Yearly Archives: 2010

/2010

Football and Gatorthon

Today, Zach was really busy!  He had an early football game and had a TON of fun, even though his team lost again.  🙁  He played on the offensive line today and had to go against a really big kid that I swear is not in first grade.  We were joking that maybe he is a 3rd year 1st-grader!  🙂  One of the dads got some great pictures of him!

It was rainy and cold and but the kids still played hard and enjoyed the game.  Zach didn’t have his best game, but he had fun and he won the weekly crunch bar for doing great against kids that most of the time were way bigger than him.  Go Zach! 🙂

After the game, Zach went over to the Gatorthon at his elementary school.  It was a walk and activities to raise money.  We sponsored him and he was pretty excited to get lots of prizes and other “stuff” for his efforts.  He came home with a load of things and was excited to set it all out and have a picture taken.  🙂

We were all exhausted by the end of the day when you add all those activities together, plus all the house cleaning we did.  We rewarded ourselves by having a  family party that night with a movie, some games, and just hanging out for some much-needed “together time.”

By |2010-11-05T05:40:13-07:00October 23rd, 2010|Home Life, School|0 Comments

Band Concert and Temple Trip

Today was a busy day that took us in all different directions!  Angela took Zach to football practice, then dropped Brittany off at the church for our semi-annual youth temple trip.   She was very excited.  I was bummed that I wouldn’t be able to go this time.  While Angela had Zach at practice and was watching after Ben, I took Kirstyn and we went up to see Sarah perform in her first band concert of the year (Angela gets to go to the Orchestra concert while I do the football duty in the next week or so).  🙂

Sarah did a great job!  One of the highlights for her is that she gets to wear a solid black dress instead of the black pants, tux shirt, bowtie and cummerbund that she had to wear last year.  She looks more “professional” in the new outfit.  🙂  They played great and she had a piccolo solo that she nailed!

You can’t see Sarah very well from the picture above (only the top of her head on the far right).  🙂  They were warming up in this picture.  She has been practicing more lately which makes us happy!  Maybe we’ll put her back into lessons if she keeps practicing.  She wants to have lessons again, but $170 per month with no practicing is not worth it to us.  Keep up the great work, Sarah!  🙂

By |2010-11-05T05:24:04-07:00October 21st, 2010|Church, School|0 Comments

Intermural Basketball and Cupcake Master!

Today, Kirstyn started Intermural Basketball at Still Middle School!  She’s pretty excited!  She will do this for the next few weeks in the mornings before school.  She is looking forward to the fun and exercise!  She also had Activity Days at church and had a GREAT time decorating cupcakes and cookies for Halloween!

She was VERY proud of her creations and so obviously, we had to take pictures!  🙂

By |2010-11-05T05:26:30-07:00October 19th, 2010|School|0 Comments

Funeral, Picnic, Football, Party…

Today was a crazy day.  We got up early, got ready, and went to the funeral of our friend.  The services were very positive, and the priest gave many encouraging words to the family.  This is the first funeral mass that any of our daughters had been to so they were a little confused as to what was going on, but we explained it to them as best we could.  We paid our respects and then we were off to the picnic that followed.  Sarah stayed the entire time with her friend again to be there for support.  The rest of us grabbed something to eat and then took off to get Zachary to his football game.

Today Zach got to be a captain and go out for the coin toss.  He was pretty excited, although we’re not quite sure he knows exactly what that means!  🙂  He played pretty good today (one of his better games) but they still lost.  He is still doing great at starting Center.

After the football game, we went back over to the picnic and hung out with the family pretty much until it was over.

After we got home from football and the picnic, Angela and I took off and drove to Lyons for a 40th birthday party for Tracy Raketic.  We had a great, relaxing time, sitting outside around a blazing fire and enjoying talking with people we have gotten to know but only see when we visit the Raketic family.  🙂  After the hour drive home, however, we were totally exhausted and fell into bed.

By |2010-11-03T07:55:23-07:00October 16th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments

Visitation for a Friend

Tonight we attended the visitation for our friend, Lonny Greenwald.  Sarah went over and spent the whole time with her friend, trying to comfort and help her out.  When we got there, we saw many other people that we knew and also met some that we didn’t know before.  Their neighborhood (near ours) is so much more friendly and outgoing than ours is.   Everyone seems pretty close.  Sarah’s friend Taylor printed out a copy of one of the pictures that we took together at homecoming with the dads and daughters and displayed it in a frame there at the visitation (Lonny is in the blue shirt in the front).  It was very surreal.

We wish our very best to the Greenwald family and hope that you will find peace and comfort in the days, weeks, and months to come.

By |2010-11-01T08:16:25-07:00October 15th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments

Marching Band Banquet, Job Offer!

Tonight we had the Metea Valley High School Marching Band banquet and had a great time.  Kirstyn watched the boys, while Angela and I went with Sarah and Brittany and stuffed ourselves with roast beef sandwiches, pasta, and great desserts!

After eating, we watched a great video presentation of the marching season, the kids were all recognized, and the marching leaders put on some funny skits (at least all the kids thought they were funny).  The adults had no clue what was going on as you obviously had to be there to understand.  🙂

The kids also got a copy of their “non-yearbook” band picture…

Probably the biggest highlight of the night (for Angela and I anyway), was that the lady from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory called and offered Sarah a job!  🙂  WAHOOOOO!  We were so excited that it worked out.  The cool thing is that Sarah doesn’t have to work on YM/YW nights, and she doesn’t have to work on Sundays!  She will be working between 8 and 12 hours a week which is absolutely perfect for her!

She will start work the week after next.  The job right now is seasonal, but we told her that if she works hard and proves her worth, it may turn into longer-term employment.  It’s really exciting to know that our family will now be a 3 income family!  🙂   Congratulations Sarah!  We are proud of you!  🙂

By |2010-11-01T08:11:27-07:00October 14th, 2010|Home Life, School, Work-Related|0 Comments

Zach’s Football Pictures!

Zach got his football pictures the other day and I just got around to posting them today.  He is such a cute little football player.  He has a great team and really nice and helpful coaches.  Even though they have yet to win a game, they sure have a lot of fun!

Zach loves playing too and can’t wait for next season to play again (even though they still have 3 more games left!  🙂

By |2010-10-28T06:46:05-07:00October 13th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments

Sarah’s Birthday! Sweet 17!

On MUCH better news than on yesterday’s post, today was Sarah’s Birthday!!!  SWEET 17!  Yikes!  It is amazing how fast time flies.   Just yesterday, we were in Provo bathing Sarah in the kitchen sink!  🙂

We celebrated a little but with Zach’s football practice and Young Women/Young Men activites, we were pretty swamped!  We’ll celebrate with cheesecake (what Sarah really wants for her cake) tomorrow.  For her birthday, Sarah got about 20 homemade gifts from Zach which was really cute.  She also got her Letter Jacket from us!  🙂  She’s really excited about that!  Unfortunately it didn’t come in on time, but that’s OK.  She’ll just have to be patient!

It’s also hard to believe that Sarah has already been driving for almost a year (4 months by herself with her own license)!  We really love it because she doesn’t have to depend on us to cart her everywhere she goes!  What’s even better is that Brittany and the other kids don’t have to rely on us 100% to cart them around either!  🙂

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

By |2010-10-28T06:31:46-07:00October 12th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments

Death of a Friend

Today we received some terrible news…  The dad of one of Sarah’s best friends and friend of our family passed away.  Lonny Greenwald left behind his wife Jackie, and 2 daughters, Rebecca and Emily.  It was quite a shock.  We just chaperoned with him at the Homecoming Dance on Saturday, and he ran and finished the Chicago Marathon yesterday.

Lonny is in the front in the blue shirt with Rebecca, Sarah’s friend.  This picture was taken right before the Homecoming Dance on Saturday.

It really makes you sit back and realize how short and precious life is.  When I came home from work, Brittany gave me a long big hug and told me how much she appreciates me.  I wish it was that way all the time with the kids, but I’ll take what I can get.  🙂

Angela went over and visited Jackie and talked with her about what our family could do.  Sarah went over and spent some time with Rebecca to console and comfort her.  We were a little worried for Sarah because she found out the bad news right before she went to a job interview at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  True to Sarah’s personality, she compartmentalized the sadness and didn’t let it affect her at all until after she was done with the interview.  She said it went really well, however, so we’re hopeful that soon Sarah will have her first job.

We wish the Greenwald Family the best are praying daily for them in their time of loss.

By |2010-10-28T06:18:10-07:00October 11th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments

Busy Day Part 2 – Football and Homecoming Dance

Part 2 of our very busy Saturday consisted of football and the Metea Valley High School Homecoming Dance!

Zachary had his football game and played pretty well.  He is still starting at center and today, he didn’t have a single missed snap!  What a cute little football player he is.  He is trying really hard to get a Crunch bar, given out to one offensive and one defensive player each game by one of the coaches.  He hustled better today and ran up to the line every time after the huddle!

Unfortunately, they lost again!  The poor little team hasn’t won a game yet.  It seems like they are TINY compared to the other teams that they are playing against!  They don’t give up though, and even though there are some tears, they keep playing hard.  The coaches are great with them and treat them like winners.  We’re glad that he has coaches that care and want them to have a positive experience.  🙂

This afternoon, the girls got ready and went over to Gaul’s house (Sarah’s and Brittany’s friends), and started partying for the homecoming dance!  They had dinner and then got all dressed up, did hair, etc., etc., etc., etc.  Sarah and Brittany both invited friends from church to go with them and so they had a group of 7 kids.  After getting all dressed up and pretty, they went and took a bunch of pictures…

One of the highlights for me was that I got to be a chaperone at the dance.  Myself, Ken Gaul, and Lonny Greenwald volunteered through the PTSA to help out.  We all were pretty excited to be able to hang out with the girls tonight.

We drove the kids up to the school and had a great time at the dance.  For the first part of the dance, Ken worked at the refreshment area, while Lonny and I helped out at the extremely busy coat check (which was more of a “shoe check”).  I don’t think that there was a single girl there that left her shoes on.  When you think of it, it’s kind-of gross.  600+ girls walking around in sweaty bare feet around the dance floor.  Sounds like the boys locker room!  🙂

All three of us finished up the dance at the refreshment table.  Lonny had to leave a bit early because he’s running the Chicago Marathon tomorrow!  I don’t know how people do that!  🙂  We wished him good luck and then continued our work.  We had a great time talking to each other about all kinds of stuff, talking to all the kids who came to get refreshments, etc.  I tried not to get too close to our kids, however, due to threats from Brittany that I better not hang around them!  🙂

It was so funny being there and comparing dances we had growing up vs. the dances now.  Back when I went to dances, if you didn’t have a date, you just didn’t go.  Now, there were probably about 60% of the kids there that came as big groups without dates (either mixed boys and girls, all girls, or all guys).  They just stand in the middle of the floor, jump around, and dance with everybody.  It seems like our larger dances were more formal and nice as well.  How times have changed.  🙂

After the dance, the girls all came over to our house for dessert, snacks, and a movie.  Most of them didn’t make it through the movie.  We had to wake them up to go home at midnight.  🙂

By |2010-10-25T06:04:13-07:00October 9th, 2010|Home Life, School|0 Comments

Busy Day Part 1 – Preparedness Fair!

Today was an absolute crazy day!  We had tons of things going on.  Early this morning, Angela and her Public Affairs cohort, Julie Stevenson left to go to Bourbonnais, IL to a preparedness fair that they have been working extremely hard on coordinating for the past 6-8 months!  There were groups from all over who participated and the fair went off very well!  Angela was very nervous that no one would come from the community down there but fortunately, she was wrong.   The attendance was great!  They also had our scout troop down there doing some cooking and survival skills demonstrations, and they brought down at least 100 loaves of homemade bread to cut up and pass out.

She and Julie left just after 6 and didn’t get back home until just after 4.  What a tiring but fulfilling day!  Way to go Angela!  You could hear the sigh of relief that this was over all the way from Bourbonnais when they started back home!  🙂  See part 2 for football and Homecoming Dance!  🙂

By |2010-10-22T05:39:10-07:00October 9th, 2010|Church|0 Comments

Homecoming Football and Last Performance

Tonight was the final Metea Marching Mustangs performance on the field.  🙁  On a good note, they had their best halftime show of the season and did a wonderful job!  I absolutely loved being part of the pit crew and will miss hanging out with the pit dads at games.  We had a great time!  We also had our best pit cleanup after the show today as well!  🙂

Unfortunately, the football team got cremated by 40+ points for not only the last home game of the season, but for the homecoming game.  Oh well, next year they’ll do VERY well because of the experience they’ve had this year.  They’ll also be playing kids their own age!  🙂

Go Mustangs!

By |2010-10-22T05:43:03-07:00October 8th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments
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