Praying

One weekend

To explore the best of Fort Collins with my sweetie! Cramming as much as we could into 3 days with no kids. 

Cinnamon roll from Silver Grill Cafe

(Vegetarian friendly restaurants! Not often found in central IL)

Lindy winter fun night

Natalie and I got to take Lindy to her pre-K winter fun night. She was so excited!! The kids school does such a great job with these types of opportunities! 

Some beers you wait a year for...

Supposed to be an ice day...

But instead, all we got was a little drizzle. After a lazy, relaxing morning we got out on the trail for a little family hike. Felt great to get outside for a couple hours! 

After our walk, it was time for chili that had been in the crock pot. I also made a loaf of bread to go along with it. May have been my best loaf so far. Garlic, Parmesan French boule. Delicious! 

Tracking animals and crazy winds!

Kyler and I got over to Ballard Nature Center today for some quality daddy daughter time. Today's lesson was on animal tracks. We used tracks to find some animals, made tracks in the sand, and made a raccoon mask. 

Super crazy winds today!!!

New sock day

Is one of the best days! Love this company out of Boulder! 

We got an amazing sunset this evening!

Geese!!!

Just a few of our new pets....

They come over whenever the lake freezes to say Hello! 

Honestly though, the boat dock that we have, has wooden posts. If the lake freezes around those posts, there's a chance the ice could pull them out of their foundation. To prevent that from happening, there is an aerator that runs anytime the temp gets below freezing. Geese, ducks, and swans like to have access to open water. Hence our new pets... There's also been a fox around since they showed up, and Wrigley likes to chase them (the geese) so I guess things could get interesting... 

Date Night

A first for me in officiating. I've worked 3 games in a day before, but never at different locations/times. I had 7/8 boys this morning in Mattoon, 30 minutes north of us, and then JV boys at Altamont, 15 minutes west of us this evening. I had planned for a date night after this evenings games. 

Date nights always seem trickier to plan when we are watching calorie intake/counting calories. It's very hard to go out to eat and not take in a ton of calories! It's also addicting to see results from calorie counting, and therefore just want to stay in and keep that progress going. But I think it's good to surprise your system once in a while, plus time with my wife is always great! So date night typically is eat whatever and just enjoy. Tonight it was Buffalo Wild Wings and Culvers for ice cream. 

Baby and me!

Snow!!!

First snowy day this winter!!! And we were all healthy enough to play in it for a bit!

Another crappy day... Literally

Finally got over being sick (well, most of us anyway). Natalie had her first day back at work. Lucky for her, as today was the day the plumber came out to fix a leaking septic pipe. What an incredible smelly mess that turned into!!! Wet sewage permeated the basement and forced me and the kids upstairs for most of the day. Luckily it got fixed and was even smelling better by the time Natalie got home from work. Definitely a working sewage system is something I take for granted. At some point the year will start getting better...

Sick sick sick

The first 2 days of 2017 have been spent laying. On the couch, on the bed, in the chair, and on beanbags. Everyone has had some degree of illness, and all are just trying to recover and rest. The year can only get better from here!

Luckily before Cayle and I caught the bug, we were able to get out to see an Illini beating of Ohio State on New Year's Day! So great to have these times!!

Happy New Year!!!

2016 was the worst year of blogging we've ever had, or at least close to it. I'm hoping to do much better in 2017! I really enjoy going back and reading our memories, either by myself, or with the kids. So here's to 2017.... Excited to see where the road leads! There are going to be some big exciting changes ahead!