What she will do for ice cream!

Jenna's taking soccer this season for the first time. She's on a team of cute little 4 yr-olds who run around in clumps chasing the ball from one end of the field to the other. The games are played 3-on-3, so there aren't a ton of kids on the field at one time. The first few games, Jenna wasn't very motivated to get after the ball (who would really, when the girls all crowd around it and kick each other in attempt to advance the ball?) Well, Robby, being the nice dad that he is, wanted to motivate her to get out there and go after the ball, so he promised ice cream for a goal. Guess what... It worked!

Here's our little scorer! She managed (very much to my surprise) to get control of the ball at midfield and take it all the way down the field uncontested to score a goal! I must admit that the other parents must have thought I had lost it when I started whooping and hollering. You would have thought Jenna had scored the winning goal at the state championship. Hey, I was proud of my baby! (You would have been too, if you had seen how she went from pansy-picker to one determined little soccer player.) Of course, right after she scored she turned toward me and exclaimed, "I get ice cream!" Unfortunately, dad missed it because he had to be at school that morning!

And here is Jenna's biggest fan!

And of course the celebratory ice cream!

Methinks a long winter cometh...

...especially after seeing Sharon and Roo take in much of Jenna's first soccer game...

...from the car.

The temperature: 60 degrees with a north wind of 10 mph.

If last year is indicative, we still have 90 degrees (!!) to drop.

Better break out the parkas.

Berry Blast!

The kids and I visited a local berry patch while Sharon was in NYC with family recently. They have many seasonal crops, but this time of year it's mainly blueberries.

Robby was our champion berry picker.

The kids consumed so much in picking (you pay by the pound)...

...that I made sure to leave a big tip.

A delicious outing.

Random Moments

Here are some random moments from June...

I finally got a Bosch mixer!!!!! Hoo-ray!!!!

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit.

And we had a great Father's Day! (Or rather, Robby and my Dad - who happen to be visiting - had a great Father's Day!)

Winter fashion in June

Where do they learn this stuff?

Moving In

I must admit that there are still many boxes around our place that are waiting to be unpacked. But here are some of our early unpacking adventures...

Eating seated on the kitchen floor since we didn't have room for our table to be set up with all the boxes around.

Playing on our new playset (or rather new-to-us playset since it came with the house)

Painting a couple rooms (3 more to go)

And enjoying the beautiful plants surrounding our house

There are more pictures for you to enjoy in the...

Moving In Album
(21 pictures - Click on the large picture to go through the slide show, or select a picture from the top menu)

Our Forced Vacation

As many of you know, the house that we were renting in Indiana sold about a week and a half earlier than we were planning. We agreed to move out early so that our landlords could sell the house since we knew how much they wanted to sell it. Well, we also had about an additional half a week before our new house in Iowa would be available, so we told people we were "homeless" for two weeks. It was also known as our forced vacation. So here's what we did...

We stopped in Michigan on our drive (just so we could say we had been to Michigan).

We stopped at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago two days in a row to check it out.

One of our favorite exhibits was the SmartHouse. A model home that is built with all the latest technologies to make it energy efficient. There was some cool stuff there. Like a prototype for a remote controlled snow shovel! That's my kind of snow shovel! You sit inside sipping your hot cocoa while steering the thing from your window! Too bad it's only a prototype right now.

We checked out the SmartHouse garden...

played in the Museum

and watched some chicks hatch!

And then on the way to Iowa we swung through the very edge of Wisconsin, so we could say we had been there, too.

To see more fun vacation pics click on this album...

Our Forced Vacation Album
(28 Pictures - click on the big picture to flip through each one or select one from the top of the page)