Visit From my Sister

If you read my sisters blog, you would know that we had a great time while she was here. We spent three days in Chicago checking out the various sites. At some point, I would like to go back and spend more time walking around. With the kids, we had to keep moving so things would continue to change for them. Could not stay in one place for too long or they would lose all interest. Nevertheless, we had fun. We took a lot of pictures, obviously including the Sears Tower. Here is one funny one we took

We drove down there on Friday, but took the train Saturday and Sunday. The boys loved it, and it was nice to not worry about having to drive and park. Train tickets on the weekend were $5 per adult and are good all weekend! Kids free too! While on the way downtown one morning the boys were tired and they wanted to lay down. Here is one position they got into. It did not last, but if it were comfortable for both, they would have crashed easily.

Sorry this is not longer. I stayed up too late last night watching the Olympics, and then I had to get up early this morning for an 8:00 meeting. I am going to bed!

p.s. - Elijah starts his new school on Monday! 2nd grade. Open house is this Thursday and we get to meet his teacher and walk the school. I actually have an opportunity to buy Bears tickets for their next pre-season game. Usually not a big deal, but they are playing the 49ers. Turns out the game is Thursday, so that nixes that because I would rather go to the open house. Well, that, and the tickets would be $92 EACH!!! My next door neighbor knows the fiance of the grandson of the Bears' owner. Her tickets are on the Bears sideline, at the 45-50 yard line, 10 rows up. Nice!! Someday I will bite the bullet and buy them. We'll see. Ciao.

More landscaping

More of the back yard

But the flowers are very pretty and there are tons.

Weeding.... yuck!

We did not expect this much landscaping at our house. When we looked at the house and made an offer and when we moved in was a month and a half and in that time all of the shurbs, brushes, flowers and Weeds grow like crazy. We have a big sized yard, but neither of us realized that it was going to be like this. There are flower beds surrounding the entire yard in the back and along the deck. We spend a lot of Saturday last weekend weeding and we only got a few sections done it is crazy.



At my fathers request I took photos of the landscaping to see all of the flowers and the weeds (this was prior to weeding).

Enjoy.
This is the front walkway. I just planted the day lillies and the other lillies and the mums in the front and around the tree in the front.

Front to the left of the drive way.

Front tree.

Back yard waking in from the side gate.

Back yard waking in from the side gate.

Crazy Weather!!

What the deuce?!?! That was some wild weather. In case you did not know, there were some severe storms that came through last night. Luckily, the worst of it was just a bit south of us, so all we got was a lot of rain, some wind, and a lot of lightning. After talking with a couple of co-workers who have lived in the area for a long time or for their whole life, I found out that this was one of the craziest storms they have ever seen. A couple of tornado's touched down in Illinois, but again, south of us.

As the storms were going through, I tried to snap some pictures. The first one is of the sky to the west. I took this about 8:00 pm. The worst of the clouds had moved east, and we could see an orange glow off in the distance. Obviously it was the trailing clouds with the sun coming through, but it was a very strange orange.

The other photos were of some lightning while we were looking east towards downtown Chicago out of our bathroom window. Keep in mind that these were taken about 8:30 at night when it was virtually dark outside. I told Becky today that it was a good thing she was not flying out here yeasterday. They had hundreds of flight cancelations at both airports (O'Hare and Midway). At least they are expecting great weather from Thurs through the weekend.