Are you ready for some football?

I don't usually write about sports, but for years people have been lamenting about Brett Favre's retirement. Always in vain.

This year looked to be different.

This year he made the announcement early.

He seemed confident in his decision.

The packers moved on.

But once again Mr. Favre seems to be reconsidering his retirement decision.

But this year IS different.

This year it looks like he will not be welcome back as the starter for Green Bay.

I think this could be the most entertaining possibility of Favre coming back to play for another team.

Go Cubs Go

On Friday Cooper went to his first MLB game. He saw the Chicago Cubs beat the Giants in Wrigley Field on a Aramis Ramirez 3 run homer in the 8th

We were in the upper deck on the left base line where the home run went out of the park.

He went with his Grandpa and friends that live behind his grandparents, Anna and Matthew.

He now goes around singing, "Go Cubs Go"

The Neighbors

I met our immediate neighbors the day we closed on the house. Val was off getting her drug test and physical while I hung around the house.

They are both retired for the school district Cooper will be attending. She was a third grade teacher at the school cooper will be attending and he was a superintendent. They have already given us some helpful advice and Val used their names when signing Cooper up for school.

Also, they have a big blackberry bush that they don't eat blackberries so when my parents were here we harvested a bunch of those. They also have apple, pear and pecan trees that they don't pick, so we may be the gleaners of their yard. They have given us some zucchini and squash from their garden as well as zucchini bread.

The day we moved in at least 4 families came over to say hello, including the people who live kind of behind us. They have 3 kids. Two boys on either side of Cooper and a girl I think is 5. Cooper and their boys have become quick friends. He spends a lot of time riding bikes and playing with them.

Berry, berry fun

We've been enjoying lots of delicious, home-grown berries this summer in Missouri. The first tasty treat is mulberries in lemon yogurt. I didn't even know you could eat mulberries, but you can, and they are yummy! The people who used to own our house, who will soon become our neighbors when they build on the lot behind us, brought their kids over one day to pick mulberries off a nearby tree.

The other treat is blackberries. Our next door neighbor, "the other Mr. Larry," has blackberry vines but doesn't eat them, and invited us to partake. For only a small amount of menial farm labor, we got gobs of big, juicy ripe blackberries. Cooper being picky, he refused to eat them fresh--but then he asked to have them in a smoothie! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Welch for picking the blackberries and to Granny P. for her "Anything Smoothie" recipe. He slurped it down and then wanted to show off his smoothie mustache. Lincoln had to get in on the act, too.

More Summer Fun With Val and the Boys

We enjoyed the summer sunshine at the Early American Museum in Mahomet, Illinois.

Val's back and blogging!

Hi everyone. Just got finished with my first day of seeing patients in Missouri--it went great. I wanted to show off some pics of what me and the boys were up to this month during the moving process.

In early June, we went to the Chanute Air Museum in Rantoul, IL. It has enormous hangars with historic old planes.


Here's Cooper: "Mom, you're embarrassing me!"


Here's Lincoln's sign for "airplane."



Cooper looking devilishly handsome:



Gotta go--the boys are yelling--all three of them...

First Day

So today is Val's first day of work.

So it is my first day alone, all day with both kids.

I hope tonight after the kids go to bed to write about our move from getting our stuff to today.