Mohawk Trail

A brief update on Sunday's details. I'll have to finish posts when I get home. There is someone waiting for this computer and I only have about 7 minutes left of the courtesy 15 minute use limit.

On Sunday we drove along the Mohawk Trail which is about a 2 hour circle through the back roads. There were incredibly beautiful views along the mountain roads. The weather is perfect. We took a 2 1/2 hour detour to the Yankee Candle Village. This is where is all started. After 2 1/2 hours we still didn't see it all!! We think we might need to go back because we didn't get to the museum or even to all of the store yet! Because it was getting dark, we cut the trail short and so we think we might have to go back and finish that too. We got a late start, leaving at 11am but some how we were gone 9 hours. We also went to a Pumpkin Farm, Bridge of Flowers which is a landmark and some famous geological potholes. (can't think of the name right now).

We went to a hole-in-the-wall local place, "Bubb's BBQ" for supper. Famous for... you guessed it, their BBQ. The atmosphere wasn't great but the food was tasty.

That's all for this fast update.

Love, Leah

Bentley Brook

We arrived at Bentley Brook this afternoon. We drove 11 hours yesterday and drove through some heavy rain and eventually darkness. We decided to stop and stay overnight in Syracuse, NY. We travelled the rest of the way, 3 hours, today. The resort is beautiful. The leaves are just starting to change so by the end of the week they should be brilliant. The rolling hills make me wonder once again why I live in the Midwest. ? ? ? We have only done some relaxing since we arrived, with no desire to get back in the car so soon. The weather is perfect for walking around the resort. There is a neat pumpkin farm with a hay ride just a little ways down the mountain. We'll have to check that out.

I talked to my family this afternoon and Madison's CYS team lost this morning and her Flames team tied 2-2 this afternoon. Quinn's team lost 0-2 to Nate's team. Today is Nate's birthday, complete with a soccer birthday party.

Hopefully I'll be able to post about more adventures to come. They have free Internet usage in the main lobby. Pictures will have to wait until I get home though.

Lots of love, Leah

So long for now...

Tomorrow morning my mom, Aunt Fern and I leave for Hancock, MA. Click here to see where we are staying. I have mixed feelings about going but I'm sure we will make a lot of good memories!

Grandma and Aunt Fern arrived tonight around 5pm. They went to Quinn's CYS soccer game. We won 3-1 and Quinn scored 1 goal. It was a beautiful evening.

Well, I still have packing to do. I'll try to update when I'm gone but I'm not sure how much Internet access I'll have. Addi told me to do whatever I needed to do to update my blog. She told me she would pay for the Internet access... just update it!! Ha! I'll try Addi!

Love ya,
Leah

"This day is gonna be awesome!"

Those were Quinn's words this morning on the way to the hospital. He woke up and was basically fine the whole day and quite happy to not be going to school. I didn't give him any medicines until tonight when he was complaining of a sore throat. He did great at work with me. He was thrilled to be going with me! He watched DVD's, played with his airplanes, shredded some papers for me and entertained my co-workers. I made my colleagues promise to vouch for me... for the reasons my Internet history will show a bunch of games were being played today! He liked "pretending" to be my patient, laying on the exam table while I checked him out. He probably didn't really realize that I really WAS checking him out! HA! He really should have been in school but they have that 24 hour rule... you can't send them unless they haven't had a fever for 24 hours. My opinion on that whole thing will have to wait for another day. It's too long.

My cold is much better but I still have a lingering, annoying cough. For those of you who think I needed an antibiotic... read this which summarizes why I think you should hold off on antibiotics if you are at least showing some gradual improvements after 1-2 weeks. Just an FYI for you. Yes, I work in a hospital and that's probably all the more reason I agree with this! : )

Well, I'm trying to get things arranged to be gone next week. My mom and Aunt Fern arrive tomorrow afternoon! I can't wait! In the meantime, we've been doing some more dog-sitting this week. Duchess was here for 6 days. She left tonight. Madison is dog-watching for Honey again for 3 days.

Love ya all, Leah

Quinn has a fever

Quinn came home from school today not feeling very well. He said he had a headache and his day at school was "just OK". I didn't think too much of it. Both of our kids will get headaches from time to time. They take after me. He went outside to play and came back in and laid on the couch and then asked for a thermometer. He had a 102 temp! Soooo, that throws a huge wrench into working tomorrow because he obviously can't go to school. I guess he is going to have to go in with me for a few hours because neither of us can take off without causing major problems for our employers. All of my patients would have to be rescheduled and that makes me feel horrible. We'll see how it goes. He's planning on bringing DVDs, books and his airplanes to keep himself busy. Once he had Tylenol on board he acted very normal.

Otherwise, life is cruising along in the fast lane as usual. I'm trying to get ready to be gone for a week! Yes, me! The soccer mom is officially going on vacation! I'm going to Hancock, MA with my mom and my Aunt Fern. A couple years ago the 3 of us went to Myrtle Beach together and had a great time. I'm amazed at how much coordintation it is taking before a mom can just up and leave the family's routine for a week. Sunday night I spent 2 hours trying to figure out after-school stuff and transportation to/from events. I guess we accidently picked a bad week because the first week of the month is Tony's super busy week when we pretty much don't see him. I still have some coordination to do but most of it is done.

Well, I have tons to do yet so I need to close.
Say a prayer for Quinn tonight please... and that this clears up fast. I'm pretty certain it's viral respiratory stuff. Hmmmm, wonder where he got it? (Yes I did a home strep test that was negative, his ears are good and not too bad of a throat...but has swollen lymph nodes in his neck and a dry cough). I will have a mighty hard time leaving sick kids on Friday morning.

Love, Leah

Soccer Scores

We had 4 soccer games today and we came out only winning 1 game (sniff-sniff). Here is the brief version of the sports report today.

Quinn's CYS game was at 8am this morning. He told me on the way that he prepared to play this 1st place team by eating "2 Sweet Tarts this morning to get ready" for the big game. We lost 0-4. I guess he should have bumped up the Sweet Tarts some.

Madison's Flames game at 10:30am was in Warsaw, 30 miles away. They lost 0-1. It should have probably been a tie, 0-0, but somehow they scored a "dumb" goal. : ) She played very well though... the rearranged formation helped the defense a lot, just not our offense. The poor field condition didn't help.

Tony stayed back and coached Madison's CYS team at 9:30 without her, and 3 other Flames players that are on our team. He tried his best to get the time changed to a later time but without success. One of our girls sprained her ankle early on and so they played 6 on 8 most of the time and lost miserably, he thinks it was 1-9. Most of the time if you play a team without all their players you play the same number as they do. (6 on 6) It's not a rule but it's a respect type of thing. I guess the other coach didn't get the "gentleman's agreement" training...it actually talks about it in our rule book but it's not officially a rule. Not only did they play with more people but he also played his girls in their best spots for the whole game... the other unwritten rule is that when you are miserably beating a team you put your players in unfamiliar spots so that takes away some of their advantage. His team is in 1st place and obviously was afraid of our team... like we might come back and score 9 goals in the 4th quarter or something. OK, enough, but you can obviously tell how I feel about people that play without sportsmanship! I'm glad I wasn't there. I really hope we get them in the tournament. (insert evil snicker)

Quinn's Flames game was at 11:30 on our home field. He got there with 5 minutes to spare because apparently he had taken off his shin guards and left them at the CYS fields so Tony had to turn around and go back over there to get them. I'm sure that wasn't a pleasant truck to be in. According to Tony, Quinn hustled a lot and played very well. He had the assist to Nate and Nate scored our one goal. This was our only win today, 1-0. I wish I could have seen that but I was on the way back from Warsaw.

So, tonight we are getting ready to watch the Iowa game at 8pm. I hate to be a downer but I do know the odds aren't in our favor. I just hope it's not a thrashing.

It was an absolutely beautiful, gorgeous, perfect day weather-wise today. Madison is staying overnight with MacKenzie from her Flames team and we'll pick her up in the morning for church.

Later, Love, Leah

Highlights from today...

1. Katie, Nathan and Karla showed up this morning bearing pumpkin bread (yum!). Katie and Nathan have been getting on the bus at our stop a few mornings a week. They're easy.

2. I about coughed myself into cardiac arrest today at work. Seriously. Addi and Dr. Poovendran were hovering outside my bathroom, wondering if I was ever coming out. I coughed so hard I threw up (sorry, gross!) Talk about make-up being ruined for the rest of the day! I'm plain old TIRED of this cold. Actually the upper respiratory stuff is MUCH better... it's lower resp. stuff now.

3. Quinn's CYS soccer team won again tonight 3-2 and he scored one goal which was really sweet. The mosquitos had a good feast on everyone.

Half-Way thru the Week

Quinn's Quip:
Don't worry Mom, I'm never going to get a tattoo... but if I did, it would be a heart with your name, "MOM" written in it.


Madison and I were home tonight. She was actually happy to realize she didn't have soccer practice tonight. I guess she was ready for a break. She was kind of tired today I guess. We had an early start to our day today with an unexpected trip to South Bend with an appointment at 8am. Her filling from the dentist visit yesterday was too high and was driving her crazy...she couldn't get her teeth to touch together without it hitting the filling. This was her first filling so I don't think she quite new how it should feel when she was done. Our choices were to wait until next Monday when this peds dentist comes back to town or go to South Bend to get it polished down. With ISTEPs happening all week and her telling me how that's all she could think of all day long yesterday, I didn't feel like we had too much of a choice. It took us an hour to get there with horrible morning traffic! I've always liked this dentist but this was enough to make me decide to change dentists for the kids... to one that's in town all the time! I had her to school by 9:06 though. Just a little late.

Quinn had soccer practice with Nate tonight. Tony got home around 7pm. That was it. Pretty calm and quiet this evening. : )

Ball Girls

Tonight Madison and Peyton were the "ball girls" at the Concord varsity girls soccer game. They were invited to do this by one of the secretaries at their school who has a senior on the Concord team. (They held spare balls and gave them to players when the ball went out of bounds and then fetched the out of bounds balls). They loved it and it was a great way for them to pay attention to the game. Madison says she can't wait to be playing on that field. It was a beautiful evening. Concord lost 0-2 though.

Yesterday Madison's Flames team lost 0-2 also against the South Bend Invaders. Her coach is trying a new formation in the field... how they play in the field... and I don't think it's working too well. Hopefully that will be changing soon. They only play with 2 defenders...and the others in front more. Madison kicks all of the corner kicks and goal kicks from both ends of the field and then she has to sprint to the opposite end of the field if the ball quickly gets through. Not good.

Our pastoral candidate came and preached for the first time yesterday. Ron Guengerich is his name. I think he will be really good. We vote next Sunday and if all passes he will start near the beginning of December.

The kids had dentist appointments this morning at 8am. Pakka picked up the kids from the office after their appointment and took them on to school and I went to work. That was so great and got me to work on time.

I'm still fighting this cold and was up for a few hours during the night coughing. I felt better during the day though so that was good. It was a busy Monday at work.

The kids have ISTEP testing that starts tomorrow (ITED tests for you Iowans). They are dreading it but I think they are as ready as they will get. They have been reviewing a lot and Quinn came bounding in the door this afternoon talking about how he couldn't eat any sugar tomorrow for breakfast and he needed to get a good night's sleep etc... (Sounds like things we say all the time any way doesn't it?).

Well, I've got to go and hit the Nyquil bottle. Yuck!!!...but it helps.

Love, Leah

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our 17th wedding anniversary! I say that number and think I must be talking about someone else. Surely it was just a few years ago... But when I think of the changes in our lives; jobs, cars, kids, vacations, looks... yep, I guess it's been 17 years. I thought I would jot down 17 reasons why I love my husband. Actually this was pretty darn easy. These are in no particular order.

The reasons I love Tony...

1. He makes the bed in the morning.

2. His dirty clothes make it into the clothes hamper AND he never turns his socks inside out when taking them off.

3. He will do a household chore without asking if he sees that it needs to be done (vacuum, laundry, dishes...dusting is not included!)

4. We both love the state of Iowa and the sports too.

5. He likes to surprise me ... a trip to Jamaica, an overnight dinner train trip...

6. He fixes things quickly when things break at home.

7. He is a great dad and likes to tease all the kid's friends.

8. He has been the kid's soccer/basketball/softball/baseball coach and does a really good job with realistic expectations.

9. He kisses me good-bye every morning and tells me he loves me.

10. He doesn't ask how much money I've spent after I go shopping.

11. He tells me I look nice.

12. He loves the Lord.

13. We share long-term goals.

14. He works way too many hours at his job without complaining so I don't have to work as many at mine.

15. He can glance at any map and easily get us to where we need to go.

16. He brings me flowers without needing a reason.

17. He knows me so well he can practically read my thoughts. (not all of them...ha!)


Happy Anniversary Tony! I love you!

Now on other notes... we are going to go out to eat and celebrate a different time. This cold has really gotten me down so I didn't feel like doing much. Quinn's CYS team won this morning 2-0, their 2nd win. His Flames team tied this afternoon 2-2 and he scored one goal. Madison had practice but no games. Iowa stunk the first half of their football game and lost to ISU 15-13 with a field goal with 5 seconds left. They should know by now that ISU considers this their BIG game of the year, even though the U of I doesn't. They are always really "up" for this game when we aren't : )

That's all folks.
Love ya, Leah

Does it mean I'm old?

Does it mean I'm old if I'm glad to be home this Friday night doing nothing? Ok, I know I haven't felt very well this week with a cold and all. It just sure feels good to be at home in my sweats. I started feeling some better this afternoon finally but now my cold is traveling down and I'm getting a cough instead of a sore throat. 10 hours of sleep last night helped though!

The kids had a 1/2 day of school today. Madison got picked up around 4pm today and is staying overnight at Holyn's house. They are going to Holyn's brother's baseball game tonight. Nate just left our house. He and Quinn had supper and drank hot cocoa. They've played outside for hours and came in cold. It's in the low 60's and of course Quinn is out there in a t-shirt and shorts.

Quinn and I were watching part of the Cubs game tonight (that was a replay from yesterday) and he said this to me... "I don't really care if they get a homerun or not... what I look for is their spirit... and how much effort they put into their game." Does that sound like our Quinn or what?

We're just going to hang out the rest of the evening....ahhhhhhhh

Drought

Sorry for the drought of postings. I've been fighting a cold these last few days and so I've used my spare time in the evenings to sit on the couch and go to bed early.

Madison's CYS team tied 2-2 on Tuesday night. (Record now 5-2-1)

Otherwise the week has been pretty uneventful at home. The Dr. that I work with has been gone this whole week and I've been really BUSY without him. At least that makes the day go fast. The timing with a cold doesn't work very well though.

Have a good day. Leah

Nothing to say...

Really I have nothing to say but I know that an average of 21 of you check my blog each day and I don't want to let you down! : )

Madison had Flames practice from 5:30-7:30. Quinn had Flames from 6-7:30. My phone was ringing off the hook with car pool requests tonight. I had 6 sweaty soccer players to deliver tonight after practice. I don't mind though. I enjoy listening to their conversations. It looked like rain so I waited in the van for them... and talked to other parents and worked on a Christmas project... I can't tell you what it is because the person it is for is a faithful blog reader. Sorry! : )

Tomorrow night Madison's CYS team plays Peyton's again. We lost to them the first time we played them, 2-10. It was ugly. They were our very first game though and we've improved a lot. We'll see what happens. I realized at 9:30 tonight that her uniform wasn't clean. whoops.

I have a scratchy throat tonight so I think I'm going to head to bed. That's all... see really nothing much to talk about. Sorry to bore you.

Flames 3-2

Well, you could tell it was their first game because they were a little "rusty" in some areas but the Flames won their first game today 3-2. It was very close, too close for comfort. It wasn't Madison's best game and afterwards she told me she was nervous so may be that was it. Things that she is normally very good at, she wasn't. I can't come up with a more nice way to say it. She is bound to have better games! Ha! She did play the whole game though. Her little face was so red and sweaty afterwards! They had her and Gabby wear these "Captain" arm bands... why, I'm not sure. Madison's drove her crazy, it kept sliding down her arm. I asked her what the purpose was for them... she doesn't know. It sounds like the coach picked them up before the game. : ) She didn't like her new socks..."I never want to wear those again!"... the sun, moon and stars just wouldn't line up for her today. I'm so glad they pulled off a win but it was much more difficult than I expected.

Here are some pictures that Tony emailed me from the Iowa game last night. This is the view from their seats. The bottom picture is of Quinn with his special football hat from Aunt Amy & Uncle Jeff. He loves this hat and wears it for his "special" occasions.

They should be home around 9pm tonight.

That's how our weekend was... how was yours???

Love, Leah

A good sports day

Today Madison and Quinn both had CYS games at 9:30 this morning. Madison played mid-fielder for one quarter and actually got to score a goal. That was a highlight for her since she rarely ever gets to attempt. Her team won 4-0 (record now 5-2). I was at Quinn's game and his team finally won their very first game today (record is now 1-3-1). He had to leave after the 3rd quarter to get to his Flames game but his CYS team was up 7-1 when we left and he scored a goal too.

This picture was taken during his first Flames game. His team won 4-3 and he scored 2 of the goals. He played only about half the game but made his time in there quite productive. He looked a little tired from running 3 quarters during his CYS game. Anyway, he is scoring in this picture. Don't you love his shoe laces...untied!

Tony, Quinn, Beppe & Pakka left from the Flames game to head to Iowa to make it in time for the Iowa game tonight against Syracuse. They've only played 3 night games in the last 78 years or something so it was a pretty big deal. Right now Iowa is ahead 35-0. Tony & Quinn called from the game... it sounded loud and fun and Quinn said "This is AWESOME!" They scored the first 4 TD's in their end zone so they had a great view. Madison and I went to Hobby Lobby and then got home around 3pm. We made some soup from scratch... out of her kid's cookbook tonight, she made a little craft project and we just enjoyed being together. Her first game is tomorrow at 12:30. We are watching Duchess tonight and she's also dog-sitting for Honey again for part of the weekend.

Take care. Love, Leah

Soccer Mom

Definition: "Mother who consistently drives children to and fro... practices and games, practices and games, practices and games. Considers changing permanent postal address to 'blue mini-van some where between CR 17 and CR 45'. Professional fast supper fixer, water bottle filler, uniform washer, band-aid applier, and reminder of all needed soccer paraphernalia. Criteria involves not minding wasting one's time sitting at practice and games, practices and games, practices and games."

I've decided that I've become a professional soccer mom. Really this definition sounds quite sarcastic but if I really didn't enjoy being a soccer mom I would certainly hang up my keys. If my kids didn't enjoy it they could certainly hang up their cleats. It would be nice for a soccer mom vacation of some sort though. I've learned to bring along magazines and I even have a Christmas project that I've started working on from the driver's seat in the parking lots. I've made some really nice friends while visiting with the other moms too.

Good news for Madison tonight. Her Flames coach made her the "defense captain" of her team. They've never had captains before but they decided to throw this in too so the girls have a chance to learn about peer leadership. Tonight they had their last practice before their first game on Sunday afternoon. They've been practicing for 6 hours a week since shortly after the fourth of July. I'm so anxious to see how they are going to do! Their spoken team goal is to win the championship in the league tournament this year.

Quinn had practice at CYS tonight. It went well and was easy. He had fun. I think his coach wants him to play goalie some more. NOT ME! Too stressful for the mother on the side lines! I much prefer him playing offense which is really what he is better at anyway. We'll see what happens.

Quinn's highlight of the day was that he made the front page of the Elkhart Truth's Sports Section. They were taking pictures of the Flames soccer team practicing last night. I was able to copy/paste the picture for you here. Quinn is on the far left, in the back.


So, that's what I did tonight. I got home from work and put on my professional soccer mom uniform and off we went... the blue mini-van driving off into the sunset.

Wednesday

Really not an exciting evening. Quinn had Flames practice. I had a church board meeting from 7-10pm. Tony worked late. Madison stayed home by herself for about 2 hours. Pakka came over and put the kids to bed.

The end.

Leah

CYS girls 1-0

Madison's CYS team won tonight, 1-0. It wasn't a very exciting game, wasn't very pretty and we were practically carried away by mosquitos, but we won! : ) Madison got totally tripped with both feet being knocked out from under her. She landed flat as a pancake and right on her face... of course her hands were at her sides. This all happened directly in front of me. You would be proud of the restraint that Beppe and I showed by not stepping out on to the field to brush her off. She jumped up, hardly missed a beat and kept on playing. We got into the truck and she told me her nose was killing her!... It will probably be bruised tomorrow. We'll see...

Tony went back to work after the game. He's basically living at work during the first full week of each month. Apparently Rollpak gave like 20 days to do month-end type of stuff and Berry Plastics requires it to be done in 4. That doesn't seem quite fair to me if you don't give them extra staff to do it in. ughhh, I don't know about this job folks....

That's pretty much it. My Cubs are losing to Tony's Dodgers right now...

Love ya, Leah

Labor Day

Well the Silverwood softball guys lost this morning. According to Tony they "self-destructed" this weekend. That's really too bad because usually they are a pretty good team! They lost 5 out of the 6 games they played. I guess it wasn't their year... He was home by 12:30 today so that was good.

Madison spent the afternoon with Peyton and then went to soccer practice from there. Her Flames team was supposed to have a tournament this weekend but it was cancelled due to not enough teams signing up. Bummer. We (Tony, Quinn, Nate and I) went to B&P's tonight with the plan of ordering pizza with them and Terry & Tine. Wouldn't you know it... I called like 10 pizza places and none of them were open!! Who would have thought that most of the eating places close down on Labor Day. OK, OK, OK... so the majority of the county was probably at home grilling out. We had already done that this weekend so we were ready for pizza. We ended up going to Texas Roadhouse after like 1 hour of trying to figure out what was open! Live and learn. We'll be grilling at home next year! Madison and her soccer team were supposed to have pizza at the field tonight after practice. Apparently Pizza Hut was so overwhelmed with phone calls that her coach never could get through the phone line so that was a bust. She was quite disappointed. Not to mention the dozen parents that picked girls up, expecting that they had been fed, only to realize that they were all starving! What is the life skill we are supposed to be practicing here?... oh ya, the life skill of flexibility. Tonya whisked the girls through Arby's because the rest of them had already eaten. Oh boy.

Well, that was pretty much our day. I do have to post this picture of Quinn and Nate playing Life this afternoon at our house. It was so funny to listen to them talking about their "grown-up" lives and hear them giggle about getting married... and then having babies and adding them to their cars. You had to be there... They giggled all night long about something or other. They get along so well. It's actually easier to take Nate with us, it gives Quinn someone to constantly talk to. We all know that Quinn is the talker of our family!

Hope you all have a good week. The rest of ours is going to be busy so I've decided to take just one day at a time. I feel really thankful for a long weekend though. Tomorrow will feel like a Monday but it will be a Tuesday already. Yippee!

Love, Leah

Dog Days of... Soccer...?

Have you wondered where I've been? Sorry, I was just on a bit of a blogging break for a few days. Here are the highlights of the holiday weekend.

Friday
In the morning I met Angie, Karla, Lisa, Tracy and Eliza for coffee and to celebrate Angie's birthday. I then spent 3 hours at Meijer!!! Yes, 3! Half of the time was sitting at their picture kiosk, going through pictures and deciding which ones I wanted printed. I haven't printed pictures for a long time and ended up with almost 200 pictures. Next time I will sort them at home and take them to Meijer on my travel drive. I don't know why I didn't do that at home before! Oh well... live and learn. The rest of the time was grocery shopping. The remainder of my day and evening was spent cleaning and doing my mountain of laundry. It felt good to have this done before the weekend officially started. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Fridays!

Saturday
Tony left for Fort Wayne for the weekend. This is his 17th consecutive year of playing in the Mennonite Softball Tournament over Labor Day Weekend. Each year he comes home a bit more sore. This year he started the anti-inflammatories before he left! Quinn was out the door by 7:51 to help sell lemonade at Nate's garage sale. Several hours later he had drank most of the consumable goods so he was home for awhile. In the afternoon Madison and I went to the Concord vs. Elkhart Central varsity soccer game. It was a good game and Concord scored their winning goal with 35 seconds left in the game. It was quite exciting. She had practice for 2 hours after the game.
The Flames team decided today was "dog-day" for practice. They wanted to bring their dogs and chose a mascot. We took Duchess and since there was only one other dog that "tried out" for the prestigious job of Flames mascot there wasn't any voting but rather I think they were both winners. ha! In this picture, Duchess is taking a break after running a soccer field. See more pictures below.

Of course we watched the Iowa game this afternoon too! The Hawkeyes played Northern IL at Soldier Field in Chicago. Wish we were there! Addi sent me a text message from Boston... she saw 2 people with Iowa football shirts on and thought of me. We are everywhere! Thanks Addi!

Friday around 5:30pm, Tony's Aunt Tine and Uncle Terry arrived from Kansas for a weekend visit. ("Tine" is pronounced teeny...her name is Christine and the family's nickname for her is Tine). We enjoyed spending the evening with them and John & Evelyn at Beppe & Pakka's house for a BBQ. Quinn lost a tooth while we were there.

Sunday
After church Madison and I went out to Hacienda for lunch with Katie, Karla and Nathan (Terry is in Fort Wayne too). Quinn went home with Tyler from church. So, we took advantage of the girl-time and went to a movie. We saw Mr. Bean's Holiday and both decided it wasn't as good as we hoped. The 3 of us spent the late afternoon and evening at B & P's with the Vander Werf side of the family. I think I counted 25. Madison decided to spend the night. Quinn decided not to leave me by myself at home and he is going to keep Tony's side of the bed warm for him and sleep with me.

The guys have played 5 softball games so far and have lost 4 of them. Their only win was enough that they have to play at 9am tomorrow morning and so they stayed down again tonight. That's kind of a bummer. I wish it didn't dribble over until Monday. Basically the weekend is gone. If they lose, he should be home by noon so that will be good.