4th of July

What a great weekend we had except that Kayla and Becca were not able to be with us, they were spending the weekend with their Grandparents in the U.P (that's Upper Peninsula of Michigan for your foreigners).

Our friends Jeremy, Georgia (pictured to right with David)and kids, Chase and Jade came from PA for a visit. This is the first time we have seen them in about 4 or 5 years I think. They were the first of our friends to leave us, lol, and move away. Anyway we started out our our holiday weekend by going to a parade in Antioch. It was the usual parade with kids, animals, tractors and politicians but we all seemed to have a good time. After the parade we took Jeremy & Georgia to one of our favorite hot dog places, Scott Dogs for lunch while we were trying to figure out what to do for the day. Somehow we got on the subject of fishing so we ended up going to Lake Julian.
Lake Julian is a stocked fishing spot where you can either fish in the Trout pond or the stocked larger pond. Usually at the Trout pond you are almost guaranteed to catch a fish which is exactly what the kids did, they caught several Trout and really enjoyed it. It was pretty funny and I'll get grief for telling about it but I have to share a funny story. Jeremy was doing something to Jade's fishing pole when all of the sudden I head a "Plop" sound, I looked and Jade's pole went into the lake, the funniest part is there was a fish on the end of the line. Jeremy moved fast and was able to get the pole out of the water and even managed to bring in the fish. David and Chase took the fish into the office to have them weighed and cleaned and Chase was fascinated with the cleaning process of the fish. I think the guy that was cleaning the fish had fun talking to Chase and he gave Chase part of the fish, the head and guts. Chase being himself took the fish head out to show his mom and that's the funny part, he started chasing her around the parking lot with this fish head is has hand. After all the fish were cleaned and paid for we headed home to have some dinner and wait until dark to have our fireworks show.


The next day we went to brave the crowds at the Taste of Chicago and man it was crowded. We had a great time at the taste and promised the kids we would let them play in the fountain in Millennium park afterwards. The kids all had a great time playing in the water. After we left the taste we saved room for a yummy dinner at Famous Dave's Bar-B-Q. I think Jeremy was so stuffed he couldn't move .

We had a great weekend and it was really nice to see our old friends again.

Truly inspirational night

Saturday June 22, 2008 Missy and I went to the NPC Junior National Bodybuilding championships. This is a catapult to the NPC USA, which can propel you to professional bodybuilding status. What a very cool thing to attend for me. Missy and the girls gave me tickets for fathers day. It was very exciting for me. I was able to meet some of the professionals I read about everyday in the magazines like Desmond Miller to the right. Look at that guys ARMS!! OH MY GOSH!
I also was able to meet my mentor and trainer Dave Palumbo. Dave has been instrumental in helping me not only lose over 60 pounds in the last year, but also in teaching me tons about nutrition and exercise and getting to know my body. This guy is known as the "GURU" in the industry. Mr. Palumbo's advice is cutting edge and goes against mainstream information at times but after losing over 60 pounds, I would have to say he knows what the heck he is doing! Mr. Palumbo paid me the greatest compliment when meeting me by saying "I didn't even recognize you your face has thinned out so much and you look so much thinner". I send Mr. Palumbo pictures of me every week so it's not like he doesn't see me, just never in person. What an awesome honor to have met him personally.

I was also able to see Don Long (http://www.bodybuilders.com/long.htm), Dexter Jackson (http://www.dexterjacksonshredded.com/), Evan Centopani (http://evancentopani.com/), Bob Cicherillo (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bobc.htm), Trey Brewer (http://www.treybrewer.com/), and Marcus Haley (http://www.marcushaley.com/). What a treat that was for me to see all of these guys. Marcus Haley was chowing down when we got to him of course. I mean really, what else would you expect from a bodybuilder?

It was amazing to me to watch all of these people, even the crowd, and the size of the people there. It was awe inspiring how hard they must work knowing how hard I have worked over the last year. It is funny, just the day before, I saw someone I hadn't seen in a long time and he said I looked like a monster because of my size....funny how small I looked even compared to the people in the crowd...heck, even the women in the crowd!I must say though, I could never have made it even this far without the support of my loving wife and daughters. They have encouraged me from day one to stay on course and keep on keeping on, even through rough times and injuries. They have been my inspiration through this. It has been an even higher honor to see my brother start working out again, and being able to help a few people get their motivation up to get going on their nutrition and excercise as well. This is a long life we get to have, being in shape and staying in shape will make it that much better on us.

Summer starts with Great America

Kayla and Becca are out of school now for the summer and they start out the summer with us for 2 weeks. Since David and I are both working we reached out to friends and family to aid with daycare. The first day they spent it with Kelly and Olivia who take care of Jenna, they played with the Olivia and Jenna and I'm sure they were a big help to Kelly as she wasn't feeling very well. Tuesday the girls were going with our friend and neighbor Yvette and her kids, Sammy & Susie to Great America. I got a call early that morning from Kelly that she still wasn't feeling good so I called in to stay home with Jenna while Kayla and Becca went to Great America, after talking it over with David we decided that Jenna and I would go too.

I have been to Great America before but in California, not here though. The kids all had a good time and it seemed that Jenna had a great time also considering she didn't nap until almost the end of the day. I can't get over how darring Kayla is though, she likes the big coasters. The picture of her pointing up is her pointing to her favorite one, I can't remember what the name of it is though. Nobody would go on it with her so Yvette put on a brave face and went with her, it was pretty funny talking to her on her cell while she was waiting in line, the closer she got the more she didn't want to go. Yvette was a trooper and afterwards she even admitted that it wasn't so bad. Susie wanted to go on the tallest drop (at least it's called something like that) so Kayla went on it with her, they are the two left seats. I was freaked out just watching them go on it. The sit in a seat that raises them all the way to the top and then drops the seat, no way, nah ahh, heck no, would I EVER go on it.



Jenna got to go on the Wiggle balloon ride with her big sister and had a lot of fun.

Kissing a Frog

For Memorial day we went over the Gebis's house for a bar-b-q. After everybody ate we went to the front so the kids could play and the adults could play bags. Bill and David were playing bags and then Bill took a break then came back with a little frog. He took turns putting it in his kids hands and then Jenna's. She was not happy at all as you can see but I had to take her picture even though she as screaming.

Mother's Day

David asked me what I wanted to do for Mother's day and I had been thinking how nice it would be to go to brunch, so brunch it was. I checked around and the best place sounded like Illinois State Beach Resort. David's mom had been there before and said it was a nice place overlooking Lake Michigan.

The night before we went to a concert for Tantric, one of our favorite bands. I was able to win tickets on 95.1 WIIL ROCK radio so it was nice to not pay for concert tickets. We ended up having a Very late night, not getting home until 2:30 so getting up early was a little difficult.

We picked up David's mom on the way and headed for the resort. We got there a little early so Jenna and I enjoyed the view of the beach and the lake until our table was ready. We were luck enough to have a great big table all to ourselves and we were greated by the hostess with a red rose.

What a great spread they had, fruits, desert, carving station and even shrimp and oysters (yuck). We pigged out on everything, it was so yummy. I think Jenna ate a couple pounds of strawberries all by herself.

I don't think I could of asked for a better Mother's Day, well except for having Kayla and Becca at brunch with us.

Bubbles

Our little one has discovered bubbles, it is so cute to watch her. She even had a little fit because she wanted bubbles and we had to get ready to leave, terrible two's are starting already, haha. We have to keep the bubbles hidden or she asks for them all the time if they are seen.

Happy Birthday David!

Poor David is tortured with a family who won't give up on his birthday. For his 41st Birthday I convinced David to let me cook dinner and have family over to eat. He left me a little note hinting that if I were to get a cake it should be an Ice Cream cake. We had a yummy pasta dinner and Turtle Ice Cream cake.

Happy Easter!

Easter came so fast this year we were hardly ready. All of us colored Easter Eggs the night before easter in hopes the Easter bunny would come and hide them, but I guess the Easter Bunny couldn't find them in the fridge, oops. The girls woke the next morning to find their Easter baskets on the table and lots of plastic eggs hidden around the house. After checking out their baskets and finding all the eggs we all got ready and went to Grandma Jan's for a yummy Easter dinner.

Better late then never pictures from Jenna's First Birthday

I know it's a little late but I thought in light of things we needed some happy pictures. We celebrated Jenna's birthday on January 19 only a few days before her actual birthday on January 21. We had friends and family over as well as my mom and step dad came in from Arkansas. We had yummy homemade chili and chicken and dumpling soup and of course the every popular Buffalo Chicken dip and thanks to Liz Lee for introducing it to us. Jenna seemed to have a great time walking all over and playing with her sisters and her friends. Jenna got all kinds of wonderful gifts from everybody and even a special rocking chair from Grandma Roth.