Congrats to Ellie today.

Ellie has won the Louis Armstrong award and the John Phillip Sousa award, and also accepted the Alan Lemery Scholarship tonight at the last choral concert. Such a great year for Ellie! We are so proud.

the Lovelies

2 hours on the Eisenbahn trail with Magnus!

Ahh finally!

In our busiest times, we have to take a minute out of the day to enjoy the outdoors.  My Mother's Day (last year's gift) from Eva and Mike were 6 raspberry bushes.  They are loaded with little berries! Can't wait to harvest those.  My herbs are all planted and flourishing as well. Best of all, Paul and Ellie plan to open the pool today! Hooray for summer finally being here! A special shout out to my brother-in-law Patrick on his 60th. birthday. We hope he has a terrific day:)

Lake Michigan!

Elle and friends went to a concert in Manty and had a little fun at the lake!

Busy time of year...

We are celebrating today with Grandma Marilyn on her birthday, as well as Michael, Eva and Ellie who will be graduating today and next month. Today we made a list of 'to do' projects that will hopefully be finished by Ellie's graduation party...everything from pool updates and new hot tub towels to new carpeting and area rugs. Last week I worked an incredible 76 hours in 4 days at both of my jobs; the result of a lot of graduating workers and other party goers:)  A big Thank You goes out today to our handy man Greg, who has roofed, plumbed and otherwise improved our properties at a time when we have precious little time to do so. That has made it possible to concentrate on our own home improvements. Today's photo is just for fun, since we are all in the graduating mode. It's a pic of me as a high school senior taken before the festivities at Manitowoc Roncalli. Nice memory, although flood damaged :(

Ellie's last prom!

Some oldies today...

I had some fun going through some old photos and decided to share some. The first is 7 year old Ellie holding the Mother's Day card she made. The next picture was taken at Lake Michigan in July of 2000. And the last was from Halloween of the same year. Fun!