May 27, 2007 by jon.

  What’s the saying about fishing?  A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work?  We’ll we had a good day fishing today.  We went to Lake Shabbona about an hour away from home.  Took one of Brad’s friends and caught a bunch of bluegill.  Of course, none were big enough to keep, but the kids liked getting something on the hook.

  There’s something to be said about fishing and getting away from things for a while.

  Oh and the totals?  Jon - 4, Robyn - 4, Brad - 3, Michael - 1 (Last cast) and Kala helped everyone out.

(No, that’s not us, but it is a fish pulled from the lake recently)

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May 26, 2007 by jon.

Friday I decided to go to Lansing and try to see Aunt Nancy before she passed away.  She had been going downhill all week and was transferred to a Hospice there on Wednesday.

So I started out at 6:30 to beat traffic which I did but I got a call around 9:30 CT that I was too late.  I had driven as far as Battle Creek, MI and was only about 50 miles away but there really was nothing I could do so I turned around.  I guess Aunt Nancy passed away in the morning but none of her family had arrived yet.  I called around 7:00 to confirm with Hospice that she was seeing visitors and they said it should be ok, but to check with Bill.  I don’t have Bill’s number but since they sounded positive, I kept on.

Now the plans begin.  Not sure when the funeral is yet.  My Colorado family is planning on flying to Chicago on Sunday night and we’ll drive with them to Michigan Monday.  I would imagince the funeral will be Tuesday or Wednesday.  I’ll take as much time from work as I need.

Please keep us in your prayers as we get ready to travel.  Especially keep Bill, Mike and Sara in your prayers as they deal with the lose of a spouse and Mother.

Thanks

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May 25, 2007 by jon.

I ran this race for the first time on Thursday.  (May 24)  The downtown HRH office has entered in this event for the last 5 years or so and this year asked the other HRH office to join in.  It was kind of hot and muggy with the evening temps in the upper 80’s.  A neat part was that each team from all of the companies were to design and wear their own t-shirt.  Ours was black cotton this year.  Looked good but not so good for running in muggy weather.

What chaos!  22,000 runners at the start.  Supposedly there were start groups for runners under 7:00 min miles, under 9:00 min miles and all others.  I ran the race with Bill, the IT Manager there and we hoped to be in the under 9:00 section.  Either they weren’t marked well or we didn’t see it but we ended up starting in the middle of the pack.

Mistake.  We had a lot of walkers and slower runners ahead of us.  The first 2 miles or so were just zigging and zagging, starting and stopping to just avoid people.  I told Bill it was a good Interval training session.  Things opened up a bit around 2.5 miles and we were able to go a little faster.  There were still a lot of people to avoid, but at least there was more space to go around them.  (Note to walkers, please move to the side of the road when walking!)

With about .5 miles to go Bill and I picked it up a bit.  Felt good to stretch things out.  I ended up crossing the finish line and Bill was a bit behind me.  I think he let up so the old guy could win.

It was still fun to be out there with a bunch of HRH people (Runners, Walkers and others just cheering us on) and to run downtown again.  Next time we’ll have to pay more attention to where it is we start.

My time?  30:38.  I guess not too bad considering.  I was hoping for under 30:00 but with all of the walking and trouble, not bad at all.

After the race there of course was beer.  Important for any good race.  Below is myself, Neil and Bill from TF’s IT.

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May 23, 2007 by jon.

For those interested, we are soon to be experiencing the emergence of Brood XIII Magicicadas. They show up ever 17 years and we are lucky enough to live in the Midwest where they are stopping by.

To get up to date information for sightings, go to the below link.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about (and I didn’t know about this until 2 weeks ago) go to Cicadamania.com to get the scoop.

Cicada Mania Message Board » Magicicada Sightings

Here is a pretty cool map that’s interactive and real time.  Let’s keep it updated.  Of course, I just put in that we have yet to see any.

Lake County Cicada Map

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May 23, 2007 by jon.

May 22nd will go down as the night of the perfect storm….sort of.  Talk about busy.  Brad and I had the last pack meeting the the school year.  Brad officially is now a 2nd year Webelo

and he can’t wait to be a Boy Scout.

Brad also had a game but he didn’t go.  They won by 1 run.

Mom (Kala) went to Robyn’s Pony Tail softball league meeting.  She met her coaches, got the rules and the schedules.  Robyn has wanted to play ball for a while since watching Brad and now she gets a chance.

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May 22, 2007 by jon.

You gotta check out this site. The goal is to create a page for every species of organism on the planet.  Using Wikipedia technology, anyone can upload photos, audio and video to this site and anyone else can edit and refine. This will be a great resource for school reports as well as just a place to go to get lost.

The demo looks COOL! Makes me want to go out and find some type of organism to document and upload…Only problem is that it won’t be functional for a year or so. Keep checking back!
Encyclopedia of Life

Jon

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May 21, 2007 by jon.

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you my Aunt Nancy (My Godmother) went into kidney failure this weekend and expected to be around for only a few more days. Nan is my Dad’s sister and has been the matriarch of our family since Grandma died in 2003. She had systemic infection that took hold of her body last week and started shutting down her systems. With her kidney’s not functioning, there is not much hope.

Please pray for her, her family and for those of us who will be traveling soon.

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May 21, 2007 by jon.

Along with our busy weekend of moving dirt, Brad had two baseball games.  I was only able to go on Saturday where he had 2 walks and a double.  He also had a three up and three down inning pitching.  On Sunday, I guess he had a home run as well as pitched to 4 batters without letting anyone score.

Brad seems to be settling into the catcher position and does it for at least two innings a game.  Sunday’s game went into extra innings so he got to catch for a third inning.

Oh, and they won both games including Sundays game with two extra innings.  The Braves are now 7-3.

By the Way, the team voted for the All-Star players on Sunday.  Brad was one of the three selected.  This is his second selection in three years and I think he’s pretty happy about it.  I know Mom and Dad sure are proud!

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May 21, 2007 by jon.

This past Saturday, we went in with our neighbor on a little dirt. 20 yards of dirt. Talk about a lot! We ended up spreading the dirt over most of our yard to help with the drainage as well as level out a lot of the bumps and valleys.
It was a chore to move all of that dirt and my back is pretty sore. Two days of mostly manual labor. John, our neighbor also brought in a crew to help out. Without them it would have taken even longer.
Kala was in Pennsylvania attending Stephanie Koplar’s graduation so she wasn’t able to help so it was up to me and the kids.  Brad and Robyn were great and helped out every chance they could. We have some great kids!
So now it’s time to sod and seed and see what comes up. Hopefully in a few months we’ll have a nice lawn that will somewhat level.

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May 16, 2007 by Brad.

This year we did the mile run at school. Everyone had to run 18 laps around the gym to run the mile.  I was the second done and i ran the mile in 7:52 seconds

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May 13, 2007 by jon.

What a day! I volunteered to set up again for our churchs Springfest Festival. So I was there all day Friday from 9:00 to 9:00. Then I arrived at 5:00 am Saturday to finish the setup. Brad and I ran the 5K race that kicked off at 8:00 and then I helped out for the rest of the event until 1:30. Long day.

Oh, and Robyn ran the Kids 1 Mile event and guess what? She was first for her age division (Female 6-8 years). She was thrilled. Her first trophy! Both Kala and I talked to her about going out slow because there were a lot of older kids and we didn’t want her to try and keep up with them. I was helping on the race route and all these kids came by then Robyn came by after the first few packs went by. I was so proud of her. She had a plan and she was working it. Her time? 8:52 Better than the first time Brad ran the 1 Mile.

We have some kids who like to run…Although Brad said he may want to sit out next year…

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May 12, 2007 by jon.

As of Friday, Brad’s team was 4-2 and Brad was really enjoying playing catcher.  Matter of fact on Friday he threw someone out at First who was trying to get too big of a lead.  Before the inning, Brad saw that the other team tended to take large leads and he warned the first baseman to be ready.  Sure enough when someone got on, Brad rifled him down.  Of course Kala and I missed it because we were at the volunteer dinner for Springfest.  Too bad.

Brad also pitched two innings and I think no one scored on him. He’s doing pretty good and seems to be enjoying it.

We missed Saturday’s game because Brad and I ran the Springfest 10K so we don’t know how the Braves did.  We’ll find out this weekend at our next game.

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May 11, 2007 by jon.

Brad and I went camping with the scouts last weekend. Our Three Fires Council hosted a Camporall with over 5000 scouts attending. There were only a few families that went from our Pack 111 but we still had a good time.

It was really just an outdoor carnival. We went from activity to activity and got to pick and choose what we wanted to do. Brad was a little dissappointed because a lot of the “Cool” activities were reserved for Boy Scouts and he won’t be one until next year. So he couldn’t do the rope bridge or the Tomahawk throw. But we still found a lot of things that were fun like the Trebuchet, Ham Radi0 and especially the National Guard. Brad really liked them.

Oh and the Naval Reserve Training Center Drill Team was there. I enjoyed that and was able to show Brad what I used to do in NJROTC.
This was a good exposure to some of the activities that is available in scouting and we enjoyed it.

There are more photos on our Photo page.

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May 9, 2007 by jon.

Two and a half weeks into our exercise challenge and we are still going strong.  Brad is in the lead, but Robyn is only 30 minutes behind him.  I am another 2.5 hours behind Robyn and Kala is 45 minutes behind me.  We still have a long way to go, but it’s become obvious that the kids are just full of energy and do everything they can to get outside and run around.

Plus, they don’t have the schedules Kala and I do so they have more time to exercise (play).  My goal was to have everyone average about 30 minutes a day.  Kala and I are right around there.  Obviously, the kids are a little above that.
Just so you know, I didn’t purchase the IPod.  It was a door gift for going to a vendor’s open house.  So we’re not out any money.  I actually really would like to have it, but I thought it might be better if I use it in some other fashion.  I hope either Brad or Robyn will let me borrow it…

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May 9, 2007 by jon.

I tried to go for a run with Shay this morning but two things made me cut it short.  First off, Shay doesn’t seem to do well in the warmer weather.  After only a half mile or so, he really starts dragging.  Part of the problem is that we have a collar instead of a harness and he pulls hard against it restricting his breathing.  Hard to run that way.  The other part is that he has a thick coat which is not conducive to running in warmer weather.

The other problem was that my lower right back really bugged me.  It was pretty sore so we turned around after only 3/4 of a mile.

When I got home today, I thought I’d try again, sans Shay.  It was 20 degrees warmer (85) but it was so inviting.  Guess what?  My back didn’t bug me.  Go figure.  I ran 4 miles really well and it felt good.  I don’t get it but I’m not complaining.

So I’m at 10 miles with my runs today and Monday.  Last week I only went about 10 miles total and the week before I was at 11.  A little lower than where I want to be, but still not bad.

This weekend is Springfest at church.  Brad and I are running the 5K together and Robyn is doing the kids 1 mile.  Brad and I will probably run 5 min and walk a min to conserve energy.  Please pray for good weather, a safe race and a fun time for everyone who comes to the event.

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