I had ordered a salad and it came with gorgonzola cheese in it, which was crazy strong so I kinda pushed it off to the side of my plate. Well Lenny apparently thought it looked like feta cheese, so he proceeds to say "Ya know, smeta really fells bad." I don't know why I find it so funny when people mix up their words like that but OMG I cannot stop laughing about that! STILL! I love when that happens to people! Poor Lenny has had to hear me making fun of him about the "smeta" for the last 2 days now. lol Doesn't take much to entertain me I tell ya.

Rough Night

How is it that kids can be sick as a dog one day and then completely fine the next? They bounce back so quickly! Sunday we took Bella up to the park by Paul and Linda's house and at some point one of us picked her up and thought she was quite warm so we decided it'd be best to take her back home. She ended up getting pretty sick during the night - she was running 103-104 temp on and off and actually ended up throwing up for the first time...all over me. Boy if that isn't the most helpless feeling ever - I felt horrible for her but there was nothing I could do! I wished I could just take on the fever and stomach bug myself so that she would feel better, the poor thing. After consulting with the doctor, we gave her Tylenol several times and kept a cool rag on her head, and wouldn't you know it, today she was as good as new and it was as if it had never happened. Sheesh.

Here's a little clip from earlier this evening of her "dancing" and being her usual self again. Glad to have the old Bella back!

Just a couple of random pics today

These pics were taken when I went to the butterfly house with my mom, June, Jane, and Loey when they were here last month. That was the first time I had ever been there. Very cool place!

Breaking News....

So the time has finally come to share the good news - JANINE IS PREGNANT!!!! Whoo hooo! My lil NeeNee is gonna be a mama! : ) Could I BE any happier? Seriously! Janine has always been such a close friend; she is more like a sister to me so I can't even describe how happy I am for both her and Jason. I have known about the pregnancy for about a month and cannot tell you how hard it has been to hold that in. I wanted to run and tell everyone the second I found out! I kinda unintentionally spilled the beans when I was at Dean and Stacey's the day before the Anniversary Party. I didn't come out and say she was pregnant, but when D and S asked when Jason and Janine were going to start a family I think my face gave it away. I couldn't help it! I had to tell SOMEONE! haha Then when Carson came down with a case of the chicken pox the morning of the party, D and S thought it would be best to tell Carson about Janine being preggers so that he wouldn't go near her too much and possibly give her the chicken pox. They told him it was a secret and he shouldn't tell anyone about it, because at that point they had not even been to the doctor to officially confirm it. Wouldn't ya know it, during the party he sneaks up to Janine and whispers in her ear, "I know you're pregnant!" Janine said her face turned white. lol Guess she was afraid he was going to tell other people. But he did a good job, he kept the secret the whole time! Later in the afternoon she said she went into the house to get something and sees Carson looking at her and snickering. She went up to him and said "What are you laughing at punk?" (okay I may have added the punk) And he asked "Can you feel the baby kicking? You don't look like there's a baby in there." So she explained to him it was pretty early in the pregnancy and she wouldn't get big for a while yet. Should be interesting to hear the things he says when she actually starts showing...

For those of you who are wondering, the due date is December 31st - should make for an exciting New Year's Eve party!!! Congrats again Jason and Janine!

PS-J9 who does this remind you of? lol

For it's 1, 2, 3 strikes you're out at the old ball game

I filled in for someone at softball last night and believe it or not, I did not strike out at all. Since this is only the second time I have played since I was about 10, I was happy with that. Too bad I had no idea what was going on the entire game! I never knew what inning it was, I never paid attention to how many balls and strikes there were, I didn't know where to throw the ball if it came to me, etc. I just followed everyone else when they ran on or off the field. haha I am actually going to be signing up to play in the fall with some people from work so I'll take all the practice I can get from now until then! I played catcher, and the umpire was super friendly. He's an older guy and must get bored often cuz he kept going on and on about how we had a good pitcher on our team, talked to me about the weather, and asked about my L6 shirt. I tried to be friendly and reply to everything he was saying, but in my head I was kinda thinkin "Mister, can you please SHUT UP now? I need to concentrate on what I'm doing or else I'm going to get hit in the head with a bat!" Oh and just in case you were wondering....we won!

PS - Nice that I called the fields "courts" at the end of the night. I said "They have a lot of courts here!" and couldn't for the life of me understand why everyone was laughing. That right there should tell you how much I know about baseball/softball. Aye aye aye

Summer is FINALLY here!

My mom and dad are watching Carson this week while Dean and Stacey are on an Alaskan cruise with some friends. Lenny and I decided to give mom and dad a break Saturday morning, so we took Carson and went over to Eckert's Farm in Belleville to pick strawberries. They have a little country store, a restaurant, and an ice cream shop near the main parking lot, and when you are ready to pick strawberries they have a little shuttle that takes you about a mile down the road to the strawberry fields. Well go figure, as soon as we got out there and had like 3 berries in our box, Carson tells me he has to go to the bathroom. I told him he'd have to wait til we got back to the country store but he insisted it was fairly urgent. I looked around but didn't see any trees or anything so I turned to him and said, "Umm.....go tell Lenny!" haha So then Carson hops over a couple of rows of berries to get over where L was and told Lenny he had to go. Being the nice guy that he is, L walked Carson down a ways to some sewer ditch thing and stood guard while Carson did what he had to do. And wouldn't ya know it, as soon as they came back, Carson spotted a Johnny on the Spot up where the bus had dropped us off. Whoopsies!

Swing Around

Guess what we did Thursday? Played mini golf! I can't remember the last time I played, and I have come to the conclusion that umm I pretty much suck at it. Lenny kicked my butt!!! We pretty much had the place to ourselves, so after we played a round the real way, we started over and made up our own rules. Each person had 3 tries to hit a hole in one, and then the person with the most holes in one at the end would win. Yeah....I got a big fat ZERO and Lenny had one stinkin hole in one. Looks like we need some practice....

Bye Bye Ethyl's!!!

Last night was our final game of volleyball at Ethyl's. I'm so glad to be outta there! We've been playing there for SOOO long now and it's just gotten really old. Don't get me started on the sand there... Now we're on to bigger and better things (i.e. Ruskin O'Brien's in NewTown). I always think it's fun to play at new places and meet new people. Plus as an added bonus, there is an ice cream shop straight across from the courts at Ruskins! I mean come on, how can it get any better than that?

I'm looking forward to Saturday - Lenny and I are going to the Dave Matthews Band concert at Busch Stadium. Apparently his friend Trent has the hookup and got us some really good tickets. I have seen DMB once before in concert and thought they were so so but this is one of L's favorite bands so he's all giddy about it which in turn makes me more excited too. Should be fun! I'll let u know how it is. Hey - going to a concert constitutes getting a new outfit, right??? Yesssss! Looks like I may be doin some shopping in the next couple days. : )

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Lenny, Linda, and I took Bella to Grant's Farm today. I had forgotten how fun it was to feed those goats! For the life of me, I cannot understand why they act like they never get fed? I mean there were probably about 20 people in the goat yard with bottles of milk, yet those goats still felt the need to come chew on the drawstring of my shorts, tried to eat the wrist strap on my camera, munched on Bella's shirt, jumped up on both Lenny and Linda, etc. It was actually quite funny and totally worth the $1 it costs for a bottle of milk.