A Vicious Cycle

It all started during the 2008 Summer Olympics. A small thin line across the bottom of our TV screen. It wasn't that bothersome....and it would come and go.

Fast forward to November 5. I turned on the TV for Halle at lunchtime and our screen had been reduced to a very small box in the middle. And it was sort of slanted. And you couldn't really see the whole picture. I turned the TV off and back on thinking that it would heal itself like it had done with the small thin line. Nope. Not this time. So I waited a day. Then two. Evidently there was to be no self-healing. And I was beginning to miss my TV. I was amused that I NEVER wanted to watch TV during the day....until I COULDN'T. Then I missed it. And Johnny was out of town.

By November 7 we were the proud owners of a brand new high definition (HD) 40" flat screen TV. Nice! But wait a minute. You can't actually USE the HD feature unless you have a HD receiver. I guess we'd better upgrade that. Thanks DirecTV! But now our movies don't look good through our old DVD player. Hmmmm. Better get a Blu Ray player. That'll fix it! And the Blu Ray player is so cool that it can streamline Netflix movies and play lots of them on demand.....but you have to have an internet connection. When our house was built 13 years ago, they didn't think to put a phone jack or a internet connector by the cable jack. Better call the phone company. Oh, and all of the DVD's we own? They look better but not nearly as cool as the Blu Ray DVD's! I guess we will have to replace our movie collection.

As the dust settles on our new purchases I feel like I've been had by a very sophisticated marketing scheme. Or did we do this just to satisfy our want for electronics? Either way, pull up a chair and bring some popcorn....I think we have a new theater.

Halloween

Parker dressed up like......

.....a pre-teen!

Grayson dressed up like.....
... Indiana Jones!



Halle dressed up like.....

....a little teapot!

We attended our second annual trick-or-treating party at the Larson's joined by the other Harris'. A good time was had by all!

The Pumpkin Patch

We had a tradition when we lived in Texas to hit the Flower Mound pumpkin patch at some point in October. I'm not sure how it happened, but our first fall in Wheaton did not result in a trip to the patch. My sentence for not making it happen was to endure questions ALL YEAR long about why we didn't go to the pumpkin patch and could we be sure to go this year?

Since we have such beautiful falls, there was no shortage of pumpkin patches. Only, I learned that a lot of the pumpkin farms are also apple orchards. Unfortunately, by the time we had a free weekend to hit the patch (soccer eats up most of our October weekends), the apple-pickin' time was over. So, we settled for the pumpkins only and have decided to go earlier next year so we could pick apples.

I remember complaining that in Texas it was always too warm on pumpkin patch day. I would dress the kids all up in their fall sweaters and they would be sweltering by the time we were finished. They were also always "squinty" because the sun was so bright! What I've learned about Illinois pumpkin patch days is that you don't have to worry about the squinty eyes, but since you have to wear heavy jackets to keep warm, you can't see the fall sweaters. I think I need to create a simulated indoor pumpkin patch for the picture taking!

The kids had a great time wandering through the corn maze.

Although at times, they were stumped on which way to go!

Amber requested some fall foliage picks. Amber this one's for you!

They each picked out the perfect pumpkin....


.....and even got to wash it at the pumpkin washing station.

...To be continued next year. Look for apple pickin' pics!

The Marathon

Autumn, Janda and I--contemplating the map of the course on October 18. Wow! That's a lot of miles!

On October 20 we stood in front of the same map VICTORIOUS!

Can you say 26.2 AND bust? Bust is what Autumn and I did to our knees as we both ran on injured IT bands. Stinkin' IT bands. You can't run with 'em and you can't run without 'em! After the marathon we were reduced to not moving and icing! It is weird that just hours before we were on our feet running a marathon and by that evening we couldn't have even run around the block!

All in all the marathon was a success. Since I entered the race injured, my goal was to finish. I am happy to report that I achieved my goal. Unfortunately the competitor in me wants a re-do because I'm not happy with my time. In August, uninjured, I ran a 2:06 half-marathon. My time for the full marathon was over 6 hours! I don't know how we endured SIX hours out there, but we did it! But I would love to run the same course healthy and see how I could do.

If I can get my IT bands to cooperate, I think I might run Chicago in 2009 and attempt to beat my pitiful PR (personal record) in 2010. That shouldn't be too hard! And to think I thought that I'd run only ONE marathon......

Time to RUN LIKE A GIRL!

Janda, Autumn and I arrived in sunny San Francisco today!

Niketown has the name of EVERY runner on their window! Here I am by mine!

Looks like we have a challenge in front of us, but WE WILL CONQUER!

Side Effects of Kindergarten

This is what happens in the afternoon after a busy morning at Kindergarten. You might just want to curl up with your favorite blanket and take a nap.....most days.

Time to Build an Ark

It started raining on Friday. Just a light sprinkle. I actually went for a little run after dropping the kids off at school. It was nice and refreshing. After I got home it started raining a bit harder, and harder and then it was pouring. It rained and rained and rained. When we woke up on Saturday morning the ground had already had enough. Even though the rain wasn't coming down hard anymore there still was no place for the new moisture to go. And thus the problems began. We noticed that water was beginning to pool in our backyard. We checked out our front yard and realized we had a situation! The water was completely covering our cul-de-sac and came up in our yard well past the sidewalk. AND IT WAS STILL RAINING!

Parker decided to rescue his soccer goal before it floated down-stream.

This is the view from our house up to the main street. It looked like a lake!

This is the view from our neighbors yard.

While we were fortunate enough not to have water leaking into our basement, that was not the case for everyone on our street. Our neighbors had an issue with rain water filling up their basement window wells causing water to leak into their basement. We spent about an hour and a half dipping buckets of water out of the window wells and depositing the water onto their lawn. It kept the situation at bay, but if you stopped it filled right back up. At one point I feared that we might be doing this all day, and then Reid showed up with a PUMP! He stuck it in the well and voila! all the water was pumped out in a matter of minutes. I'm glad he showed up but was secretly wishing he had made an appearance an hour earlier!

Here were are, looking like drowned rats! But, the basements stayed DRY!

After the boys got the window wells under control, our attention shifted to that of our children. Here you will see water running into our neighbors side yard looking for the french drain. Too bad it didn't realize that the drain had no where to drain to. Everything was so saturated and full that there was no place for the water to go. So what did it do? It created a swimming pool!

The kids got on their swimming suits and blew up the rafts! They had a great time!

Luckily the water levels went down by the end of the day. We had quite a parade of city vehicles on our street working to get this situation under control. Hopefully they will find the root of the problem and can fix it so that this doesn't happen the next time we get a big rain. Although the kids are likely to be disappointed, our basements will appreciate it!