LaGrange, Hinsdale, whatever.

Pete's hockey coach, Anders, is close family friends with Mike Nylander (both from Sweden) who used to play for the Blackhawks, but last season signed a 4 year contract with the Capitals. Mike rented out his house in Hinsdale, but the renters were leaving this month. It was going to be empty so he wanted Anders to move into it at no cost, which meant that Anders' house was going to be available to rent. We were going to move into Anders' place in LaGrange next month, but Mike found a new renter for his BIG place in Hinsdale. Sooooo, Anders and his family are staying put and we had to do a last minute scramble to find a place to move into. Craig's List to the rescue. I found a 4 bedroom place in Hinsdale with a huge yard at a reasonable price and a great landlord who is letting us sign a 2 year lease that we can renew for another 2 years after that. We're supposed to sign the lease on Wednesday. Once that's done we can register the kids for school and I can send out the new address to everyone.

Oh yeah, the other news is that the tenants for our Crystal lake house signed the lease yesterday and we're supposed to get it back from them today.

So, once again it all appears to be working out just as it's meant to be. Anyone want to help us move in mid-June??!!

Chicago is #1 .....

... for the nation's highest average gas prices, $4.07/gal. UGH! There's even a station at Fullerton & Ashland that's selling gas for $4.49/gal for regular and $4.69/gal for premium.

Birthdays!!

First off, I want to wish a belated 7th birthday to my niece, Ella! Although her b-day post is late, she actually received her present from her God-father, U. Jim, on time. That's a rarity for us! I wish we could have been there. Happy Birthday Ella!


Next, a big Happy Birthday goes out to my nephew Shaggy (a.k.a. Rudi). Now you and Errin need to move to Chi-town as planned!!

Like God-mother, like God-daughter ...

Today we had the HD music channel on in the background and the band Cream was doing a reunion concert. Roslyn walked in the room and said, "How can such old guys make such nice music?".

Flashback about 20 years or so and I was babysitting my brother's kids. We had VH1 on in the background and the video Kokomo by the Beach Boys came on. For those of you who don't know, that was the only song of theirs that was getting airplay in the 80's because it was written for a movie soundtrack. Having never seen the band before, my niece, Melissa, took one look at the Beach Boys and said,"Wow, look how old that new band is!".

And that is just one more reason why they are a perfect God-mother/God-daughter pair!!

Question:

If April showers bring May flowers, what does April SNOW bring??

Answer: A VERY annoyed Gail.

Yes it was snowing today. This weather SUCKS!!
See below for an overdue update of our lives.

Update.

Besides the snow, here's what's going on in our life:

1. Our house still is not sold, but we have 2 parties that are interested in renting.
2. Last week we decided to definitely move to Phoenix so I could attend MWU College of Dental Medicine.
3. This week, United announced that it is going to double the number of planes that it's retiring. Continental Airlines no longer wants to merge with UAL because of the "corporate climate" and just how crappy it's doing financially.
4. There's no way to predict when Jim would get a bid to L.A. or S.F., which would mean commuting to Chicago for a year or more.
5. This week we decided to stay in Chicago-land and I will attend UIC College of Dentistry. This is the last of our "final" decisions as I officially withdrew my acceptance to MWU this morning.
6. As I got off the phone with the Dean of MWU-CDM, it began to snow. God really does have a sick sense of humor!
7. We'll be moving to the south side as soon as we can rent out or sell our house here in Crystal Lake.
8. Our first choice suburb is LaGrange, but Westmont, Downers Grove, Lombard & Elmhurst are on the list also.
9. We will forever be North-siders, so No, we will NOT become Sox fans. Go Cubs! Besides, the odds of the Tigers and the Cubs playing each other in the World Series are slim to none. And as they say, Slim just left the building, so I have no conflict of interest issues.
10. We're excited to be about an hour drive closer to Michigan for our trips home. I guess we'll be shopping at the Bolingbrook Ikea now instead of the Schaumburg one. Yes, Chi-town has 2 Ikeas.
11. Peter is ecstatic to be staying here and will play for the Chicago Mission again in the fall. He'll have to do a lot of his travel with families on the team because of my course load. So all of you Michiganders ... I know it will mean a lot to him to have you at his Detroit games.
12. And speaking of Detroit games .... Jonathan, you're still in charge of keeping an eye out for the 2008-2009 Red Wing's schedule. We'll need to plan our annual Euchre tourney/Red Wings game now that nobody will need to fly to Phoenix for the game!

Scholarship.

So, today I was working on my financial aid package for school this fall. I knew that going to dental school would cause us to hemorrhage money, but when you see the cold hard numbers in writing, only one word comes to mind, and it rhymes with DUCK. Time to brainstorm and research alternative financing.

What about grants, you say? Well, finding free money is like, uhm, pulling teeth.

How about scholarships, you ask? Sadly, I've been unable to find any scholarships for "middle aged white mothers undergoing a career change".

Then I had an idea ....

.... a wonderful, awful idea. Why not create a scholarship for myself? One where all the money goes directly to me.

After all, there's more than just tuition to worry about. There's instruments to buy,


and clinic fees,

and text books to purchase.

So tell all your friends and family to donate today to the new official "Send a middle aged, brunette, Polish-Ukrainian, Bull Terrier loving, hockey playing, mother of 4 to dental school" scholarship. Don't delay!!

(Cash, clothing and alcohol donations accepted.)

F#@K!!

It's snowing ..... again.

Happy Birthday Mitchell!

Our Leprechaun turned 11 years old today! I made him a Rey Mysterio mask cake. I'm not a fan of the WWE myself, but since I need to stay in touch with my boys, I figured the old adage of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" applied here. Mitch loved his presents tonight, but his favorite was the Micro WWE Arena that we got him. It's a wrestling arena that has a bunch of 1.5" high dudes that can body slam, "break" things, launch from the ropes, etc. and the whole thing folds up into a carrying case. As you can see, Mitchell also made himself a mask!

By the way, I wanted to send out a belated blog happy b-day to my sister-in-law Jan. Her b-day was last Monday and instead of blogging about her, I spent the time catching up with her on the phone. Hi Jan!

AAAAHHHHHHH!

More Snow!!! I'm done. Just lock me away in my bedroom until spring. I'll be dreaming of things like the scene below:

Mission Update

The Mission 97's took the state title today by beating TI 4-3, but the Midget Minors (91 & 92's) came in 2nd by losing in OT 4-3 to TI. So, after 9 out of 10 Mission teams advanced to the finals, 7 of those 9 now hold the state championship title and the other two teams are the runners up. That's 70% of the club holding state titles, a new state record. Way to go Chicago Mission AAA Hockey Club!

STATE CHAMPIONS!!

This afternoon the Chicago Mission '96 Pee Wee Minor AAA hockey team earned the title of State Champions by beating CYA 2-1! Congratulations guys! It's been a good year for them. They finished up tied for 2nd place in the three state Midwest Elite Hockey League, they're ranked 9th in the nation and now they hold the state title. Unfortunately, this is the end of their season because they are in a "minor" year (1st year pee wees). Regional and national title championships are only held for "major" year pee wees & bantams.

The Chicago Mission Hockey Club has had an unprecedented 9 out of 10 teams advance to the championship round of the Blackhawk cup this year (the 10th team lost in a shootout). Half way through this weekend the Mission 96's, 95's, 94's, 93's and 2 out of the 3 girls teams have taken the state title. We're waiting to hear the score of the 92's game tonight and the 97's have 1 more game tomorrow. Way to go Mission!!

Blackhawk Cup Season!

For those of you not familiar with IL youth hockey, the Blackhawk Cup is a series of games to compete for the state championship title. Last weekend Petey's hockey team competed in the round robin playoffs and won all 3 games, qualifying them for the three game "finals" against CYA (Chicago Young Americans). On Thursday they beat CYA 2-1 in TRIPLE overtime. That's three 15 minute periods (They're normally 17 minutes, but are shortened for the cup series), followed by two full 10 minute OT periods and just under 3 minutes into the 3rd OT, Pete's team scored for the win. On Saturday afternoon, they play CYA for the 2nd game of the series. If they win, the series is over and the hard-wear will be passed out. So, think hockey, think positive and think ...... GO MISSION!!


Now here's a moment of Mom bragging:
Petey scored the first goal of the game on Thursday. After being tripped, he managed to get a wrist shot off while on his knees. It hit the cross bar, bounced off the goalie's back, spun around on the goal line and then plunked down in the net!

Odd literature.

Imagine our surprise when Roslyn told us that she was saving her money to buy a "diarrhea book". I wasn't sure if this was an early interest in medicine or just some weird idea one of her brothers put in her head. When we asked her to tell us about this book she wanted, she said it was the one she saw on T.V. Needless to say, we started wondering if getting digital cable was such a good idea after all! Then it all became clear once we saw the commercial she was referring to .......

....... the electronic diarrhea book, for girls only!

Our budding artist.

John is such an artist, that he's compulsive about it. He'll get a picture or an idea in his head and the world stops until he can get it down on paper with markers or paint. That was the case today, he had a picture in his head on the way home from school and had to create it the second he walked in the door.

My sister, Susan, is an artist/art teacher and has shown John how to do a rough sketch of his idea before painting. At first he wasn't thrilled with the idea of following a process, he just wanted to do it his way. However, the lesson obviously stuck because walking in the door from school today the following conversation occurred:

John: I'm going to draw my picture in pencil before I paint it, that way I can get it just right.

Me: That sounds like a good idea, just like Aunt Susan showed you. That's how artists do it, and she's an artist.

John: Yeah, and she's old.

Apparently John respects Aunt Susan's "experience".