Weatherman

You will have to read the next post to see why this is here :)

This is without the HD hooked up yet.

Almost February!

We had a fun weekend. Friday we picked up my mom and went to see Peter Pan at older son's school. It was meant for young kids, but it gives younger son a feel for their theater department since he will probably be going there for college also. We went out to lunch and then took my mom home. The great part about seeing play there is when you are a student you get two free tickets. Jason met us there in between classes and gave us his two free tickets, so we only had to pay for one.

Saturday we had tickets to the Chinese Golden Dragon Acrobats. It was at an other local college, but it was a touring show that has toured the country for many years. I put a link to their site at the bottom of son's review. Again we took my mom with the boys and I because we had that extra ticket for older son's girlfriend. Since they broke up we have had a couple of extra tickets for shows that we had planed on going to awhile back.

On Sunday Older son talked me into going to buy a large screen tv. He is paying for it, so I drove :) He was going to wait for an other month or two, but with the Super Bowl coming he decided to get it earlier then planned. The only down side is it has HD and we have to wait for our cable company to come out and hook a special cable to the tv and they can't make it until the first week of February. The picture is still good as it is now, but he was really hoping for HD before the game. The agreement was since we are getting rid of our other tv, this one stays when he moves out. It is more a family contribution. I put a picture of it up so you could see it. I meant to put one up of our weather forecast last night so you can see the color and clarity. I will have to go find that when I am done.

Older son has learned a lot about hooking things up and building lately which I am really happy about. When he moves out he will be able to do so much on his own. The tool boxes they got for Christmas has already come in handy.

Tomorrow we are trying to get older son into his doctor. He has been having headaches for about a month now almost everyday. He needed to get two more vaccinations that they were out of last time so he will get that too. Younger son has been having headaches too, but about once or twice a week. Not as much, but still troublesome. Both wear glasses and just had eye exams, so I am sure it isn't their eyes. I am thinking stress, but they can't keep taking pain relievers so often. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow and Milo goes in for a shampoo and nail clipping Thursday. One of those doctor/dentist weeks.

We are waiting for Groundhogs day February 2 to see if Winter will be around for awhile. We have had such a great Winter so far, that it is hard to complain! It has only been really cold the last week or two and then a week or two in November. Some of the days in December and January I have been out without a jacket! I can't remember doing that in the last few years. I am secretly hoping for a huge snow fall still. Of course I want it to start after 10p.m. on a Friday and have the streets cleared before Monday at 3 pm. I hate to worry about older son driving to work in a blizzard! I really want to try to new camera outside, but it is so dreary out there with no green or no white. I took 86 indoor pictures last night :) If I don't get out there soon, I will be posting our condo pictures soon. It is only 600 square feet, so it will get repetitive quickly!

I almost forgot. Older son just booked two DJ parties! He has had his equipment for months, but hasn't really advertised. He is doing a Valentines party for our old homeschool group and a school picnic for a local school. He is so excited to get paying jobs!

Younger Son With The New TV

Younger Son and Milo Resting

Older Son and Milo Hanging Out

Trying Close Ups

Milo Taken With the New Camera

The Chinese Golden Acrobats Reviewed by Younger Son

The Chinese Golden Acrobats

I saw The Chinese Golden Acrobats on January 27, 2007 at the Center for Performing Arts located at Governors State University.

Genre: Acrobats

The Chinese Golden Acrobats had 8 different acts. A couple of my favorites were act 2 and act 7. Act 2 had umbrella juggling, ball juggling, and hat tricks. The umbrella juggling was really cool. What they did was they had umbrellas of coarse and they sat upside down on chairs and they started to juggle the umbrellas on there feet. Ball juggling was really good too. They pretty much did the same as the umbrellas, except they used balls instead. I think the hat tricks was the best of all. There were about 7 guys who each had a set of 3 hats. When they juggled the hats; it was not the same as regular juggling. When the hat was supposed to go into the air, the hat went on the persons head. They all did some spectacular things.

Another one of my favorites was act 7, the tower of chairs. There was a person who had a base at the front of the stage and had 2 chairs already put on there. What the guy did was he stood one handed on the top of the chairs, and then when he was done he put another chair on top of another, until he got up to 6 chairs. His feet were almost touching the ceiling. He then did something I couldn’t believe. He put the chair diagonal and still he was able to stand on it one handed.

***** I give this performance 5 out of 5 stars. I loved this performance a lot because all the performers were really flexible and muscular. I think anybody would love to see this performance. Here is a link to their site http://www.goldendragonacrobats.com/AAPI/News.html

The Adventures of Robin Hood Reviewed by Younger Son

The Adventures of Robin Hood

On January 26 I saw The Adventures of Robin Hood at Kindig Performing Arts Center located in South Suburban College. The play was performed by The Children’s Theatre Company.

Genre: A play for young Audiences
Setting: England in the year 1066

Robin Hood was a bandit who took money from the rich and then he gave it to the poor. Robin and his merry men lived in a forest. The play starts with Robin and Little John who are dueling in the forest. Robin Hood of course wins and all of the men started talking about the sheriff who is a mean man who not only took money from the poor, but also took the poor’s belongings. Robin got wind that the sheriff was going to the Blue Bell Inn. So Robin and his gang and went to the village in disguises. When the sheriff came he collected all of the belongings, but Robin and his friends had a plan, while the sheriff was busy with the other poor people Robin and his men took the stuff that was already taken to give back to the people.

The sheriff made a plan to capture Robin Hood and invited all people of the village to come to a festival which included an archery contest. The Sheriff captured Lady Marian to use her as bait to draw Robin to the festival. When Robin and his friends, (who were all in there disguises) got to the festival, Robin heard of the plan, but he still wanted to enter the archery contest.
His friends had stopped him from entering, but when Little John won the contest the Sheriff still did not believe that was Robin, so he said is there no other. Before his friends could stop him Robin sprang up and said he would try. He made a bull’s-eye and the Sheriff knew that he was Robin Hood and challenged him to a duel, Robin accepted. They fought for a long time, finally Robin Hood won. Then a message came and said that King Richard would return. They had all rejoiced.

**** I give this play 4 out of 5 stars. I liked this play because it had some archery and fighting in it. My favorite character was Robin Hood. I would like to play the role of Robin Hood. I think Kids under the age of 12 would like this play.

We are Private Now! :)

For better or worse this blog is now private. I hated doing it because of all the blogs I read and sign in on, but it will be safer this way. Now I won't have to monitor what I say as much.

Not much going on here lately. Just back to getting our school work done. Younger son had a dentist appointment this week and has no cavities. Tomorrow we are home all day which will be nice. I start a new exercise program again tomorrow so it will be a good day to be home :) My friend and I are going back to the Richard Simmons tapes. I forgot how much I liked some of the songs on the videos. They are about a hour long. Of course there is still my treadmill too.

Friday we are going to see Beauty and the Beast at older sons college. We are taking my mom with. Saturday we are seeing The Golden Chinese Acrobats. Here is a link to it http://www.artfegan.com/CGDA/CGDA_Home.htm
I am looking forward to taking pictures with our new camera and see how they turn out. We invited my mom to this one too. I had an extra ticket so older son's girlfriend could come with, but now we can take my mom.

Milo is standing on the arm of the couch crying, trying to get my attention :) He is hitting my arm with his paw. I guess I will be getting off. He either wants attention or a turn at the computer!

Last Christmas Gathering of the Season

Today we went over to my parents for a get together with my aunt from Wisconsin. It was our Christmas together. Younger son ended up staying home because he had a sore throat. I am sure Milo enjoyed the company. That took up most of the day. When we came home older son made plans to spend the night with a friend, I went on the computer and younger son watched tv. I think tomorrow we will just stay home and have a game day. I did a large grocery shopping trip on Friday and we are suppose to get some snow accumulation tomorrow, so it will be a nice day to stay home.

We found out we had a burglary in a building on our complex. I guess they got in with a screw driver. I know it happens everywhere, but that is a little close for me! My neighbor came out and told me when we came home today. I will have to watch the papers and see if I can find out a little more about it.

I was going to down load a couple of pictures I took today, but older son must have disconnected the camera port to put in something else and forgot to put it back. Since he is gone tonight I will have to wait until he gets home because I have no idea how it is all connected. I will have to see how he does it tomorrow so I know next time.

Older son goes back to his college classes Tuesday and younger son and I will start doing our regular things either Monday or Tuesday. It will be nice to be getting back in a routine.

I have a Chemo patient that I am an Angel to. She is my 5th child I have angeled. In the time I have been a ChemoAngel I have also been a senior angel. Seniors don't necessarily have cancer, but are either in nursing homes or lonely. In the whole time I have been a ChemoAngel I have had only one senior patient. I was writing to him at least twice a week for 4 years. He recently passed away. I was assigned a new senior last week. I wrote my first letter to her last week. It is strange to be writing someone new. The families do not have to have any contact with us, so I didn't hear from my last seniors family after he passed away. His wife died before him and he was in a nursing home. I was lucky to hear from his wife two times before she passed away and one of his adult children wrote me when his wife passed away. I am looking forward to getting into a rhythm of letters again.

Tomorrow is the Bears playoff game. We are planning on watching. I am not a huge football fan, but when your team is winning it is fun to see. Older son likes watching football. Go Bears! :)

Having Fun with a New Program

Blue Man Group Reviewed by Younger Son

The Blue Man Group

I saw this performance at Briar Street Theatre on January 7, 2007.

When I first got to Briar Street Theatre I was wondering what was going to happen, because my family and I were in the first row. The Blue Man Group started it out when one guy starts playing three drums while the other two start pouring paint into the drums, so whenever he hits the drums hard, the paint goes flying. Then it was a blackout.

When the lights went back on the blue men were on the stage and there was a gumball machine and a bag of marshmallows in the center of the stage. One of the blue men started to throw gumballs at one guy and marshmallow at the other. The blue man threw a gumball at the blue man and he caught it in his mouth and then he squirted paint on a board. The blue man then threw about 5 or 6 marshmallows at the other blue man. So it just went back and forth with gumballs and then marshmallows.

There are two things that the Blue Man Group did that were my favorites. The first is the Blue Man Group went out into the audience, picked a girl, and brought her up to the stage. They each had a Twinkie and none of them could open it except for the girl, who opened the blue man’s next to her and he shook the Twinkie at the other two. Then the girl opened the second guys Twinkie and both of the blue men shook there Twinkies at the third, so he just got out a small chain saw a cut the Twinkie in half. He took it out of the wrapper held both ends together with his fingers and all four of them shook their Twinkies at the audience. The second thing was the Blue Man group once again went all the way out into the audience to the back row, and the three Blue Men sent rolls of tissue paper out into the audience and it went all the way up to the first row. My whole family was covered in tissue paper.

***** I give this performance 5 out of 5 star. I loved this performance because I love how the Blue Man group did different things. I would love to become a Blue Man. I think anybody would love to go see The Blue Man Group.

Backwards!

Sorry the pictures I just added are in reverse order! I'm not sure how or if they can be switched. I have been experimenting a lot because we have a new camera we just bought. Our last camera was 2.5 mega pixels and the new one has 10. The only pictures posted with the new one is the Blue Man Group ones. Our new camera is a little harder to keep in focus. Both are Cannon Power Shots. Older one was A40 and newer one is A640. I can't wait to get outside and start snapping. I am glad I will have it for the concert tomorrow and Thursday.

Younger son's check up went well. He put on three pounds this year and 4 and 1/2 inches! He is officially my height. Just a week or two ago he was still an inch shorted, so any day I will be looking up to talk to him too. He is determined to be taller then older son, so he is going to load up on calcium this year :) He had his last two shots including anything he would need to go away to college. He is good until he is 24 and then may need a tetanus shot again. He is actually one shot up on older son. They were out of one of the shots at his last check up.

Our Christmas Tree 2006

This picture was done in coloring book outline setting in our old Cannon program.

Christmas 2006

Younger Son's 14th Birthday

Notice the travelers looking on :)

Murder Mystery Cast

My niece, sister, younger son, brother in law, older son, me and my nephew

Happy New Year 2007

Both Sons, One of the Blue Man Group, and a Friend

He was our favorite

Outside Briar Street Theatre

Happy New Year!

Well, it's been so long I am sure I won't be able to remember everything :) We had a great Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with just us. We went to the show in the afternoon, then to church and dinner. When we came home the boys were able to open one gift and the gift they bought each other. Christmas morning we opened gifts and had a nice breakfast. Younger son was so excited because he was acolyting for the Christmas service. The pastor even had him help with communion. Older son ran the audio/video stuff too. Then we went to my mom and dad's for the day. We were even able to take Milo with us! Milo was happy to be with us and we were happy not to have to worry about when we needed to be home.

New Years Eve we always go to my sisters house. We usually spend the night, but with Milo we just stayed until after midnight. We had a murder mystery that was a lot of fun. We have done one each year for several years now. We all dress for the parts we have and just have fun with it. My sister ended up being the murder this year :)

We have been off school since the end of November. We have one more week off and then Older son has his college classes start up and Younger son gets back to his stuff.

Today we went into Chicago to see Blue Man Group. The show was a lot of fun! I will have to post some pictures. I wasn't able to post anything for awhile, so I have some pictures to put up. Tomorrow is younger son's 14 year old check up. We have lots of rehearsals and things this week too. The kids have a band concert Tuesday and Kevin has a tone chime and choir concert on Thursday with practices all the in between days.

Well I am off to watch Desperate House Wife :)

I'm Back!

Remember me? I have been locked out of my accounts for a few days now and I was getting worried. I was finally able to lot into my Google account and I switched over my three blogs right away. So now that I can get to my accounts I don't have the time to update right now, but wanted to let you know I'm back!