A NIGHT AT BUSCH STADIUM

While I was away on my girls scrapbook weekend, Rob took the kids to the Cubs v. Cardinals game Friday night in St. Louis with Papa and DD. They said it was a nice time at the ballpark even though our Cubbies lost :(

Emily was a little nervous there would be fireworks at the game because she is scared to death of them. Fortunately, there was only one homerun...so only one set of fireworks. A funny side note...she pronounces Cardinals "Carnivals"!All hooded up and ready to root root root for the Cubbies!

Of course Papa and DD had on their RED shirts! Looks like it was a beautiful night!

FIRST BROWNIE MEETING

Last night was Emily's first Brownie meeting of the year. The troop all bridged from Daisy Scouts to Brownies last spring. This year the girls will perform "Try-It's" which are different activities designed to teach them something while having fun learning. Our leaders have come up with some fun meeting ideas and events this year. Emily and I are looking forward to a fun Girl Scout year with our troop.

Syndey and Emily demonstrating the Girl Scout handshake.

The end of meeting "Friendship Circle"
What every good blog post needs...a goofy picture of the two BFF's!

THE NINA AND THE PINTA!

On Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Rob, the kids, Grandma and I drove to Grafton, IL (about 2 hours southwest of Springfield on the Illinois River) to see the Nina and the Pinta replica ships. They were smaller than we thought they would be, but we got to walk on them and see what it was like for Christopher Columbus and his crew. We kept saying how amazing it was that they actually made the voyage safely. Then we walked around the cute little (touristy) town, shopped a little, had lunch and then some ice cream. We went home a different way...down the Great River Road, which had quite the spectacular view.

NEW ROOF '09

We finally bit the ($6,000) bullet and had a new roof put on the house. Rob's friend Rocky Barfield and crew did the job and they were amazing. It just took them 2 full days, and they cleaned up every bit of the mess and the finished product has all the neighbors talking! Everyone keeps complimenting us on such a good choice of color and for hiring a great company to do the job. We are very happy with it...except we think they must have shook some nasty spiders out of there because Rob's had to kill a couple mutant-looking ones this week!
That's TJ, the head foreman, and Rocky waving at the camera because I told him they would be in my scrapbook!
The finished product! Now all we have left to do is new windows, new siding, new shutters, new front door...oh yeah, and new landscaping and ripping off the front porch, but that will wait til Spring!