Yearly Archives: 2009

Today was a GREAT day!  Most of the success of the day goes to Angela who worked tirelessly throughout the entire day getting the house ready for the evening’s festivities… a surprise 1/2 birthday party for Carmen!  While Brittany and Kirstyn helped Angela prepare, Carmen had an excursion to the outlet mall with their group.  They had a great time shopping.  I picked up Carmen, Marta, and Miguel from the outlet mall and took Marta and Miguel back to Gaul’s home to hang out until it was time to come to the party.

We had it all planned out on how to get Carmen out of the  house so the decorations could go up, the food could be prepared and set up, and the guests could arrive.  Zachary almost blew the surprise by talking about a surprise we had for Carmen and people coming over, but we quickly covered it up and changed the subject before Carmen could understand what was just said!  🙂  We had 90 minutes to spend until I was supposed to bring Carmen back.  I was nervous that we wouldn’t be able to kill that kind of time with what we had to do.  I took Carmen, Zachary, and Ben, and we went and picked up our family pictures we had taken 2 weeks ago.  They turned out well.  We are going to frame two 5x7s in a single frame for Carmen to take home with her.

After we picked up the pictures (which took less time than I thought), we decided to walk around the mall and find some Chicago stuff that Carmen could buy to take home to friends and family.  Fortunately, we found a place right outside of JC Penny (where we got the pictures done), and Carmen went  wild!  🙂  She found everything she needed and even got back out of line a couple of times to go looking some more!  I kept telling her to take her time and that we were in absolutely no hurry at all!  🙂  WHEW!  After she purchased all her things, we still had about 15 minutes to waste, so we went to Home Depot and she bought her American flag.  This was the very last thing on her list and when we got out to the car, she threw her arms up in the air, smiled a huge smile, and yelled YES! YES!  I am done!  🙂  She was so happy to have found everything she was looking for!

By that time (after 3 or 4 calls back home), they finally told me that everyone was there and I could come back home now.  When Carmen walked through the front door, she was met by 25 people yelling SURPRISE!  She had no clue and was VERY surprised and happy herself!  She couldn’t believe that we had done this for her and that all these people had come!

Fortunately, everyone we had invited was able to come…  The Gaul Family along with Marta, the Oscarson Family along with Maria and Luis, Miguel, and Elena.  All in all, there were 6 of the Spanish kids there (including Carmen).  After the surprise, we had a great dinner of hamburgers (of course), hot dogs, chips, salsa, fruit, vegetable tray, and a huge cooler full of strawberry lemonade.  I think that the burgers and the strawberry lemonade were the hits with the kids.

After finishing eating, everyone hung out, played games like croquet, Apples to Apples, Wii Sing, ping pong, and much more.  A couple of pictures from the festivities are shown below…

After playing games for while, we called everybody upstairs and had cake and ice cream.  We got a chocolate cake with vanilla cheesecake filling and white frosting.  On the top, we put the US Flag, and below that we had them write “Happy 1/2 Birthday Carmen.”  We lit 14 and 1/2 candles (cut one in half) for her, sang happy birthday to her in both English and Spanish.  She blew out the candles and we cut and served the cake with vanilla ice cream.

After everyone had their fill of cake and ice cream, we gave her our gifts.  The Gaul family gave her a photo album to put her photos in from her trip to Chicago.  Brittany and Kirstyn made her a card and we gave her the gift from us..  a red exercise ball!  She absolutely loves the one we have in the basement and is always sitting on it, rolling it around, etc.  As you can tell from the picture, she was VERY excited and surprised to get it!  🙂

When all gifts were opened, everyone packed up and left, all wishing Carmen a happy birthday again!  She could not stop saying “thank you” for everything.  What a relief that we were able to keep it a surprise, despite what Zachary had said.  At that point, we were dead tired (around 11 pm) and all in need of our beds, so we hurried and cleaned up what we could, got ready for bed, and out went the lights around midnight.  🙂

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Carmen!  We hope you enjoyed your day!

Today was a busy but enjoyable day – even for me who had to go to work.  Brittany and Zachary both had to go to the doctor for their school physicals (Brittany for sports and Zachary to start Kindergarten), and Brittany also had an Orthodontist appointment to have her braces adjusted.  In between all of that, Angela took Carmen and Kirstyn shopping at Boomer-T’s to find a hooded sweatshirt while Brittany tended the sleeping boys.

It took Carmen awhile to decide what kind of hoodie she wanted, but finally decided on a gray one with the Neuqua Valley Wildcats printed on it in Navy.  Sarah will freak-out at that when she gets home because she thought Carmen should get a Metea Valley High School one (where she is going this year).  Neuqua is a rival high school in our district!  🙂  Oh well, Carmen likes it and that’s what matters…

After shopping for the sweatshirt, Angela took them food shopping at Costco, and as a reward, bought them Churros.  Carmen said that these are not at all like the Churros she is used to in Spain, but she really liked them.  After all, Churros are a dessert, and we all know that Carmen LOVES desserts!  🙂

After finishing their shopping, Angela took Brittany and Carmen to Phillips Water Park to swim and go on the water slides.  They had a great time hanging out at the pool and enjoying themselves.  While they were swimming, Kirstyn, Zachary, and Benjamin did a little bit of getting wet themselves in the back yard.   They put the hose at the top of the slide and went down it wet and fast.  They also got sprayed a bunch by their dad.  While they were playing, Angela cut the grass in the back yard, and Kirk pulled out some bushes and weeds.  It’s funny to watch Benjamin.  He doesn’t care if his clothes stay on or not.  I had to take a picture of him as his swimming suit was about ready to fall off!  🙂

At about 6pm, the girls were starting to get a little cold, so they called us and we picked them up a little early from the pool.  On the way back home, we went by Giordano’s and picked up 2 Chicago stuffed pizzas as we promised Carmen we would do.  We got 1 large pepperoni and 1 medium Canadian bacon.  We brought them home and dug in.  Carmen couldn’t believe how thick these were.  After a couple of pieces, she was totally full and couldn’t eat any more.  We put the rest in the freezer for re-heat later.

After we filled ourselves with pizza, we all sat down in the family room for our weekly Family Home Evening.  We sang songs, had family scripture study and family prayers together, and had a lesson on the beginning history of the Church.  We watched a video about this (The Restoration).  Carmen thought it was very fascinating.  During the time we were reading the scriptures together, Zachary wanted to read them in Spanish, so Carmen helped him pronounce the words and he read a verse.  He had absolutely NO idea what he was saying, but it sounded cool to him!  🙂

After Family Home Evening, we got the boys to bed and then the rest of us watched most of another one of our yearly family DVDs (this time the one from 2006).  We ended up only watching about half of it since we were dead tired from the days activities and all needed some good sleep!

Today, as seems to always be the case lately, we had a very busy and late day.  I took the day off of work to relax and play with the family.  We all got up a little late because of the late night card-playing from last night.  I got a craving for crepes, so Angela got a break from making breakfast today and I made crepes for everyone.  We enjoyed them filled with fresh blueberries, jam, syrup, chocolate sauce (Carmen’s favorite), and other items.  I hadn’t made these in awhile.

After finishing up with breakfast, we got all ready for the day, drove to the store, bought a bunch of candy, and then Sarah, Brittany, Kirstyn, Carmen, and I want to see the 11:20am showing of the new Harry Potter movie.  We all really enjoyed it!  After it was over, we all agreed that we thought the book was better, but the movie was very entertaining. 🙂

Since the movie was so long (164 minutes), it was mid-afternoon before we even got back home.  We were all so tired we crashed and slept for awhile.  I couldn’t even stay awake!  I think we all needed a little down-time.

At 5:30 pm, Sarah, Brittany, and Carmen went over to the Gaul’s for a party with some of the Spanish kids and with some of their school friends.  They had a great time there eating food, jumping on the trampoline, having a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood, and hanging out around the fire pit roasting marshmallows.  Marta made tortilla de patatas (an omelet dish) for them as well which the girls enjoyed.  The hit of the night was the trampoline, however.  Carmen said that they don’t have this in Spain and she had a blast along with everyone else  jumping in it.  I went over at about 11:00 pm to pick them up and we ended up not coming home until about midnight.   We all immediately crashed into bed.

Today was quite the busy day for everyone!  Today’s excursion for Carmen included meeting with the Mayor of Naperville and then going to Centennial Beach to swim and have fun.  When they met with the Mayor, each of the students was made an honorary citizen of Naperville.  They received a certificate making it official!

The Spanish group with Naperville Mayor George Pradel.

Today is also Carmen Day in Spain!  Each day there, they celebrate a saint or someone important.  All the Carmens were celebrated today in honor of St. Carmen of Spain.  We celebrated by getting German Chocolate Fudge custard (ice cream) from Culvers.  Carmen (as we have mentioned before) really likes chocolate.  The only thing you have to do to get her to smile is mention chocolate.  It’s pretty funny!  🙂

After their inauguration as honorary citizens of Naperville, the group went to Centennial Beach to swim and hang out for the afternoon.  Compared to where Carmen goes to the beach, it’s not really a beach, but they have done a pretty good job in building out this swimming area off of the River Walk.

Centennial Beach in Naperville. There is MUCH more to this water park than what you see here.

Zachary wearing Kirk's jacket and holding Angela's umbrella.

I picked Carmen up on my way home from work and we ran back home for a quick dinner before all leaving to go to Brittany’s final track meet for the Waubonsie Track Club.  This meet was at Neuqua High School (rival high school in the district).  It looked like it was going to rain pretty hard and we prayed for good weather (Brittany especially).  It couldn’t have turned out to be a better night for track.  It was cool with a very light breeze and overcast, but only a small amount of rain fell at the first (as you can see from crazy Zachary’s picture to the left)!.  Then it cleared right up!

Brittany ended up doing the:

– Shot put:  19′ 6″

– Triple jump:  22′ 4 1/2″

– 100 meters:  19.151 seconds

– 200 meters:  34 seconds

– 400 meters:  1 minute 21 seconds

She did very well and got 5 ribbons for her efforts.  A couple of the events were personal bests!  She had never run the 100 meters before and thought it would be fun to try! Here are some additional pictures from the meet:

Brittany running the 100 meters.

Brittany getting ready in the shot put.

Congratulations on your achievements, Brittany!

We are very proud of Brittany and her accomplishments.  She had tried very hard this summer to do well in track.  She has had some great coaches who work hard to help them become better (even though this track club is all about just having fun).  After the track meet was done, we all came back to the house and had our ice cream in celebration of Carmen day, and stayed up late playing cards.  Carmen taught us some great card games that she plays with her friends at the pool and the beach during the summer.

Today, Carmen’s mother, Cayetana, sent her a link to show to the family.  It is a video clip of Carmen’s brother Pablo saying hello to the family and also to us!  He is travelling around Spain (20-day trip) as part of a group of 200+ kids from 53 different countries.  He won a research and writing contest as part of a program that allows for this and he will also go to Chile at Christmastime.  Here is a link to the video clip of him:  Pablo Montanes Says Hello! It has been edited to remove other people speaking and posted to my site.  Enjoy!

Our family had a pretty normal day today.  Not much going on with our schedule.  Angela, Brittany and Carmen went for a morning run and said it felt very good to get out and exercise.  Angela went to a surprise birthday party for one of her friends (Saundra Horne), books were taken back to the library, Brittany had her track practice, and Kirk went out with the Bishop to take care of some church business.

Carmen on the other hand, had another excursion where they got to go downtown again.  Today’s excursion included shopping on the “Magnificent Mile” (Michigan Avenue) downtown, going to Millenium Park, and then watching an old movie in Grant Park outside on a huge screen with thousands of other people.

The Hancock Tower on Chicago's "Magnificent Mile." It is 100 stories and 1,227 feet (344 meters) tall.

Angela dropped her off just after noon and the group took the train downtown.  Carmen enjoyed looking around at all the shops and just being in Chicago, but the shopping experience wasn’t too much fun for her.  When you are shopping with 30 people, she said you don’t get a chance to try on anything or really find what you want.  After 4 hours of shopping, she didn’t find anything which was a little frustrating because she got bored.  She also mentioned how expensive things were (i.e. $60 for a t-shirt that some people were spending).  She thought that this was crazy!  She told me that there are some of the students who brought a thousand dollars in cash AND a Visa card with them and were spending insane amounts of money.  She would rather spend her money at the Outlet Mall and get more things for less.  One thing that she also thought was crazy was when they went in the Zara store.  Zara is a clothing store that is big in Spain.  Carmen said that in Spain, that store is common and the clothing is not overly expensive.  She said that the clothes are extremely expensive here!

After shopping, they went to Millenium Park and spent most of their time taking pictures of the bean.  The bean is very hard to describe other than a stainless steel sculpture that is wildly popular in Chicago.

Chicago "Bean" Sculpture

If you look very carefully in the picture below, you can see Carmen taking the picture…

Carmen is in the small group of three standing back from "The Bean."

Chicago's Millenium Park between downtown and the lakefront.

After strolling through Millenium Park, they went to Grant Park to watch an outdoor movie at night.  A HUGE screen is set up outdoors at the park and thousands of people come downtown to watch these movies (usually black and white movies from the 50s).  When they got there, Carmen and one of her friends (Elena) went to find a bathroom and when they returned, the food had been passed out and was all gone.  They had missed dinner! 🙁  So they went looking for food and bought hot dogs from a nearby vendor.  That frustrated her a little bit, but she said the hot dog was good!

She couldn’t hear the movie very well from where they were sitting, so they slept a little bit and both Carmen and Elena went walking around looking at things and taking more pictures.

They came back from Chicago on the train and I picked up Carmen just before midnight.  All the kids were completely exhausted from the long day.  Carmen said she had a fun time but it wasn’t her favorite excursion (due to the shopping experience, missing dinner, and not being able to hear the movie).  Even though it wasn’t her favorite, she remained positive and happy.

Today was a very busy day for everyone.  I probably had the most relaxing day at work!  🙂  The day started off with Sarah’s flute lesson.  Angela took the kids to play at a park while waiting for Sarah to finish up.  Kirstyn, Zach, and Ben had a great time and enjoyed a beautiful, not-too-hot morning.  It’s always hard to get the kids back in the car after playing at the park!

After Sarah’s flute lessons, Angela took Brittany to track practice from 10-12.  She is doing wonderfully well and is learning a lot.  She’s almost finished with her track club and has her final track meet this coming Thursday.  Today she got a personal best in the shot put!

Angie Gaul picked up Sarah, Brittany, and Carmen and for the entire afternoon, they played.  The older girls (Sarah, Carmen, Taylor, and Marta) went to lunch at Noodles and Company, while the younger ones (Brittany and Lexi) went to Chipotle.  They shopped in downtown Naperville much of the afternoon (didn’t buy much but candy) and then they went and did paddle boats on the Naperville River Walk.  (pictures coming)  They had a great time!

The Gaul’s brought the girls back home and then Sarah and Carmen were off again with Mrs. Gaul, Taylor, and Marta to an author dinner.  Angie Gaul works for a bookstore and often, they have authors come and visit and have dinners with them.  Sarah very much enjoyed the activity as I think Carmen did as well (at least she said she did).  🙂

While the older girls were gone, we ate dinner and got the boys to bed.  Angela pulled up her first harvest from our garden today…  beautiful radishes!  She was very happy!  Although our garden area, is very small, it is doing well and much is growing (radishes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, etc.)

When the girls came back home, Sarah invited Taylor, Lexi, and Marta over and we spent the evening together.  Every Monday night, we spend as a family having what we call Family Home Evening.  This is a fun but also spiritual time where we sing together, pray together, and one of the members of the family teaches us about a selected topic.  Tonight we watched a video of the life of Christ and his work in Jerusalem and then his visit to the Americas after his death.  We talked about how the Bible and the Book of Mormon both testify of Him.

After reading scriptures and having family prayers together, we all played a VERY HILLARIOUS game of Apples to Apples!  🙂  We were laughing very hard!  You sometimes take for granted the English language until you have to explain something like “leaf blower,” “touchy-feely,” or “Graceland” to folks who’s command of the English language is limited.  Carmen would translate a bunch for Marta, but it was still funny trying to explain all of these new words they had never seen before.   We had a great time and all went to bed very tired.