Green Bay

We left today for a short vacation in Wisconsin. The room we wanted at The Landing in Egg Harbor wasn't available for tonight, so we opted to stay in a Holiday Inn in Green Bay. We swam for a while and had a pizza dinner at Sammy's. Tomorrow we're on the way to Door County.

Rain?

It's been so dry this summer. The grass is yellow, the flowers are wilting. My two tomatoe plants look sad. This afternoon, we got a bit of rain. I was so excited I had to get a picture as the raindrops hit the sidewalk. We were grilling out at the time, but the rain felt good. The best part of summer rains is sitting by the window and watching people run and bike home.

Bright green

L said she chose yellow bands at her orthodontist appointment yesterday, but they are definitely green. And a really bright green.

Sleeping beauty

Usually when I come downstairs in the morning, B is sprawled out on the couch. His room doesn't get much air-conditioning and sometimes it's too hot for him to sleep in his room. Today, though, it was L peacefully sleeping on the couch.

Air hockey

Friday morning I took the kids to a moving sale hosted by a couple from our church who are moving to New Mexico in about a week. I volunteered to watch shoppers for the early morning shift. We were stationed in the basement and the kids gravitated to the only toy there - an air hockey table. We asked the owner if it worked and he said it did. Since it was B's birthday, I thought we could spare the $10 and get it. We were a little distraught when we got it home and plugged it in - it took a while to warm up and start blowing air. Finally, though, it did and the kids played an air hockey tournament. They've promised me that they'll store it in the basement.

My newest teenager

B turned 13 today! He asked to go to Fuddrucker's for his birthday dinner. Although it's basically a burger place, he ordered the chicken fingers.

Back to U of I

We drove back to U of I today to pick up E from her golf camp. She said she had a good time. She even got a bit of a tan. And she sunburned the top of her head. This is the golf training facility where she spent much of her week, when she wasn't out on the golf course. Andy just had to see it before we left campus and we ended up driving through the veterinary area to get there. We even saw a cow with a "window" stuck in its stomach. Pretty gross.

On Wednesday the camp tour a campus tour and talked with girls who are on the U of I golf team. E seemed pretty impressed by them. The coach said the "in kind" gifts they get for being on the golf team (uniforms, travel, lodging, food, etc.) equals about $22,000 a year per girl. They also have a tutoring center where there are free tutors available for every course they could possibly take. They said high school girls should be shooting in the 70s to be considered for a Division 1 team. E is around 100 so she has a lot of work to do if that's going to be part of her plan. The girls also practice all year long, sometimes getting to the practice facility at 6 in the morning. I can't imagine that's easy for college students.

Pizza!

When we realized both girls would be gone this week, we told B we would take him downtown for pizza one night. Due to circumstances beyond our control, L was home and had to, I mean was able to, join us. We went to Pizzeria Due. It was a hot day, again up to 95 degrees, but it had cooled down a bit by the time we left the restaurant. We had a nice walk back to Andy's parking garage. L had to stop and play in the fountain at Daley Plaza.

Party all night long

With the girls away at camp, B decided this was the perfect time to have a sleepover/video game-playing party with his two friends, I and I. They arrived at our house about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday with plans to stay up for 24 hours. Initially, their plan was to walk around Oak Park and visit every park, but with temps up to 97 degrees, they walked to a couple of parks and spent most of the day inside (smart kids). I thought it would be interesting to take a picture of the three of them every six hours to see how tired they get, but I didn't get around to my first picture until early afternoon. Here they are:

Later in the day, we cut B's brownies and took another picture:

At least when we left for the camp crisis, B had two friends to be with him so we could leave him home. They were all still awake at 1:15 a.m.:

But, alas, this morning around 8:30, they decided it was time to sleep. The plan is to go in shifts - one awake with two sleeping. Not sure how that's going to work.

Camp crisis

The last thing I wanted at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday was a call from L's camp. Apparently, a lot of the campers were getting violently ill - headaches, followed by stomach aches, then projectile vomit. We drove to the camp with a woman from church and picked up L and her friends, L and J. J whined the whole way home about being sick, missing her mom, etc. I was ready for the trip to end. At least the traffic was light. We didn't get back home until 1:15 a.m. That's when I snapped this pic of L. She was disappointed they shut camp down early, but said she had a good time and would be willing to go back next year. We don't seem to have good luck with Pilgrim Park.

Here are a couple of pictures the camp send via email Tuesday before they decided to shut down camp. L is in the boat in the first one. She said she did swim in the pond. She said the pool was newly refurbished this year. It looks inviting.

Camper L

L is at church camp this week and the camp organizer sent a link to some online photos. She claims everyone is having a good time. I hope so!

Paying me to shop

Today was the annual "bag sale" for Economy Shop volunteers. The shop is pretty much cleaned out; our last public sale was Saturday. On "bag sale" day, volunteers pay $5 for a kitchen garbage bag to fill with whatever they want that's left in the shop. The more stuff that is taken, the less volunteers have to get rid of or store before we take the summer off.

I didn't have much luck, but was able to find a few things: a green vase, Skip-Bo cards, a Seinfeld trivia game, a couple Beanie Babies, some shirts for L, a few books and a couple of baskets. I found a pair of shorts I thought would fit me and although I can get them buttoned, they're a bit tight. But, apparently, they're my lucky shorts. I felt something in the pocked and woo-hoo, I pulled out a $20 bill.

Campers

We took L to church this morning to get a ride with our friend, L, to Pilgrim Park, a UCC church camp. She will be gone until next Saturday and is bunking (hopefully) with other girls from our church. A total of five girls are going for the week. She seemed pretty excited about camp - except the church part. I told her, it's church camp, you have to expect they'd sneak some religion in there.

While L was getting her ride to Pilgrim Park, we were taking E to University of Illinois-Urbana for a golf camp. She comes home Thursday. She's been to U of I for engineering camps, but this is her first time at golf camp. She's staying in Sherman Hall. She essentially has a single, but a bathroom that connects to another single.

She's on the 13th floor, the top floor of this hall. If you look close enough, you can see the football stadium. Here's the view:

My boy

B likes to sleep on the sofa in the summer because he says his room gets too hot. He's so angelic when he's sleeping, it's hard not to take photos of him.

Laundry treasures

I usually find some change (and on occasion, some bills) when I do laundry, but today was a first - I found a golf ball. Since I was doing E and L's wash before they head off to camp on Sunday, I'd have to say it was E's ball. She also left me a quarter to find. And, oh yeah, finders keepers in this house. She will, though, get the ball back.

And more golf

Today E had a golf tournament in Hillside. She shot a 107, saying she was still beat from yesterday's tournament. It probably wasn't a good idea to schedule back-to-back tournaments. She's played this course and has done better. She wasn't too happy with herself. She felt a little better after a sandwich from Jimmy John's.

While we were waiting for E to finish, L couldn't help but hop into a nearby golf cart. Imagine her surprise when she hit the gas pedal and the engine revved up. At least she took her foot off the gas quickly!

Improvement

L and I drove E to Woodridge today for another IJGA golf tournament. It was a beautiful, sunny day (not too hot) and she shot 112. She played the course last fall with the OPRF golf team and scored 124. Even though today's score wasn't great, it was a 12-stroke improvement over fall and she was happy with that.



While E was on the course, L and I went shopping. She found this adorable Webkinz marked for $18. It was at a Justice store that was having a 40 percent off of everything in the store sale - if you had a coupon. We didn't have a coupon, but the cashier offered us 40 percent off in exchange for our email address. We took that deal. That was $7.20 off the regularly priced $18 Webkinz. What a deal. And L paid for (most of) it by herself. Her tooth fairy money came in handy.

Little things

E and her friend, A, went to the Main Library today for a teen art project - creating a pin out of recycled materials. I think E's turned out pretty well. She's not yet sure what she's going to do with it.

Tonight, L came home from playing with her friends, saying her tooth was falling out. It didn't seem that loose to me, but she went in the bathroom and yanked it out. Last time we were at the orthodontist, they took the wire off that tooth because they thought it would fall out before her next appointment. It's kind of funny looking with the bracket on it.

Day lilies

Our day lilies are blooming. Last year they were only in bloom for a day or so before the rabbits (we think) ate them. We read they the lilies are sweet and can be quite a treat for the rabbits.

Mickey mail

The information for our upcoming Disney World vacation came in the mail today. The kids were mesmerized by the 3-D ish luggage tags, different from the ones they sent us before.

Sleepyheads

B had his friend, I, spend the night for a sleepover. Again, not much sleeping happened. B came home from church and took a three-hour nap. L went to the pool with her friend, N, from church and then took a nap herself, which she never does. Church started at 10 a.m. this morning. I snapped this picture about 9 a.m. and all three (L was put in bed upstairs but came down at some time during the night because she said she heard the boys talking loudly) were sound asleep. And that was after we banged around pans making breakfast. This could be the end of Saturday night sleepovers.

Linakeke Island

L turned the house into "Linakeke Island" today for her early birthday party. Linekeke is her name in Hawaiian. She invited five neighborhood kids and gave them each a plastic lei when they arrived. They played some water games and threw a lot of water balloons at each other. They snacked on cupcakes (which L decorated herself) and drank some Hawaiian Punch (of course). They also watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks' movie, "Shipwrecked."

To go along with her Hawaiian theme, L had to sing "Happy Birthday" with her friends while holding the Obama bobblehead I brought back from Hawaii.

On the links

E had another golf tournament today. This was was way north in Waukegan. Andy took off work (OK, he went in to work from about 5 a.m. to 10 a.m.) to drive her. She didn't place, but she did manage to shoot lower than her playing partner for the day.

This was the first time she wore her skort - a size 0. I don't think I was ever a size 0.

Movie potluck

Sometime during the school year E got the idea to write a movie script and film a movie this summer. She managed to talk several of her friends into being in the movie, as well as a couple of B's friends. Yesterday afternoon, all the kids (nine in all) met at the nearby schoolyard to start scoping out the scenes. They took a brief respite here while E walked Raffi, a neighborhood dog, then they left to scout out another park. They descended on our house around 5 p.m., sat at the dining room table and read through the script, making changes, etc.

Part of E's plan (unbeknownst to me until a couple of days ago) was that everyone was going to bring along food for a potluck dinner. I, surprise, was going to be supplying the burgers and manpower. They didn't do too bad for a potluck - soda, banana bread, crackers, chips, more chips, dip, a cantaloupe, cinnamon rolls, a watermelon and two bags of microwave popcorn. I was afraid they'd end up with some soda and lots of chips. Andy grilled the burgers when he got home from work and the kids had a good time eating and playing video games in the basement. The party broke up about 8 p.m.

I didn't take any pictures as the kids were planning their blockbuster movie, but someone took a pic of one of E's friends, J. Not sure who did that. Guess that's what I get when I leave my camera laying around. I'm surprised there weren't more mystery photos on my camera. At one point, J sat down at the piano and played a song from memory. It was the best my piano sounded in years.

Conservatory

L was looking for something to do this morning and I wanted to take a walk so we headed over to the Conservatory. L was using my old digital camera to see whether she'd be able to use it at church camp in a few weeks. She did a pretty good job.

After taking a few pictures, L found a scavenger hunt book the Conservatory hands out. Here she is trying to get George to say a few words. He had very few words to say today.