Mini-Golfing

I had been promising to take the girls mini-golfing and last Saturday we finally went. There are 3 or 4 courses within driving distance, and when I say driving distance I mean roughly within a 5 mile radius, but we went to the Swing Time course since it was the closest. It was semi-hot and sunny and when we got there we had one group in front of us, and for about the first 4 or 5 holes we were pretty good, but things started to back up quickly.

I wanted to take a few more pictures than what I was able to get, but that was mainly because as we got backed up, we had to keep playing in order to keep things moving. We couldn’t even let people play through, which would have been my preference. Ali ended up beating Sarah by three strokes, but that was mainly because I was helping her.

Sarah kept having problems with tapping the ball too hard and ended up 3 and 4 putting the hole several times. Ali did, however, manage to get a hole in one all by herself.

Eye Exams

Kris, the girls and I all had our annual eye exams this past week. Sarah and Alison both had great vision. Sarah was something like 20-10 and Ali has grown out of the astigmatism she had. Unfortunately Kris and I were not so lucky. Both of were told that the specter of old age is starting to creep in. Both of us are getting to the point where reading glasses could be used without any problem. And when I say without any problem, I mean the weakest type of reading glasses, but it is just the fact that I COULD use them that bugs me. The doctor said, it is just part of aging and that most people somewhere between their late 30s and early 40s end up starting to need them. Yeah, getting old blows!

Report Cards

We got the girls’ annual end of the year report cards this past week and as usual, the marks were stellar. Both of them tested over their grade levels in reading and math. Lets just hope it continues. I think Sarah enjoyed the small class she had and the attention that she got from her teacher. Next year going to junior high she is going to be faced with larger classes and teachers that really don’t care because they have 35 more coming in next period. But for now we will enjoy it and brag about how smart our children are.

June Is Almost Done

It's almost the end of June, which means school starts up again in about two months. The last couple of years I had done a website for Sarah's girl scout troop. However, it never became what i was planning on it becoming, especially last year. I had to change providers and completely start from scratch. With the things that were happening at work I didn't have much time to get it up and running the way I would have liked. Well, I have some free time now so maybe I'll start working on things at night for an hour or so to get it ready for the fall. Updating it is the easy part, it is the whole writing, arranging, and uploading that takes forever. Hopefully I'll be ready to go by September, so check it out when you have time.

Sunburns

We have finally got some summertime weather! Last week was in the upper 80s and low 90s. Kris's aunt has an in ground pool and we have a standing invite to come over and beat the heat. Kris took the girls over this week a couple of times and on Wednesday they spent 3 hours swimming. Kris was sitting around the pool, in the shade mind you, and ended up coming home glowing pink. The sunlight reflecting off the water gave her a nice sunburn. That's going to hurt in the morning!

Facebook

I started a facebook page a few months ago. I'm still not real clear on the whole purpose of it though. But I don't really do anything with it, other than playing Mafia Wars. And even that has been getting somewhat boring lately. But the reason I did it was to see if I could find any people from high school with whom I had lost touch. I wasn't able to go to either my 15 or 20 year class reunions. Well I found a bunch of people from my class added them as friends, and boom... still no real contact. There were a couple of people that I sent a message or two to, which was cool, but the others are all just sort of "there". So what was the point then really?

I did do some searching and found a couple of cousins on there though that I haven't seen in forever, so maybe I'll be able to stay in touch with some family that I never see. We'll see how that goes.

Father's Day

Well Father's Day was fun this year. I spent it doing nails for the girls. That was fine with me though. They gave me a couple of golf shirts, which was good because my work shirts were getting boring and I needed some new ones. I'm not one for doing a whole lot of extra stuff just because it's Father's Day. I would rather just treat it like any other day. And all the gifts that I would want are way out of anyone's price range. I know what I want and I'll just get it when I have finished saving for it.

OUCH!

Those who know where we live know that we are two houses from the end of the block and that across the street that our road "T"s is a clinic. You can see the clinic from the upstairs windows in Kris and my bedroom. Yesterday I sent the girls outside while I picked up the house a bit and while I was putting stuff away in our room, I hear a loud bang, like a car that ran into something. I turn and look out the window and see a guy rolling in the driveway to the clinic and an SUV half in the driveway. Apparently the SUV rear-ended a motorcycle and the guy went messed up his leg. Ambulances came, cops, and a couple of doctors and nurses came outside to help tend to the guy. The driver of the SUV looked to be a teenager, and he was freaking out. Of course lots of the nosy neighbors around here had to walk down to the end of the street to watch everything that was happening. The guy was taken away in an ambulance with a large inflatable cast on his leg, so I would assume that he either snapped a twig, or messed his knee up by putting a leg down after the SUV hit him. Boy, lots of exciting stuff happening here lately.

Excitement on Friday

On my way home from work Friday I noticed a helicoptor that appeared to be hovering in the sky. As I got closer it looked like it was hovering over our neighborhood. I ended up calling Kris to see if there was anything on the news, but she said, no, nothing was going on. As I got about a mile away frm home, I saw that the helicoptor was about a half mile or so from our house at the intersection of Menomonee Ave. and Appleton Ave. and there were cops that were re-routiing traffic. Then I saw mobile news vans parked in one of the lots across the street from teh intersection. As I drove past there was a strong odor of gas. There has been road contruction going on latlely on Menomonee Ave. replacing pipes for rain runoff and I figure that the crew must have hit a gas line. A little later I saw the WE Energies trucks there and about 5 or 6 guys all standing around (union jobs rock!). I'm actually surprised that there wasn't any sort of evacuation of the surrounding neighborhoods. But that was the excitement that we had on Friday.

Thunderstorm

Thrusday night was the first big thunderstorm of the year. About midnight we had heavy rain and thunder that shook the house. I was sleeping on the couch because I was up late doing some work and didn’t want to wake Kris but I had gone to sleep about 10 minutes before it started. So when I got up for work Friday morning and went to get my clothes and shoes for work, I found Alison sleeping in bed with Kris. Obviously the thunder woke her and she was scared so she had to climb into bed with mom. It amazes me that the thunder will wake Ali up and keep her awake if she is in her room, but as soon as she climbs into our bed, she sleeps like a rock regardless of how loud the thunder gets.

Ali's Friends

Ali went to a birthday party for one of the girls in her class Thursday. It was both fun and a hassle for her. She had fun with some of her other friends, but she also had to deal with a couple of other girls who were picking on her. That is one thing that Kris and I worried about this past year with Ali being in the multi-age class. She is still only 6 years old and there are other kids in her class that are already 9. and the majority of her friends are at least a year older than her. She did great as far as learning. By the end of the year she was starting to do 2nd grade math and is already one of the best readers in her class. But we were worried about how she was going to handle things socially. It is really only two or three girls, and usually they are fine, but when they all get together they are trouble with a capital T. HOpefully things will be better next year when those kids are out of her class.

Last Day of School

Last Friday the 12th was the last day of school! Sarah is done with grade school and will be off to Junior High in the fall. Boy, it's hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday that she was getting on the bus for the first time. I went back to look and I couldn't find any pictures of her first day of Kindergarten, but here is Sarah (and Ali) waiting for the bus on her last day of grade school.

As a treat I took a vacation day and we picked up the girls at the end of their half day of school and took them down to the Milwaukee Public Museum. We missed the Titanic Exhibit by a couple of weeks, but we still had fun walking around. Ali was excited to actually get to see the butterfly exhibit, but then when we got there, she wanted to leave right away. She was afraid of having the butterflies land on her, but I still managed a couple of close ups:



I took some more shots of the girls in the museum, but I'll keep from boring you. But the final one I will post is the girls standing in front of Milwaukee legend Sampson. The sign says the model of Samson was created from masks of his face that were taken after he died. It was a lucky thing that they didn't kill him when he broke out after he got mad at the kid who was making funny faces at him.

Pictures of Sarah's Graduation

As I said earlier, Sarah "graduated" from 5th grade on Wednesday. Well, I finally got to downloading the pictures from the camera.

Happy Birthday Grandma

My parents were up a couple of weeks ago visiting. They stayed up in Appleton with my brother and they just happened to drive down on my mom's birthday with my niece. We ended up buying her a cake and singing "Happy Birthday" after dinner.

14 Years and Counting

Yesterday was also our wedding anniversary. I ended up taking a day of vacation, and how did we spend our special day? Getting the grass cut and gutters cleaned out, spraying the yard for bugs and mosquitoes, doing laundry, and going to Riverside for Sarah's graduation (I don't think it is an actual graduation, but it is a ceremony to mark the end of 5th grade). We did end up actually going out to eat with the girls because Kris didn't want to cook on our anniversary, and I don't blame her. Here's to starting our 15th year of marriage!

Almost Done

It has been a busy time with end of the year activities with the girls. Sarah had her bridging to cadette scouts, both girls had their dance recital, they are having end of the year stuff with school right now. In fact, Sarah just had her "graduation" ceremony from fifth grade at Riverside yesterday. It seemed like she got just about every award that a student could get. I think she is going to miss Riverside, but she is also looking forward to starting junior high next year.

Ali had her class picnic yesterday, Sarah has hers today and tomorrow is just a half day and then it's all done. The only problem is that summer is not here yet for summer vacation.