Our fall study at church

This Sunday at church I was so happy to learn our fall Bible study is by Andy Stanley. I have listened to Andy Stanley since he was on In Touch. He is a great speaker.

Put me in the zoo

On labor day we took a trip to the Brookfield Zoo. It was a very hot day, but we had a lot of fun. David took some amazing pictures of butterflies at the butterfly house. We purchased a membership. We hope to go back to the zoo and attend the dolphin show. David's mom will be here from South Carolina tomorrow, and we want to take her while she is here. David helped me to update my blog. I am so happy with how it turned out.

Two wheeling Sam!

Sam is so excited to ride a two wheeler. He said now he can go fast like Lucy does on her two wheeler. He worked so hard to ride without training wheels. We are so proud of him. He is outside with Lucy now racing bikes as I type. I can see out the row of windows by the computer. I love to watch them play together.

The First Day of School

Today was "Meet the Teacher" day at the kids school. They went to school for an hour today. It was a way to see their classroom and meet their teacher and the kids in their class. The kids were so excited this morning. Tomorrow will be their first full day. They are very excited to be eating lunch at school tomorrow. I will be working at home while they are at school. I am in training right now. I will try to update tomorrow on the kids first "real" day at school. It is a bitter sweet day. I can't believe my babies are off to school. I have been in a retrospective mood today,thinking about where the years have gone, but I am glad they are so excited and happy to be going to school. I will continue to savor each day with my kids, and celebrate each season of their life with them. I am reminded that God only gives David and I a very short time to have them at home with us. I pray I will be the kind of mother God wants me to be to them. I pray Jesus will go with them and hold their hand when I can't.

Vacation

The McGary family took a mini vacation to Wisconsin Dells last Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In June the area had terrible floods and lost a lot of their summer season, so they were offering a lot of deals. Wisconsin Dells is about four hours from Chicago.

We bought a new van at the beginning of the month from my brother, who is a manager of a Toyota used car lot. David and I have affectionately named her "Vandesa". The van comes equipped with a DVD player, so we just popped in a movie for the kids and were on our way.

We got there Thursday night and went to a Paint It Pottery store. Our room came with a voucher for the pottery store, tickets to ride a steam train, tickets to Mt. Olympus, a gift certificate for a pizza, and a smore bucket to make Samores by the hotels nightly camp fire.

We had a lot of fun at the pottery shop. We then went to have spagetti (Sam's favorite).

On Friday we went toa local outlet mall to get David swim trunks, because I packed the wrong trucks, then we went to Mt. Olympus. Lucy rode her first real roller coaster and she loved it. She loved that it was something just her and Daddy did together. Our Lucy has no fear! Sam said, "I'm not riding that thing!" and his eyes got huge. He wouldn't have been tall enough anyway. He loved riding the kiddie go carts. Poor Lucy kept running into the wall! When they were done with that ride, Sam told he was ready to get his driver's license and speed like Daddy! The kids had fun playing in the kids water park area. They especially liked the kids water slides.

On Saturday we had breakfast at this place named Paul Bunyan's it was a restraunt where they served you home made food family style. It was delcious. After breakfast we went to ride the train, and then it was off to day 2 at the water park.

We drove home sunday morning. On the way home we stopped at a wisconsin chess shop and bought, cheese, crackers and meat for lunch. We ate a picnic lunch at the Illinois welcome center where there was picnic tables and a play ground for the kids. We had a wonderful time.

The next time we go into Wisconsin I would love to stop at Laura Ingalls Wilder's birth plce. It is about two hours from The Dells. Laura's home town is having Laura Ingalls Wilder Days in Septemeber. I told David that would be like heaven to me. He doesn't exactly think it would be heaven:)-oh well maybe next year!

Happy Birthday Samuel!

Today was Samuel's fifth birthday. We made chocolate cupcakes and went to a restaurant called Tyler's Tenders. Here are some pictures from today.









On the way home from supper a huge storm was heading towards the south suburbs of Chicago.
Here a couple of awesome pictures David took while pumping gas.





Last Sunday we had a family party for Sam at my parents home. The following pictures are from that party.











Happy Birthday our dear sweet Sammy boy, and may you have many more happy ones in years to come.

More pictures

This picture of Sam was taken at our church picnic while he was playing the corn hole game. The pictures of Lucy was taken after Lovely braided her hair.

Lucy's dance recital

My parents and David's mom came into town for Lucy's dance. Her babysitter Lovely relaxed and did her hair for her. I think the picture of Lucy and Lovely is beautiful. Sam wanted David to take the picture of him behind the gate, because he thought it was funny that he looked like he was in jail. He is so silly.

Sports day

These pictures of Sam were taken before school. It was sports day and the kids were suppose to wear something with their favorite team on it. The picture of Lucy was taken at a local hot dog shop. they had a special day for kids with face painting and balloons. Lucy wanted Chicago Cubs face painted on her check. She wanted David to take a picture of it to tease Grandpa Reese (an Indians fan) and Pa Pa McGary(a Cardinals fan).