MAY

5/10 Had a Mothers Day Brunch at Oak Brook with Steve and Katy.

5/12 Had the roof repaired by Don's Roofing (ridge caps and some metal work to eliminate the possibility for further damming water leaks from heavy snow in the winter).

5/17 Rhonda and Ray were in town for a convention and everyone got together for brunch downtown. Steve, Katy, Eric and Kris (they all rode their bikes to the restaurant).

5/23 Went to a surprise Anniversary Party for Jennifer and Hal Merck. All the Kuhlmanns were there and Rebecca had arranged a concert featuring David Wilcox. All our family was there except for Brian and Amy.

THE KITCHEN WAS COMPLETED - IT LOOKS GREAT!

5/25 Went to a Birthday party for Ted Kuhlmann at Jennifer and Hal Merck's. (70 yrs)

5/31 A Birthday party for John Weber at Hillary's.

APRIL

MA went on another trip, this time to Washington D.C. to spend 5 days with Nancy Power.She travelled with Sharon Bachmann. Helen Weber joined them from Arkansas. They all did a lot of sight seeing and eating out etc.

The boys are working on the kitchen and making good progress. They are very well organized and are doing a good job. It will take about two months to get it completed.

Weather is still unsettled but spring will arrive eventually.

I am getting some good biking miles whenever I can.

March

This is what happened in March.

MA travelled to San Diego for a week with college friends (Ann Nissen, Edie Enright,and Elsie Land). They really had  good time.

 The big event was that Steve and his friend Scott Shafer began to remodel the kitchen. On the 31st they ripped out the the entire room. (see Steves Flickr site for a few pictures). We have the contents of the room all over the house. A bit of an inconvenience but it will be nice when it is completed. 

The weather has been up and down temp. wise with quite a bit of rain. 

VACATION FEB 10 - FEB 20,2009

Left Chicago on Southwest Airlines on Tues  and arrived Orlando around noon. The flight was very smooth and we arrived in Orlando about noon (20 minutes early). Obtained a Rental car and headed to St. Augustine to spend three days with the Bachmanns who had rented a house for the month of Feb. We had a very relaxing time and a good visit. While there we went into town and took a tour of Flagler College. We had done that on a previous visit and liked it so much we did it again. The weather was perfect.

On friday we drove to Naples and spent three days with the Olsons just hanging out and relaxing. They are always good company.

On Tues. we left for for Winter Park to spend some time with Rod and Jackie (on the way up we stopped in Sarasota to have lunch with Harve and Norma Reimers). While visiting Rod we went to two of his Gigs. Their band has about 16 members and are quite good.

Returned home on Friday again on Southwest Airlines and arrived home about 4:30 pm. Had a very nice time and enjoyed good weather the entire 10 days. Found everything in order on our return.

UP SKI TRIP

Sunday Feb. 1 thru Feb. 6

Left home at 7:40am, picked up Cheri O'Riordan @ 8:00 and then Joanne Dezur @ 8:30 and were on the road to Ironwood, MI. by 8:40. Good driving all the way (444 mi). Arrived about 4:00pm. Shortly all 35 people were accounted for. There were two eating groups - early 6:00 pm and the late group at 7:00pm. We ate at different places so as not to overwhelm  the wait staff plus some just preferred to eat early. Nice to have the group together again. Had dinner at the Kimball   Inn.

MONDAY FEB.2

Everyone went to ABR our favorite venue. It was quite cold 3-4 deg below 0, but not too windy so with the proper layers it was quite comfortable. The trails were perfectly groomed but quite slow due to the low temp. MA had some difficulty with icing on the bottom of her skis. I put on some "Geen" cold wax and she had no further difficulty. Had our usual social hour at 6:00pm then had dinner at the Caribou Lodge. A good day and everyone got their share of exercise.

TUESDAY FEB. 3

Most of us returned to ABR to ski as there were MANY trails which needed our attention. The snow was a little faster and we really enjoyed ourselves. Some of the trails were Deer Trail,Jack's Flats, Hemlock, Jack Pine, Cherry Dairy, Blueberry Bluffs. Many of us were getting a little more comfortable on the snow and were taking on some of the more difficult sections.

After the social hour the late group had dinner at the Bell Chalet where MA and I enjoyed their Pizza Verde. There was enough left over for our lunch on Wed. MA and a bunch finished off the evening  playing Dominoes. All were tired again.

WEDNESDAY FEB. 4

Today several of us went to Miljie's which is a different experience and very pretty. It is private property but the public is welcome. There is a small rustic cabin with a pot-bellied stove and some drink mixes if the stove is hot. Sometimes no one is there. The cabin is about a 1/4 mi ski in from the road. The trails are minimally groomed and single tracked. It is  about 9km in length in two loops. the birch woods were beautiful.

In the afternoon we went back to ABR and did our favorite trails.

Dinner was at the Kimball Inn. Another nice day.     (cold again)

THURSDAY FEB. 5

We spent the day at ABR and did some of the trails we had not done previously. It was not quite as cold today. Low 6 deg, high about 16 deg - sunny - a perfect day for skiing. 

Dinner was at Tocconelli's in Ironwood.

FRIDAY FEB. 6

We got checked out and on the road by 8:15am. The roads were clear and the driving was just fine. Arrived home about 4;30pm.   A GREAT TRIP! 

SUCCESS AT LAST

AT&T was out here at 9:45 am and two Techs worked until 4:15 pm . They did a lot of work which included almost all new components plus re-did the grounding and installed better wiring at the vault on LaGrange road. They also put in new cabling between the outside cable box to the Gateway inside the house (used some shielded heavy duty co-ax} which should eliminate the "ghost voices". also checked the grounding of our AC outlets in the basement. So we are presently up and running. I'll uncross my fingers in a week or so 

A TROUBLED DAY

The U-Verse system went down completely at about 5;30am. I finally messed around and got it back up for a while. Katy arrived about 7:45 am to give me a training session on learning about Blogs but we had to use someone else's internet connection. The system went up and down several times during the day. I tried everything I could think of to no avail. Finally about 4:45 pm I gave up and called U-Verse tech service and he worked with me and we rebooted the "Gateway" unit in the basement and also the TV receiver box on top of the TV. He also reset some options at his end of the line and we got the system up and running by 5:15 pm. I had to work thru my cell phone as everything was DOWN. When the system goes down you lose it all  (Internet, TV, and the phone). You really get a feeling of isolation. I hope that is the end of the difficulties, but I have my fingers crossed. Time will tell.

GREEN VALLEY

FRIDAY 1-23-09 The day started out with a 3 hr X-C ski at Green Valley in Woodridge. While the temp. was moderate there was a strong wind from the NW which had a bite to it.The high for the day was around 29 deg. Again I was quite tired when we got finished. Stopped at the Home Economist for a new supply of Gorp.

STILL UP IN THE AIR

THURSDAY

 This was a real fun day! Jim Seguin and I had the chance to go out to DuPage airport and went thru Fletch Adams Corporate Jet for more than an hour. It is a Hawker 800SP (N523WG). He went over and explained every instrument on the panel. I was just mind boggling! It has everything that a commercial jet would have. Needless to say I was impressed if not confused. That made my day.

The weather was much warmer with the high around 36 deg. It was sunny and pretty. I did not get outdoors for any exercise. I was still feeling the effects of the last couple of days. I see a ski is posted on the internet for 10:00am tomorrow at Green Valley. I may go out and do that. We'll see.     

LOTS OF EXERCISE

TUESDAY 1-20-09 -  I led a hike for the EBC at Waterfall Glen ,'TEDS TOURS #8". We had 13 hikers even though it was Inauguration Day. It was a beautiful day, sunny, no wind, not too cold. The walking was difficult due to the snow cover, particularly in the "Bushwhacking" sections. It took us about 3.5 hours to cover the approx. 6 mi. We were all pretty tired.

WEDNESDAY 1-21-09 -  Several of us went back on to Waterfall Glen and skied the entire perimeter o f the preserve. That pretty much wiped me out for the day. The weather, snow and company could not have been better. 9.5 mi. This was my second time out  skiing so some of my muscles were complaining, especially in the upper body.

Sat. Windy and Cold

I had planned to go out and due some route checking at Waterfall Glen for my hike on Tues. but the wind is blowing up a gale and the the temp. is about 16 deg. I am having some second thoughts about it. I guess Ill have some breakfast and then see if I change my mind.

I decided to go and I'm glad I did. With the deep snow the hiking was difficult and the trails thru the "bushwhacking" segments were some times hard to follow. However by using my GPS I could make my way OK. I think I may shorten the route for Tues. as the walking is quite tiring with deep snow. I was out about 3 hrs. Good workout.

FRIDAY COLDEST YET

Quite cold this morning! At 5:18am it was -18 with a wind chill of -32. We sleep with the bedroom window partially open and the thermostat set at 60 deg. This morning the dining room was 60 deg and the kitchen by the back door was 57 deg. I have the flap on my chair taped up so the heat from the ventilator under the chair comes right out on my legs. it really feels good.
Did quite a bit of reading yesterday as it was too cold to do anything outside. In the afternoon I did some work in the basement. Had one big box full of old letters and some stuff from Mom's house. Came across a small box full of old letters that I had received while I was working on the farm as a result of letters I had written. They dated back to 1942 thru 1947. I spent most of the evening reading them all. FUN. I probably will throw them out but they sure brought back memories.Came across all the letters that Mom had saved during the times I was away from home. Those will provide many hours of entertainment if I read them all. It is supposed to be cold all day again but there should be a warming trend to follow in the next few days'

GETTING COLDER

we are really getting some cold weather! As I write this it is -8deg and feels like -27deg. This is according  to LGPK weather on the computer at 5:05am.

I had to shovel about 3" of new snow and the did Vance's as well. Actually I'm getting to like shovelling. It was a pretty sunny day but the themp. never got above 15deg.

We still have a lot of sorting out and cleaning up in the basement. We try to get in 1 hr. + a day. But we are making some progress.

HOT DOG

HOT DOG I get to shovel snow again.

I am supposed to lead a hike this morning at Teason's Woods F.P. My big concern is if they have the parking lot plowed. I can always adjust the hike to meet the conditions but I sure need to have a place available for 8 or so cars to park. I hope it goes OK. The temp. will be be around 20deg but it is to be windy so that the wind chill is likely to be about 5deg.