We headed west last week to visit Jake for Parents’ Weekend. Like last year, we rented a minivan. It was a great deal…except for the black interior. Normally, black interior would be a very good thing, as it hides dirt well. But unfortunately, black interior does not hide white needly dog hair well at all. By the time we returned home, it looked like the van had a shaggy white carpet laid over the floor.

We left before the sun rose on Thursday morning. The kids like to see how long it takes the sun to rise and overtake us on the drive.

Molly had plenty of room to stretch her legs since Derek was not with us on the drive out. He joined us Saturday morning, after he was through with school and game responsibilities.

Molly was a champ in the car; she slept, ate meals and waited to go potty until we stopped for gas.

Upon arriving in CO Springs, one of our first stops was to the grocery store to pick up breakfast and coffee for the next day. Jeremy, Jim, and Peter found their own personalized coffee brands!

After a long day in the car, and looking forward to a busy day ahead, we were eager to get to the house and get some sleep.

Someone is very excited for Parents’ Weekend at USAFA:

“I’m going to Colorado on Thursday. I am very excited. I’m going to see my brother there. I love the mountains.”

As soon as we return, it’s back to spelling and writing practice 😄

One tradition of the WA football team is to share a team meal every Thursday before Friday’s game. Usually the meal takes place at school, but last week, it was at someone’s home. The host family has a pool…which meant the guys had an opportunity for silly antics such as throwing one another into said pool.

It’s all about having fun and team bonding.

I am thankful for parents on the team who take great pictures. Here are some scenes from the first game.

The next day was Meatopia, where the boys filled up on protein. It’s like a locust invasion.

We love it!

Our kitchen was bustling this week. Cornermouse was hired to make 200 cake pops (among other things) for a football parents’ event last night. Mid-week, they got right to work, forming the dough and rolling the balls.

Molly has perfected the art of strategic placement.

Meanwhile, Ruth and I began baking 200 cornbread muffins. She proved to be quite a hard worker!

After the cake balls had time to set, the rest of the Cornermouse crew came over to do the dipping and decorating.

These guys sure are honing their art skills with cake pops.

While the workers were laboring inside, the younger ones played outside.

After a few hours, the job was finished!

The team posed for a pic.

What I don’t have pictures of are all the other food items we provided for the football parents’ meal: cookies (baked by Aunt Judi), coleslaw, and baked beans (prepared by my mom). It was a gargantuan effort, and I was thankful for the help!

We placed some Cornermouse business cards next to the cake pops, which proved to be potentially good for business: a handful of people took cards, including a bride-to-be who is interested in having cake pops at her wedding!

The main course at the event was a pig roast, provided by a local BBQ restaurant.

After the eating, it was game time. Here, the three team captains take the field.

Though it wasn’t pretty, WA defeated their cross-town rival. Afterward, Derek posed for a picture with his loyal supporters.

As for our bustling kitchen, it hasn’t stopped buzzing with activity, as we are hosting another Meatopia today for the offensive and defensive lines!

It doesn’t matter how much I plan ahead for the upcoming school year, summer always seems to come to an abrupt end. However, as much as we ALL love the laid back days of summer, I must say that the school year does bring a welcome routine and daily sense of accomplishment.

We said goodbye to summer last Monday:

Derek: 11th grade
Peter: 8th grade
Jeremy: 6th grade
Ruth: 2nd grade
The Air Force flag is in the background, paying homage to Jake in his sophomore year of college.

The sun and the moon celebrated our first day of school with us by putting on a unique display. We thought we would miss the eclipse completely because the clouds were thick all day. Knowing the eclipse was scheduled to happen at 1:18, we sat down to lunch and lamented over the cloud cover preventing us from seeing the much-hyped phenomenon. Then suddenly we saw a slight break in the clouds just after 1:00, so we quickly pulled out Jake’s telescope with the sun filter and pointed it toward the sun..

For just a couple short minutes, we were able to gaze at the moon-covered sun while the clouds peeled back.

What I find almost just as amazing as the eclipse itself is the fact that scientists are able to predict the date, time, and location of such a wonder. As Albert Mohler put it:

This is where Christians understand, for just one example, that the predictability of this kind of eclipse is only made possible because God to his glory fine-tuned the universe in such a way that there are predictable laws and principles whereby the movement of celestial and heavenly bodies can not only be measured, but also predicted.

It was a memorable way to celebrate the end of our summer break and beginning of the school year!

Jake has said more than a few times how strange it is to see doolies roaming around, especially when they call him “sir”.

Those doolies just finished basic training and were accepted into the cadet wing this week. I don’t know where the past year went, but it seems like yesterday Jim and I made our spontaneous trip to CO to watch our son be accepted.

No spontaneous trip this year, but thanks to Flickr, I caught a glimpse of Jake as the guidon bearer for squad 22.

When he called tonight, he described how difficult it can be to ensure the guidon is perpendicular to the ground while marching, to hold it in one hand while saluting the officers, and to keep it from slipping from his gloved hands, etc.

We are looking forward to seeing him bear that flag in person during the Parents’ Weekend parade!

We were given eight primo White Sox tickets over the weekend. Four were in a suite with a buffet of good food; four were in the front row behind home plate. We had made plans to get together with my parents anyway that day, so we asked if they’d like to join us at the ball field.

We four in the suite looked down on the four behind home plate.

We couldn’t get over how good their seats were–they said they could see the pitcher’s facial expressions!

Being that close to the televised action, their mugs landed on TV throughout the entire game. The following clip is thanks to Aunt Judi:

When Ruth learned that her brothers were on camera, she wanted a piece of that action. So she took a piece of cardboard and made a sign to try to gain the attention of the camera.

Alas, the only camera attention she gained was my own. But all ended well, for after a good game with an exciting ending, she and Jeremy got to run the bases!

Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (1 Peter 4:9)

It’s been three months since moving in to the new house, and more days than not, we’ve hosted friends, family, acquaintances and overnight guests. And we love it! Our desire is that God is glorified in this place.

Following are two times I actually remembered to take a picture:

Last week, we hosted the Air Force Academy parents’ club for the Doolie Day Out picnic. The weather was beautiful.

After the last guest left, the skies turned black and storms rolled in. Jim and I sat on the front porch with Molly as she gobbled up hail stones that tumbled onto the porch.

Every Monday we’ve had the offensive line over for Meat Monday. Jim likes having a reason to smoke meat for hungry people.

By wisdom a house is built,
and through understanding it is established;
through knowledge its rooms are filled
with rare and beautiful treasures. (Proverbs 24:3-4)

The WA football team splits into four smaller teams over the summer for some friendly competition. They have all sorts of contests, but the most recent one was definitely the most entertaining…as well as closest to our house. The kids and I took our seats to watch the show.

The guys competed in a softball tournament, but not any ordinary softball tournament. Each team was to come up with a theme, for their theme and costume were judged in addition to their performance on the field. The coach gathered the superheroes, hunters, landscapers, and Polish Christmas guys together to lay out the ground rules.

One of Derek’s teammates is Polish–as in his parents are from Poland–so they decided to build on that theme.

Derek asked if I could put together some lederhosen. Relishing the challenge, I found some suspenders and sewed a chest piece to them, cut some pants short, then scrounged the rest of the items. It was just good enough to be recognizable.

After the games, Derek put on another kid’s costume bear head and walked around with it.

Here he stood before me, sharing the story of how he split his ‘lederhosen’ pants on the game-winning play of his final game.

Peter has had a handful of nicknames since he was born, “eye-poker” being one of them. I’ve been going through some old pictures lately and ran across one that illustrates well where this nickname came from…

A couple weeks ago, while the boys were at a water park with friends, Ruth and I spent the day just the two of us. I had to return some things to the Naperville library and thought it might be fun to try out the paddleboats on the riverwalk.

We had a great time, talking and laughing and observing bugs and animals.

What really got us laughing were the fearless ducks. We first saw them off in the distance, and I suggested to Ruth that we paddle after them. As it turned out, the ducks had the same idea when they saw us, as they paddled themselves over to our boat, I’m sure hoping for some bread crumbs.

Unfortunately, all we could give them was a wave hello.

Nearly every morning, we females (human and canine) hit the prairie path for some exercise.

Pace Leader:

Pace Keeper:

The other day, we were out after a severe storm went through the area and encountered some obstacles in our way.

We were not deterred.

Some went over, while others went under.

Knowing winter will be here eventually, we are seizing every opportunity we can to enjoy the path!

Since moving in April, we have had a steady stream of home improvement projects going on. While some might become overwhelmed by the thought of one project after another, we really do enjoy accomplishing the tasks together.

Jim and I finally bought tiles for the kitchen backsplash. Thankfully, they went up very easily: minimal effort, maximum reward!

Molly, always lending moral support by just “being there”.

Meanwhile, as Jim and I were in the kitchen, the kids were staining the deck outside. I’d say we got the better end of that deal, as the temperature was well into the 90s and humid.

After some finishing touches on both projects, we will be able to cross off two more items from our to-do list.

Last weekend, Jim helped to connect four things dear to his heart: FCA sponsored a football 7 v 7 at Wheaton Academy.

We invited several high schools from Chicago to participate, and it was a great day!

At a typical 7 v 7, high school teams come together to run their plays and see how they measure up against other teams; then they go home. However, at this event, before disbursing, the players and coaches gathered together after their competition and heard the gospel.  Coaches were the target, as they pour so much of their time into the kids–they were encouraged to coach with a deeper purpose than just teaching the sport of football. They were given Coaches’ Bibles.

Then we fed them lunch, provided by the always generous Chick-Fil-A.

As the 200 hungry guys walked toward the tables, we were thankful that my mom and dad just happened to stop by that day. They were put to work, as it was all hands on deck!

After cleaning up the field, we were thankful for such a great opportunity, and pray that God was glorified.

Tuesday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A, so we put on our cow spots and drove for free chicken sandwiches.

We’ve had cousin Ellie staying with us a few days, so she joined us. It made the day all the more fun!

And what’s a good meal without dessert? Tuesday happened to be July 11, which meant free slurpees at 7-eleven. Off we went.

One of the kids commented that there really is such a thing as a free lunch. Another kid quickly pointed out that technically it wasn’t free. We used up gas in the car to get to our free food destinations.

Technicalities aside, we enjoyed our free lunch!

We enjoyed a lovely two days in Michigan last week, visiting family and spending time on the beach.

When we arrived, we celebrated Jeremy’s birthday with cousins.

After an exciting night of watching Hannah win her softball game, then experiencing a middle-of-the-night severe thunderstorm, we met my Grandpa Barker for breakfast. No pictures taken, but memories made.

We then stopped by my Aunt Ellen’s catering kitchen and cafe. Everyone was impressed and inspired.

The rest of the day was spent playing at the beach. My Aunt Chris opened her home and slice of private community beach to us for the afternoon.

Boy, were we happy to be at the lake!

When the water got too deep, Jake put Ruth on his shoulders.

Peter volunteered to be buried in the sand.

We brought Molly up for the visit, so she had spent the night at my brother’s house. When he arrived at the beach with family in tow, Molly came along.

Although the community beach does not allow dogs, we made a small exception for just a little while. Molly hadn’t swum since frolicking in the pond behind the old house, and when she saw the huge lake, she could hardly contain herself.

I don’t think she’s ever been as happy as she was at that moment–with her people, swimming to her heart’s content in an endless body of water.

Meanwhile, there was some sand castle building going on,

as well as catching up with cousins.

My own cousin Ronnie even joined us on the beach, which was a treat. The kids gathered around him for a pic.

We returned home that night, thankful for a safe and fulfilling trip!

While Molly shed no tears when it was time for Nora to go home, the rest of us were sad to see the playful pup go.

It comes as no surprise, but one Johanik formed an especially tight bond with her.

It’s the pre-rinse cycle…

Molly (under compulsion) has made a new friend this week.

Nora.

We have included Nora in all our family activities, such as a Saturday morning donut run,

cleaning out the garage to make room for both cars (a major frontier post-move),

and family softball.

We are learning that Nora has a two-speed engine: very slow, and brisk-slow. We are enjoying the doggie day-care this week!

A few days after returning from Colorado, Derek attended a football recruiting day at Wheaton College. He was happy to see a familiar face there.

Later, we hosted Jeremy’s new football team–FCA Force–for dinner and equipment fitting at our house. It was a big group, and we were thankful for the beautiful weather that allowed us to be outside.

Ruthie was thrilled the other day to have girl time with her good friends. They swung and laughed for a long time in the hammock.

Ever since moving, Molly and I go for long walks on the prairie path, which connects across the street from our house. We see wildlife every morning. Yesterday, we saw a dead snake.

I couldn’t help but stop and snap a picture. Of course, this made Molly quite curious.