Okay, so in light of my sister's snippy comment to my last post, I am doing a quick update. This is especially important because my last posted is titled "End of School" and school is starting tomorrow. So now at least I have something posted before I put up those back to school pictures.
As you can see from the above photo, Sam is playing flag football this fall. So far he is having fun and so are we. It is really cute to watch. By using the word "cute", I do not intend to take away from the fact that this is supposed to be part of his "man training." It is, first and foremost, very manly. But it is still pretty cute.
It is hard to believe summer is over. We had a great time. Mary and I started off by spending a long weekend in NYC visiting my family. Then the whole family traveled out west in late June and early July for the Green Family Reunion, which Rich and I were in charge of planning. We spent about a week in Utah and then 5 days in Clayton, Idaho (population 26; located between Stanley & Challis). It was incredibly beautiful and fun. The kids had lots of fun cousin time.
Summer ended quickly for me. I had my other foot operating on in the beginning of August. We were lucky enough to get our niece Teresa to come out again for a couple of weeks to help out while I was on crutches. That was awesome. This foot was much less involved than the other and now, only 3 weeks out from the surgery, I am hobbling around in my boot, without crutches. Another 2 weeks and I will be in a gym shoe. Can't wait!
Before I went under the knife, I had to fit in some living! We went to see Bon Jovi at Soldier Field on Friday night. We got home at 2:30 am and then got up again at 4:45 am to drive to Racine, Wisconsin, so I could do a triathlon. Rich had done the Door County tri a couple of weeks earlier and I knew this race was the only chance I would have to do a tri before my surgery (2 days later). And it's not as if I could miss the Bon Jovi concert, so I decided I needed to suck it up. It definitely hurt, but I was really glad that I was able to do both things. Especially now that I have been sitting on my behind for 3 weeks.
So now the school supplies have been bought and delivered, teachers met & classrooms visited. Tomorrow all 4 kids have to get up and on the bus by 7:40 am. It is only a half day, but I am sure the morning will be crazy. Now we can get excited for Fall.
Notice the snow in the mailbox above! The plow pushed it in there!
It took us 3 hours to clear our driveway. When we finished, a group of us decided to help out some neighbors and we ended up with mini-block party as we cleared all the driveways. We have really awesome neighbors!
The dog door was totally blocked - I had to clear the way so Otis could get out!
This is our bedroom window!
It seems like the man-training is working out. Last night Sam was bummed out because he had to go to bed and was going to miss the Bears-Packers game. Rich wanted him to watch some of it so we called him down and found that he had been crying because he was missing the game. (Okay, so there is more man-training needed, but, hey - he WANTED to watch the game. That is progress.)
Hannah rode in a horse show this past weekend. She has not had a chance to ride in a show outside her barn yet, so it was pretty exciting. She rode a horse named Shameless in two classes, a halter class and a walk, trot, canter class. She did such a great job- we were very proud of her. She did not place in the walk, trot, canter, but she got a 5th place ribbon for the halter class.
Shameless had a great time too. He showed his joy by getting spooked by a little buggy and stomping on Hannah's big toe (which had already been stomped on twice this summer). Nothing was broken- just a bad bruise and a toenail that is not long for this world. It comes with the territory, I guess.
Megan and Mary have finished well too. There were no big "end of the year" events for either of them but they both have done great this year. Megan is finishing up her undefeated soccer season! Mary got to have pajama day in her class. Sam is just about done with kindergarten. I got to go with his class on the annual farm field trip that the kindergarten gets to take. It was so cute - they got to hold chicks, ducklings, goslings & kittens, and they got to ride ponies and milk a cow.
So summer is just about here - I want to slow the time down and just enjoy! Check out this article - it totally expresses what I am aiming for this summer. http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/family/sc-fam-0527-simplicity-20100527,0,7676892.story Bring on the boredom!
