General Conference and the Puzzle

Here was the puzzle:

This one was pretty hard, cobblestone and blue sky are tough.

It was a good weekend, Ashley took lots of great notes and made a nice booklet of all the talks.  We also enjoyed the company of friends, some dutch oven cooking, and even a birthday cake.

decorating the birthday cake



puzzling




Drama

I mean "drama" in a good way.  Ashley auditioned for and was cast in her school play!  The play is "Finn McCool and His Fearless Wife."  It's based on an Irish folktale.  Ashley had to practice her Irish accent for the audition and was cast as Mrs. Rafferty.  Way to go Ashley!

Lovely Fall Weather

So the weather here has been fabulous lately.  The past week has been in the high 70's low 80's.  It's like we are living in California!  Where's the beach?

Maybe that's why I haven't been blogging much, I'm outside enjoying the sunshine---okay that is only partially the reason.  The other part may have to do with church Road Shows, planning for Halloween parties, planning birthday parties, home improvement projects and being head room mother for Paige's class.  This is a pretty busy month for the Smith's.  It has also coincided with some changes at work for Dave.  He is much busier now...I'm pretty sure that the low key pace of last year is long gone.

Anyways, who isn't busy?  And why worry when it's gorgeous outside?  I got a suntan at a soccer game this weekend and every day I get to walk among the beautiful trees as they change color.

A few weeks ago, Paige had to do a community project for school, so we drove around to take pictures for the report she had to write.  One of our stops was the Phillip's Park Zoo. 

Again the weather was great and after our tour of the community, we stopped for a Slurpee.  Can't get better than that!

On a grim and somewhat odd note, we had our first bird feeder tragedy.  Apparently, a bird stuck it's head too far into the feeder, got stuck, and broke it's neck.  Not sure exactly how this could happen, but it did.  Dislodging the bird was definitely a Dave job.  Yuck!

SPIDER!!

This work of beauty of was hanging from the trees in our front yard.  Ashley almost walked straight into it on her way to school one morning.

We obviously have quite a hard-working spider living in our front yard.  Just getting a head start on Halloween decorations!

Here is the same web in reverse exposure:

I didn't get a picture to show scale, but take my word for it, this web was huge, three times the size of your head.  (If you have a Smith head, it might just be twice as big :) hee-hee!)

New Addition

It's official, we can now open our car doors and get in and out of our vehicles while said vehicles are parked in the garage!  You see we have a "two car garage."  Obviously, our home builder's idea of a "two car garage" means just enough room to fit exactly two cars, leaving no space to store anything or hardly any space to open your car doors.  It has been a real pain.  We are always trying to squeeze in and out of the garage along with climbing over bikes, lawnmowers, garbage cans, etc.

From day one we have always wanted a backyard shed to store the stuff you would normally keep in a decent-sized garage.  Well, Dave finally had had enough and we went out and bought a new Tuff shed. 

We had to sacrifice our pumpkin patch for the shed.  It certainly changes the appearance of our backyard and will take some time to get used to but it has made a world of difference in the garage.  We can now actually get in and out of our cars while in the garage!  Wow.

DA BEARS!!

We have been in Chicago for 8 years, more than enough time to turn us into Bears fans.  Of course, it has involved a lot of frustration and heartbreak, but hey it's football and it's Chicago, who doesn't love the Bears?!!

I've already told Dave that I don't ever want to live in a place that doesn't have an NFL team, it's just too much fun.  Besides liking the Bears, we also love Soldier Field.  Dave had been to a Bears' game but the girls and I never had...until now.

This was our first NFL game ever and even though the game wasn't much to talk about, the whole experience of being in the crowd with everyone wearing team gear and watching the game live was great.

Now Bears tickets can be hard to come by.  The wait list for season tickets is decades long, like 20 something years, so basically you have to buy resale tickets and of course the better the teams the higher the prices.  For our family, this means that you go with someone you know who is a season ticket holder or else you buy cheap tickets for a game that no one is really interested in.  That is how we ended up at a Thursday night preseason game versus the Cleveland Browns.  That is also why we brought the girls along.

We sat in the north end zone area and had a pretty good view of the field.  Our only bit of bad luck was that after a week of 70 degree temperatures, the day of the game happened to be 90+ degrees with a heat index around 110. 

Do you know what that feels like? 

Do you know how hot you are going to be after the 30 minute walk from your car to the stadium? 

You are going to be HOT and SWEATY.  Your clothes are going to be glued to your body and you will be dripping with sweat.  This also means that everyone around you is going to be in the same gross condition.  Let's just say that it was so hot, I saw enough "manly Bears fans" without their shirts on to last me quite a few seasons.  Although, I can't blame them because going into the tunnels to buy Paige some nachos, where there was absolutely no air movement, left me wishing I could take my shirt off too!

We left Soldier Field around 10pm (on a school night...Yikes!) and the heat index was still over 100 degrees.  Do you remember, we had a half hour walk to the car?  It isn't any shorter on the way back, and to her dismay no one was willing to carry Paige!

But despite all this...we had fun!  We were all glad that we had a chance to go to a game.  Oh ya, the Bears won too!

Wearing our Bears gear, riding the train into the city.  Ashley was still adjusting to waking up early for school in the mornings.  (There were a bunch of other fans on the train on their way to the game too.  It was pretty obvious that this was our first game, because although we had the right clothes, we apparently forgot to bring the beer--if you know what I mean.) 



Follow the crowds to the game

 

"We don't care if we are hot and sweaty,
we got Bears tickets"

 

Game time!  Here come the Bears!





Night shot, sorry for the scary reflective eyes



Farewell, Summer



Pure happiness

 Kids love swimming pools.  No matter the size of the pool or where it is at kids love to swim.  There is just something special about "going to the pool."

Growing up, I didn't have constant access to a pool every summer.  Swimming for our family, was a special event or trip.  My parents had to pay to take us to a pool or waterpark.  It was a planned outing, we had to drive, and were limited on how often we could go. 

For my girls, it is a totally different story.  We have a neighborhood pool that we can go to everyday from Memorial to Labor Day.  We can go on a whim, bring friends, swim all day or for less than an hour depending on how we feel.  That's why I'm sure that when my girls think back on their childhood summers, the swimming pool will be a fond memory.

For the last two summers we have taken month long vacations, so after being away for so long it has been a real pleasure to come back home to the pool.  We have usually had our fill of travel and going places so it's nice to just hang around home and enjoy the "lazy summer days" poolside.




Ashley and her friend



I feel a little melancholy about the pool closing for the season, it really signals the end of summer...fortunately the Fall is so beautiful in the Midwest it helps to ease the transition.