Sweat!

At Friday's UW Badger Volleyball game, our girls went out on the court at the end of the game to join the team in singing "Varsity." This is a tradition and our girls love to particpate. Typically, one fo the Volleyball Women will pick Gemma up and hold her during the singing and more often than not, someoen will throw an arm around Rowan's shoulders.

So, this week Gemma came back to find us after the song was over and excitedly declared, "Mom I have Brittney Dolgner's sweat on me!!" She was just tickled to have a Volleball player's sweat on her! (-:

Did I Mention????

Did I mention that I think Dog Parks are totally awesome places?!

Look at me - I'm having a great time!! I can run and run and run and there is a fence to keep me nice and safe. I come when I'm called - most of the time - my mom is really working on recall with me.

Last weekend I got to go on my first trip with my family to Washington Island to visit what everyone kept calling "grandma and grandpa." I decided that grandparents are very good things. This set loves English Setters - I guess they've had several of them over the years. So, they know all about my kind of dog!! I was able t work them for lots of treats!! I met their 13 year old English setter, Stormy. He wasn't totally thrilled with me, but he was nice to me.

The best part about the trip is that three separate times I saw pheasants. I went on still point and then waited until I was told I could put the birds up. Grandpa and Mama said I did great! Nobody shot at the pheasants, which is fine by me, since my family doesn't plan to hunt with me. It sure was fun though to find those birds and do my job.

Ok, this is Lance, signing off. It's time to choose on my peanut butter kong and take a nap.

Introducing Sir Lancelot Hunter

Yes, its been months since I've posted on our family blog - we've had a very full summer, including both kids' birthdays, our anniversary, the start of school, some big family saddness (death of a kind frined), but what do I post about in my first post back - OUR NEW BABY!

He's an adopted English Setter probably about 2-3 years old adopted through the amzing folks at Illinois Birddog Rescue and Midwest Canine Mutts - truly amazing people dedicated to a great quality of life for English Setters and English Pointers. Our boy's first rescue name was Hunter - he was rescued from a kill shelter in central KY. He was named again at his new rescue as Sir Lancelot, a fine name for an noble English Setter. We are choosing to call him Lance - he's also affectionately known as "The Boy" given that he's the only male in the household - oh, I take that back, apparently the hamster is male too, but it sure is hard to tell the gender of a dwarf hamster.

Of course this is certainly not the most elegant photo of this charming boy – it just cracks us up though. Do you think he’s comfortable here? (-: One of his favorite times of day is settling in on our bed while we read and watch a little TV. Lance still sleeps in his crate once lights are out, primarily to give our cats a break. They are much more likely to roam the house when they know he’s in his crate.

Suzanne, his forster mom, described Lance as being a sweet and noble boy. We think her description is 100% right on! Look at this proud and confident guy. He's very handsome too - though he still needs to put on some weight and we are anxious for his feathering to come in on his coat.

He’s doing wonderfully with other dogs too. Labor Day he joined many other dogs at the city’s first Dog Plunge at the city pool – a fundraiser for the police K9 unit. He loved the water and managed to wag his way in front of the TV cameras. He got prime footage on the 5:00, 6:00 and 10:00 news on Monday night. Silly us though we were so wrapped up in the festivities that we forgot to bring our camera. In addition to wading in the water he also figured out that he could go up to the vendors and work treats out of them.

Lance has also been swimming at the beach behind our house. Unlike his retriever buddies, he’s not interested in truly swimming and doesn’t like going above his belly in the water. Waves were an interesting thing to manage. We enjoy watching him attempt to leap over them or bite at them. Thank goodness he hasn't attempted to point them! He certainly loves to let us know when he sees squirrels, butterflies, bees and the neighborhood cats!!
He’s having fun with lots of new toys. He thinks sweet potato dog chews are very yummy!! And really nothing can beat a big ole’ soup bone!! He’s a fluffy toy destroyer – working the toy over until he’s extracted the squeaker and flung stuffing around. So, we’ve moved onto rubbery toys – the kong is a hit as is his “tree branch.” The best was his first interaction with his stuffed pheasant – wish we had that on video. He went on point, but couldn’t figure out why the darn thing wouldn’t fly! He kept circling it and looking at it from all sorts of different angles.

He loves his kids!! Both of our girls have their different ways that they each dote on him He walks with us to school in the mornings and would love to just run that playground with everyone – and oh my, all those ball toys the kids play with, how can any dog resist them!! He pays rapt attention to the happenings at both girls’ soccer practices too.

Our family will start doggie classes at Dog’s Best Friend in about three weeks. We think he’ll definitely be well settled and ready for this next level of learning by then. He’s done a great job of mastering “sit” this week and will do it pretty consistently indoors. We're working on good leash walking (which doesn't include pulling the person at the other end of the leash around the neighborhood!) and consistent potty outside. Hot dogs, chicken pieces and dog roll are very high motivators!! Now when we say "good boy" he salivates and looks for hot dogs. Yep, Pavlov could have used this boy to prove his theories.

Shining Solstice!!

I have finally landed at my desk after a whirlwind week with many projects still spread out before me and just a few minutes before everyone arrives at home. We're about to treat ourselves to a favorite summer time food - sweet corn - YUM in celebration of Summer Solstice.

We've had off and on thunder showers all day - a perfect transitional weather pattern to symbolize the transition of the seasons.

Shining Solstice to each of us as we hold the warmth of the summer sun in our hearts through the year through. May the sun's fire awaken in us our own bright ideas and passions and remind us to spread warm and care throughout our own "corners" of this amazing world.

Blessed Be!

In Other News...

Besides the excitement of kindergarten graduation, the days proceeding the last day of school were full beyond compare.

Last Saturday incuded Gemma's last soccer game of the season - a tournament between all the teams from her school. Rowan's last soccer game - and the last time their team would be coached by Eric who has been their coach since they were kindergarteners. Then, it was time to pull of those cleats, shin guards and uniforms and don concert attire. Gemma had her Yamaha music concert and Rowan was to be a guest performer. The festivities ended with a late lunch at Noodles & Company.

Kindergarten Graduation

Yes, it has actually happened - Gemma has graduated from kindergarten!


Here she is - getting on the school bus for the last time as a kindergarten. Thank you to our exceptionally wonderful bus driver, Neil and bus attendant, Sharon, who not only got Gemma to school each day with kindness, care and good humor, they are also the team that drove Rowan to school each morning when she was a Lapham student.




An empty stage, just before it was filled with kindergarten singers as each of the five kindergarten classes took their turns with their songs. Isn't the stage beautiful?



Here she is on stage with her class, singing Love is Like a Rainbow. The pictures of her with the other 75+ kindergarteners, all waring their motar boards turned out a bit too dark to post.


We have many pictures with Gemma and her friends after the ceremony. I chose this one though, because it just cracks me up - each are dressed so formally, you'd think they were going to prom and not kindergarten graduation.

Gemma with her teacher, Mrs. Dickerson - to whom we say "thank you" a thousand times over for her skill, compassion, immense understanding of young children and her dedication to the art of teaching.

When given the choice about where to go for dinner to celebrate, Gemma chose Perkins (-: She enjoyed a high carb supper of rainbow pancakes with bacon, some scary-looking blue beverage and a piece of French Silk pie!

Happy Graduation Day!!

I'll close with the first part of a song the kids all sang together at the ceremony, the tune is New Yor! New York!

Start spreading the news

We're leaving today-

We want to be a part of it - First Grade, First Grade!!

Incredible Timing

At lunch time today, I zipped over to Gemma's school to join her for lunch. It was her school's cookout after their Field Day events. As the "field" filled with parents, kids and staff, carrying full plates of hamburgers and othe picnic foods, many of us sprawled out on blankets, we became aware of a smell - not the pleasant smell of grilling hamburgers and veggie burgers. A smell that comes after a well eaten meal, if you get what I mean. Suddenly, it became clear to us all - the street work going on a block away had somehow disrupted a sewer pipe. YUCK! We all got treated to the smell of sewer while attempting to down our lunch. What timing!

How Do You Know When....

your nearly nine year old's underwear has gotten too small?

Well, here's how "we" know - she stops wear it and goes wild and free and doesn't tell anyone.

Over the past couple of weeks, both Jani and I have noticed that Rowan doesn't seem to have a lot of pairs of underwear in the laundry. We both share the laundry duty, so at first just attributed it to the assumption that Rowan's underwear had been in a load that we each had not personally done.

Friday, however, we were doing laundry together and one of us asked the other if we'd noticed that Rowan hadn't seemed to have many pairs of underwear in the laundry lately and we wondered if they'd been in other loads. Hmmm, it became crystal clear as we shared laundry notes, that neither of us had seen barely a single pair this past week.

Inquiring minds really want to know where the underwear is - is it being worn and stashed someplace? Is it not being worn?

Upon asking her, Rowan got very quiet and said nothing. A follow-up question, "Honey, have you not been wearing underwear?" A slight, guilty-appearing head nod. "Honey, you need to wear underwear, because...." Sunddenly it dawns on us, "Is your underwear not feeling good?" Big head nod - jackpot! "It's too tight" was the reply.

Curious as to why she didn't just tell us the undies didn't fit, she just said she didn't want to have to go shopping for underwear (she is very choosy, which I get, who likes uncomfortable underwear). A trip to Kohls yesterday afternoon yielded several pairs of nice cotton undies - Jockey and Bali - without cumbersome waistbands that have the nearly-nine year old girl seal of approval. Today, her bottom is covered by Bali - no more wild and free!!

Plays, Plays, Plays!!

All the third and fourth grade classrooms in Rowan's school are doing plays as the close of their literature block for the year. They've put on about five performaances, each classroom, throughout this week, to accomodate a variety of audiences, ranging from parents to peers to siblings.

Rowan's class performed two plays - one a chapter from a Beverly Cleary book, Henry and Ribsy. Rowan was cast as Mrs. Huggins, Henry's mom. Here she is below. Cute to see her interpretation of how Mrs. Huggins might look - in a bandana and apron.


The other play was a Tansanian fable. She had wanted to be cast as a villager in the marketplace in this play. However, the villager has a very small speaking part and her teacher (appropriately so in my opinion) gave her a larger speaking part, feeling that she could challenge herself with a larger part.

During set changes between the two plays, kids performed short pieces - joke telling, instrument playing, etc. Rowan and her buddy decided to cook up a little duet - New Orleans Jazz style by playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

The two were so cute while they rehearsed at our house over the weekend. Each girl is far along einough in her musicanship to really contribute to their shared planning - it was like having a mini "garage" band in our living room. As you can see from the picture, Rowan is playing only right-handed. She dropped the full accompaniment, because it was confusing for her friend to manage the full accompaniment. It came off as a pretty simple piece, melogy alone for each instrument - just great though in figuring out how to duet play with two very different "voiced" instruments.

Tomorrow Rowan is a "guest" performer at Gemma's Yamaha piano concert tomorrw, playing a fun Bach piece.