Fall Break

We decided that it was time to take a break from the stress of school and play for a while. We wanted to take advantage of the nice weather and changing colors while we could. So while poor dad labored, we played.

Our break started on Sunday with a very fun day at the Arboreteum with Nana, Papa and dad. Chris and Sami enjoyed playing in the stream and trying to build a dam. We went for a nice stroll around the lake before heading for home. On Monday we went to Tekakawitha Nature Center in St. Charles. We try to go there in the fall. Mom never plans on staying to long, but even with the map we get helplessly lost. This year we didn't get as lost. We had a good time exploring a creek bed and the river. Sami had fun making animal tracks with stamps while Chris worked on a puzzle in the nature center. Sami is quite the budding scienist and decided we should make a chart of all the animals we saw on our walk. So every couple of minutes we had to stop and pull out our chart and make a tick mark, put the chart away and the pencil away.

On Tuesday, we babysat for cousin Joey while Kathleen was in a gymnastics class. After class Kathleen and Sami ran around outside for a while. After lunch we went to a playdate with some kids in the babysitting coop. The girls terrorized poor Chris and then came running to me when he fought back. The war was called on account of rain. We went to Tae Kwon Do later that day and hoped dad would join us, but his allergies wiped him out.

We went to Bible study on Wednesday morning. Chirs and Sami got to play while mom and the other ladies helped package food for Feed My Starving Children. Not my children, but God's children. That aftenoon the kids and mom joined some homeschool families in packaging the food. Sami did not have a good time. Unfortunately, we were at a station with some people who were focused on working fast and not interested in having to help a young child. So she kept getting pushed aside. She really wanted to help but wasn't able. At one point she was doing well taking the packaged sealed bags and lining them up to be boxed, that lasted most of the time we were there, but then something happened to upset her.

Thursday morning we met grandma, grandpa and the cousins at Red Oak Nature Center. We hiked to the cave and then terrorized the animals in the nature center. We came back here for lunch and castle games. The boys played castle and the girls did leaf rubbings. We taped leaves on the long classroom table, and covered it with paper. They left and the girls from the park on Tuesday came over to be babysat. Bedtime was late but everyone was happy.

Friday dad got to take the day off of work and come to Jonamac Apple Orchard with us. Good thing too, because they had a huge cornmaze that we went through. Zach, Jess, Sam Peters and there mom were there too, but dad was the only one that understood the map. We'd still be there if he hadn't come along. It was a field trip though the homeschooling group and the older boys came back to herd the stragglers out, so we would have been OK.

Sami ended the week off with a bang, literally. Mom had to be at church early to read and dad was getting the kids ready to go. As they were racing to the car, Sami ran smack into the corner of the wall and cut herself right above the eye. Poor dad couldn't get the bleeding to stop so instead of church they went to the emergancy room. She was glued back together, hopped off the table and declared "that was fun". She and Chris were spinning each other on a stool while the nurse was telling dad how to care for his fragile child. She and Abbey (Missy Smith's daughter) were running all over the restaurant for Sue's party that night. Chris, not so happy at the party. His stomach was giving him problems. Halfway home, he threw up and no more problems. Both kids went to Chruch school today. Sami tried to hang from the coat hooks and Chris ate a burger at Fuddruckers this afternoon. The traumas of yesterday have been erased from their minds.

Unfortunately, we are back in school tomorrow.

32 Weeks and counting...!

Julie is 32 weeks today and absolutely glows! We went to the doc this morning and everything is just perfect. The baby appears to have turned and is now in the correct position so Julie won't have to stand on her head to give birth! Funny story: 2 1/2 weeks ago we went to the doc and she said the baby was breached, but that it wasn't a problem yet. The baby was giving Julie some problems by jamming his head up under her sternum and causing her pain in her lungs and shortness of breath. A couple nights later Julie had a "vivid" dream in where the baby turned and "it was so real, I seriously could feel him turn". The doc said the baby might do a sudden turn and that Julie would not feel the sternum/lung pain and shortness of breath as much. Lo and behold, after that "dream" Julie has been having less pain and less shortness of breath. It was confirmed today that he is head down!

Everything else is going great. We continue to ready ourselves (is it ever possible to be totally ready?) and our house for the big event. Lots of little things to take care, but the big things are more or less complete. I'm trying to convince Julie that we need a new vehicle "for the baby", but she's not buying it. There's also talk about moving to a bigger house, but that won't happen for quite awhile.

Julie had a baby shower last weekend with her girlfriends that was lots of fun. Me and a couple of the boys went to breakfast and came back for horseshoes and to crash the baby shower. We ended up tailgating at the USU home game that evening with some friends in the rain. Julie and girls went home while the boys stayed to get wet and watch the Aggies get beat yet again. What does it say about your team when the quarterback is also the punter?! I bet the Bears could even beat the Aggies--with Rex! Although the Aggies might actually could beat the Saints (stupid Drew).

Hope all is well with everyone. Julie is now on every two week visits to the doc so we'll keep you updated.

Love, Brandon

Harvest Moon

This morning the moon was so big and bright over the Wellsvilles that I just had to take a picture. Happy autumn, everyone!

The thrill of victory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and the agony of defeat

We had a great time visiting with friends at Pat & Michelle's house in Loa over the weekend. There were 12 entrants into this year's Cribbage Tournament. The entry fee was $10 and it was winner take all. Since a picture says a thousand words, I probably won't need to tell you who won and who got second place.

Vacation Pictures

OK you asked for it. Here is my attempt to post some pictures from our vacation.

Pic 1 Pop in St Charles, MO
Pic 2 Mom in Hannibal, MO

Chris at Bat

Thanks to all those wonderful testosterone influenced blogs. An honorable mention goes to Dave who added pictures to his entry. Way to go that extra mile. You can all pour yourselves a cold beer, sit back and pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.

By my calculation that's three down and three to go (we'll give a pass until December for the unnamed male) . The other two reside right here. I don't think I'm going to guilt DJ into contributing anytime soon. Chris has graciously agreed to try his had at this blogging thing. O.K. so I told him we could make this part of his grammar lesson. So, I will now be Baruch to Chris's Jeremiah.

Chris: You are the best. I love you alot. Will you please come visit us soon. We will have a lot of fun playing games. Yesterday we went to the Celtic Fest with Grace and we listened to some music, saw some people dance and even played some games. We played miniature golf. We took the train there. To get to the train, of course, we drove our car. A few days ago, Samuel came over. I was so happy because he would be bothering my sister and she bugs me alot. So I appreciated him bothering her so I could watch Cyberchase and Fetch. But it was the end of the week when they don't show Fetch and Cyberchase so I blew bubbles instead. We walked to his school and picked him up and walked back. That's all.

And of course, where there's a Chris there's a Sami

Sami: So, we played with Samuel and went to his school. When we got there we found him and we stayed and played for a while. I swinged a little, way up high. Me and Samuel played tagged but I didn't want to play anymore because he was way too fast for me. When he got here I gave him the presents I had for Jessica and Daniel. I showed him around the basement. I got mad when he broke my Tinker Toy design and broke one of the pieces.

At the Celtic Fest we saw kids about our age dancing. Dad picked me up and flipped me over his head instead of putting me on the ground. Grace was there. When we were on the train, Nana and Papa could have come because there was a stop at Naperville. So maybe they could come next time.

We go to church school. We open our books, the first time we got our books and we learned how to pray and then did some coloring in our books. I mostly used purple and pink. Today we got our folders finally. We got coloring books, I colored alsmost everything in it. When we were at church we weren't good enough to go to Chuck E. Cheese , but we were good enough to go to a McDonald's with a playplace. We ate of course and we played. There was one girl I wanted to play with. When we played my brother kept being mean. When she left I couldn't find anyone to play with so I just sat alone.

At the park the other day I leaned to hang on the jungle gym by my knees. We pretended to be in the circus.
The End.


Editor's note: Grace is the daughter of our friends Paul and Kim. She is 2 1/2 and a dear friend of both Chris and Sami who protect her like she is a queen. Samuel is about 2 months older than Samantha. His sister Jessica is 8 months older than Chris. They along with Zachary, Daniel and Joseph belong to our friends Matt and Michelle Peters. All is well here. DJ is working hard at his job, in fact he had to go in this morning and is very tired right now.

Take care.

Testosterone

Well gang here I am. Just call me mister "T". I was going to tell you all about our mini vacation but mom beat me to it. so I will just tell you some boring bird facts from 2102.

First: I installed a hummingbird feeder outside the kitchen window and in no time we had hummers sucking sweet nectar to our Oooos and Ahhhhs. Then while Rob, Lisa and Cecelia were here we had a hummingbird get trapped in the garage. It kept flying up to ceiling but couldn't find a way out. All he/she had to was lower his/her altitude and fly out the big door. I guess that hummers aren't to smart. So I went and got the butterfly net that I use for catching baby goldfish in the pond and was able to catch the little bugger. I reached in the net and brought it out and it just laid in my palm (I never realized how small they really are) and it didn't move so I started stroking it with my finger but it still didn't move. I walked out of the garage and held my hand up and it took off like a bat out of H. Rescue accomplished.

Second: we have a male Cardinal that is a regular visitor to the feeder. You may think "What's so great about that Cardinals go to feeders all the time" But this is a special Cardinal in that he is bald. He looks like a mini red vulture.

Last: Just yesterday we saw an albino sparrow at the feeder. How about that!!!!!!

Our lives are so exciting!!!!!

Hope you are all doing fine and we get to see some of you from time to time.

All for now Pop

Land of Lincoln

We're back from our five day adventure. We did our best to follow the old Route 66 as much as possible, but had to detour on Sunday night to get to Petersburg and Lincoln's New Salem State Park. We camped there and then took a stroll through the recreated village where Lincoln lived from about 1831 until about 1837. I think we were there about 25 years ago with Pat and Bud. Does anyone remember?

Monday we went to Springfield and spent half a day at the new Abraham Lincoln Museum and Library. Really interesting, informative, state of the art, entertaining. Also visited the state capital bldg. to see if any of our legislators were working on resolving the budget, but not much was going on. Saw a few other things and then continued down route 66 to Carlinville where we stayed at Beaver Dam State Park.

Tuesday we followed Route 66 to the Mississippi River, then started north on the Great River Road. Got as far as Hannibal, MO. Stayed in a campground there and went on a 2 hour dinner cruise on the Mark Twain Riverboat. Cruise was nice, dinner was not first rate.

Wednesday we did some more exploring of the town and then followed the river road north to just past the quad cities. Camped once more, this time at a forest preserve right along the river. Thursday we headed for home, this time following the old Lincoln Highway. Saw a neat windmill in Fulton, had lunch in Sterling, then visited Ronald Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon. Also stopped at the Fabyan Forest Preserve windmill south of Geneva. The Fox River has a lot of neat trails to walk along the river. We got home Thursday night. Spent Friday catching up around here and then went to Kyrsta Hokanson's wedding. They used to live down the street on Staunton for about 20 years. The Rottersman's and the Matzelle's went as well, so we had a good time. Stopped at a brew pub in Canterra between the wedding and the reception, then ate way to much at the reception at Cress Creek. This morning I weigh more than I have in years, so it's time to start paying attention....

I'm on my way this morning to Gram's, to do her laundry and whatever else she has in store. She was apparently sick all last week, after a couple of insect bites, one on the front of her neck that swelled up, got red and hard and made it difficult for her to breathe.

Our low temperature last night set a new record, but we don't think we had any frost damage. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

A beautiful weekend

We're back! We spent the weekend revisiting our old stomping grounds in southern Utah. On Thursday we drove to Loa where we dropped off the dogs with our friends Pat & Michelle for the night. At that point I still had no idea what Brandon had planned for us. We drove from Loa to Teasdale (near Torrey/Capitol Reef) and checked in at the Muley Twist Inn B&B (http://www.muleytwistinn.com/). We changed into our "nice clothes" and went out to dinner at Cafe Diablo (http://www.cafediablo.net/) in Torrey. We had Rattlesnake Cakes for an appetizer and enjoyed live guitar music while we ate our dinner. On Friday we picked up the dogs and headed up onto Boulder Mountain. Tears welled up in my eyes when I realized that Brandon had reserved the Aquarius Guard Station for Friday & Saturday nights - the very same place where we stayed during the week that we did Castilleja aquariensis surveys together 12 years ago. As luck would have it, they just started renting it out this summer. Before this summer you couldn't stay there unless you worked for the USFS. And not only that, we were treated to hot and cold running water, a propane stove, AND a propane refrigerator! All luxuries that we didn't have 12 years ago. Still no bathroom, but the outhouse had a fresh coat of paint. Still no electricity but we had lots of candles to light up our Trivial Pursuit and cribbage games, and a woodstove to keep the chill off at night. We spent Saturday exploring Boulder Top and the Aquarius Plateau. Brandon got some good fishing in while I relaxed, read books, and explored. We also stopped to inspect a few of our old C. aquariensis plots. Joie and Brody had a great time running, swimming and chasing cows and we were all sad this morning when we had to leave. I'll put some pictures up on Shutterfly soon, but for now here are a couple of my favorites.

Look what we found :(

Just so everyone knows this is Dave posting on Melissa's account... just so I get credit :) so anyways here are some pictures of our basement post flood. We tore out the first 2 feet of drywall around the entire basement and this is what we found! We have been wearing masks, goggles and gloves during the whole affair. All in all it's pretty disgusting. We are thinking due to the abundance of mold that the prior owners must have taken some water and not done anything about it. So I guess we were lucky to have a reason to look behind the walls or we could have continued to live with this stuff.

We destroyed the bar today which happened to have an abundance of mold attached to it as well. Melissa would like to take advantage of this opportunity to change the tile around the bar, so tomorrow I will hopefully be taking my first stab at removing the tile that is down there. Should be fun. Melissa does get a lot of credit though as she is cleaning up the mess that I'm constantly leaving around and she is constantly mopping and scrubbing away the mold residue.

Once the old red tile is out we'll need to smooth the floor out again, replace all the drywall, then build a new bar, add the new tile, paint, then carpet. Then we can enjoy our basement again!

About time I guess

Ok, ok. It's nice to see everyone's post and what's happening in the family. Julie does a good job of keeping everybody up to snuff on what's happening in the Chard world so I don't feel I have much to contribute.

As you know today is our 10 year anniversary and I can't possibly think of another person in this world I would rather have spent the past decade plus with. I have been truly blessed with a wonderful wife who happens to have a great family. Thanks being the best in-laws in the world!

If I could guarantee that Julie wouldn't read the post I'd tell everyone what we are doing this weekend. But, it's been a long time in the planning and I'm hoping to surprise her. We'll fill you in on all the details when we return and possibly post a few photos now that I've done my first blog.

Have a great weekend!

Love,
Brandon

A darn good decade

Thanks, Mom! Looks like your heart was in the right place but maybe your fingers weren't ;). Today is indeed the Chards' 10th wedding anniversary. We're 'celebrating' toady by going to work and then going to our last hypnobirthing class tonight. Such is life when your special day is on a Wednesday. Not to worry - we'll be celebrating properly very soon. We're both taking tomorrow and Friday off of work and we're going...uh... somewhere. Brandon's got a surprise trip planned for us. I have no idea where we'll be going or what we'll be doing. The only question he's answered so far is whether or not we're taking the dogs with us (we are). Stay tuned for a post-weekend post to find out more.

Mom and Pop, I'm so glad you're sparrow-in-the-vent story had a happy ending! And Michele, I don't know how you manage to succeed at homeschooling but I'm VERY impressed! And way to go Chris on being Black Belt of the Week!

Our Labor Day weekend was festive. Six of our friends (3 couples) came up from SLC for our neighbors' 6th annual Chile Roast party. As great as it was to see everyone and to "hang out" for most of the weekend, I was glad when it was back to just the Chards on Sunday afternoon.

Have a great visit with Rob, Lisa and Cecilia!

Happy 10th Anniversary

10 Years!

Happy holiday

Michele already covered the Labor Day bases - good job! Pop is actually laboring at Ace today, while I labored at Jewel yesterday. Hence we haven't even noticed that it's a holiday weekend.

D.J. was our hero last week. The computer fizzled while Pop was reading his e-mail. D.J. diagnosed the problem as a power source failure and arrived the very next day with the part, which he installed. I didn't see him (I was laboring) but Pop says the poison ivy/oak left quite an impression on his legs and arms. It must have been a miserable experience.

Dave stopped by on Saturday to return the battery for our ace-in-the-hole sump pump back-up. We got to meet his friend Ryan who has been such a wonderful friend through all of the flooding and clean-up. They were on their way to a party at Steve's in Romeoville.

The rabbits have found their way into the garden, but we have yet to discover how. They have eaten all the leaves off the bean plants and have begun to work on the peppers. When I went out there this morning, there were 2 of them, evidently parent and child.

I thought we had a mouse in the house last week because I could hear scratching in the heat ducts in the crawl space. Pop heard it the next day and ended up taking the ductwork apart at the furnace, releasing not a mouse but a sparrow. It was quite an adventure as he/she flew all over the house from room to room. We finally trapped the little bird in Dave's former bedroom, opened the screen, and off he flew. Only minor clean-up was required. The best news - it wasn't a mouse!

We went to the Smith's last weekend to see Tim, who was home on leave. Also got to meet Trevor for the first time. Gram went with us and did very well with her walker. She's doing much better lately, except for Tuesday when she stood up to go into dinner, got dizzy and fell. No serious damage, but her knees have been giving her more trouble than before that incident.

The Smith's have their house on the market and have high hopes of moving into a new house in Hampshire, IL. Trouble is, real estate is just not moving right now, but I hope they get lucky.

Pop's new bowling league has started. He will bowl every Tuesday, along with his friend Bob Janus, at the Fox Bowl on Butterfield Road in Wheaton. He will only bowl occasionally in the Thursday league if they need a sub.

Rob, Lisa and Cecilia will be driving down to Chicago on Weds. Lisa will be tied up through Saturday morning, but Rob is planning to drive out here to visit Gram, and then us, on Thursday. Unfortunately, I have to work 1-6 on Thurs and 12-4 on Fri. He and Cecilia will stay the night on Thursday, then go back downtown on Friday afternoon. They'll come back out here at about noon on Saturday, but have to leave for MN by 5:00 at the latest. I'm hoping for suitable weather to take them to the Arboretum, where we can meet up with D.J., M., C. and S. The Children's Garden would be a good way to entertain Cecilia, since this household isn't very well equipped for such things. I'll have to figure out something to fix for lunch and/or supper for all of us that day. Another complication is that Pop and I are taking a mini vacation starting Sunday. We plan to drive to Springfield to see the new Lincoln Center, and we'll probably take our time and follow the old Route 66, just for kicks. What else we do is up in the air, but we need to be back by Friday for a wedding at 4:00. (Kyrsta Hokanson, used to be a neighbor, moved to Kansas several years ago, but they invited lots of old neighbors to the wedding.) At least we'll have a few days in the camper, look at scenery (cornfields?) and maybe get around to watching the last 20 hours of "24" season 3.

Wish you were all here so I could share zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. Dave and Melissa, best of luck with all you have to do to restore your basement. Pop and Dave talked about Pop helping Dave build a bar and Dave helping Pop with re-landscaping the front corner of the house. Talk about labor - it never ends.

Anxiously awaiting a testosterone fix.... Mom

Happy Labor Day to those who labor, have labored in the past , are preparing for the temporary end to their labor and to one who is preparing for labor of a whole other dimension.

We managed to survive the rain storms unscathed. Samantha was fascinated by the sheet of water streaming down the window at Tae Kwon Do. It tore her eyes away from the huge mirror that allows her to admire her cuteness during class. She decided that the rain looked like a waterfall. DJ beat the storm home by the press of the garage remote. He pulled in the garage, hit the button to close the garage and the celestial dam broke. Michele and the kids hydroplaned safely home from Tae Kwon Do.

A few nights after all the rain, Michele and the kids headed to the Fox River. Silly mom thought we could stand on the bridge and check out the water crashing over the dam and stare in awe at the water on the bike path and head for home and bed rather quickly. Lewis and Clark had other plans and we spent close to an hour exploring the area and throwing sticks in the river to see how fast they raced past. We got close to the banks, but no one fell in.

DJ is winning his war with poison oak. He is mowing the lawn now. Las weekend he was so miserable that Michele mowed the lawn. Ours and some of our neighbors. Property lines should be marked better. He took very good care of himself and reasearched a lot on the internet. As a preventative measure he is now orally injesting Poison Ivy daily. He takes small doses to build up his immunity to the poison, kind of like the hero in the Princess Bride.

We did a better job of surviving God's storms than Sami's storms during school. Commuters deal with road rage, we deal with school rage. Day one she got upset because school wasn't long enough. Most days now she gets frustrated trying to write letters and numbers. She has big time problems with the number 2. Our fault for naming her Samantha. The curve for the 2 is opposite that of an S. She can make a 2 and then her S's are backwards or she gets her s's right and her 2's are backwards. We've trudged our way through 2 weeks of school. Chris loves learning maps, but not so thrilled with reading. He does best when he can pick the books. Sami who a year ago determined that she can't do math, did 8 weeks of math in 2 days.

Chris was the black belt of the week in Tae Kwon Do a couple of weeks ago. The teacher picks one student who shows good black belt attitude and that student gets a black belt, leads the stretches and helps to teach the other students. He got the honor for practicing hard and showing perseverance. We are very proud of him.

Hope you all are enjoying the long weekend. Hope Dave and Melissa got good news from the insurance adjuster. This blog is still lacking in testoserone. If that doesn't change soon, I may have to go on a keystroke strike.