Rebecca's Ramblings

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 03:13:00 +0000

I need a place to write. A place to post things. I sorta need people to read stuff. Not really, but sorta. So, thinking I might try this again. It's been a long time. 2012 was a bunch of years ago. It's ok. I got different stuff now. This is just really a test post to see what happens. Does it still notify me in an email when I post? Does it notify others? Do other people still follow me or respond? Kinda watching the last 8 seconds of the super bowl - I hate sports. I feel too many feelings for everyone involved and I hate seeing people lose after working so hard and playing so well.

A Single Day

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 05:06:00 +0000

On this grand St Patty's Day - the celebrated birth day of our Lucy

(aka Patty one of 8 St Pattys Day pups)

I would be a bit ridonculous if I did not record this day in all its victories and all of its wondrous horrors.

Let's start by saying this.... We named Lucy, Lucy the Valiant, after Lucy Pevancy of Narnia.

Well it turns out she is not terribly valiant.

What she is - is a nose. A nose with legs that is.

And I don't take her for walks - I take her for a smell.

And she doesn't jog, or run, she sprints. What the Hey!

That is why someday soon we are going to train her to do fly ball.

Jokes on them though - they'll have to train us first!

SO,

I've been trying to get to sleep at a more human hour lately.

Quite surprisingly it is actually helping! I am waking up easier - and miracle of miracles - quite often in the morning I have even been able to speak.

It is well known that the Hastings women have a genetic defect that sometimes renders them incapable of mouth movement. Mind you it is not a lack of mental activity. If you were to say read our minds during these silent moments you would be astounded at the magnitude of thought.

Come to think of it - maybe therein lies the explanation of it all. The overproduction of thought renders us speechless.

Hmmmm.

Anyway, I took my dearest to his train this morning, as I do most every morning, then came home and roused the wee ones from their beds.

Yes, I was met with usual moans and groans and a few tears but really, I'm becoming immune to those.

I ushered them off to dress for the day with confidence as I had spent yesterday removing all clothing from their room except for what they need for 5 days.

Still in the sparse surroundings and the pre-selected outfits, getting dressed was nearly impossible. They couldn't move.

30 minutes later they are finally dressed and downstairs. Their hair was worthy of a wind tunnel and their blank stares worthy of a psych ward. Hello ladies! 15 minutes to go. Nothing. By this time I am quite sure that even though they each wore green to bed that somehow the evil little leprechauns had got into their beds and bit them both, leaving them drunk on their noxious venom.

Bus comes.

We run - Through the last skating rinks of snow turned ice that refuse to melt.

No one dies.

Wave good byes.

Sigh.

So I sit down to my computer with a cup of Everyday Detox/ Blueberry tea, I am excited to see the pictures I have just uploaded from my phone.

They're not there.

Nothing is there.

I plugged my phone into computer to download 400 pictures. Instead it deleted them all and replaced them with 93 pictures from my old phone. Grrr. AND it restored all my settings from my previous phone - EXCEPT for my music - can't find that!

Did I push some button that read "click here if you want to pretend this new phone is your old phone"

3 hours later and no luck figuring out where in the space time continuum my 400 pictures have gone.

Tidy up.

Run a load of wash.

Re-arrange the furniture.

Walk the dog, and the neighbors cat.

Bus comes back.

Leaves me a 3 year old. He looks like mine so I keep him.

3 year old insists on peeing and pooping in the potty - because well - he really wants to go to Target to get Boulder - a Transformers Rescue Bot.

He does it! He colors in all the squares on his potty chart so off we go to Target.

Mission Accomplished!

We come home to find that Lucy tried knitting. (yes I failed to kennel the naughty little pup) Essentially she tee peed the inside of our house with yarn. Sigh.

Clean up.

Make Dinner.

Supervise Homework.

Play outside.

Look outside to see what kids are doing.

HOLY TOLEDO BATMAN!!!

I looked outside and what did I see?????? I saw my 10 year old dipping my MOP in a mud puddle and using it to paint the deck with mudd! (My 3 year old Max wouldn't have even dared do that!?!?!?!)

What do I do? Well I do what every over tired, over worked, penny pinching mom would do.... I storm outside to yell at her.

As I ran outside to yell at her - I realized that the back hatch of my mini van was open and stuck in the garage door that was half open and the garage door was coming off the track.

What do you say to that?

Evidently a pluthera of not very nice things is appropriate - oh and very loud. It's gotta be loud.

In my screaming fit that ensued I may or may not have slammed some doors and bullied my children into horrid acts of servitude like dishes.

But then the noise quieted. Oh yeah, that noise was me.

I looked around. Hmmm. Of all the horrors I could think of I discovered that I couldn't find the phone OR the garage door opener. I had lost the phone and the garage door opener.

Look at me joining the losers club.

Time marches on and we crank out homework and such in my newly re-arranged living room, dining room and family room. Yes it has been 2 months already.

Dinners nearly ready.

Hubbys gonna be late. Again.

You know you never know whats going to happen at work when you're trying to teach databases how to trade commodities like mashed potatoes and spaghettio's and jello. Tricky, risky, business.

FINALLY the family is reunited.

There is much barking and hugging.

The corned beef is sliced, the cabbage dished, the sauerkraut is be-spooned and the 1000 island dressing is de-lided. The prayer is said and ALL of the Rescue Bots are prayed for. (Boulder, Skye, Heatwave, Chase, Bumblebee, uhhhhh...)

We eat and we laugh and talk and listen to stories about crocodiles and small fish.

Plates cleared.

Sorta.

An Irish jig begins to play in the background.

The crowd is summoned.

Because we don't know how to clog some of us are doing running man, others are flailing, then we begin to do a combination of swing dancing and country line dancing. But it works. Were laughing and smiling and no one threw up from dancing right after eating. (Probably because most of them didn't really eat and will be STARVING in no less than 5 minutes.)

Finally we say goodnight, give hugs, a final prayer (for the rescue bots).

Off to bed they go.

Goodnight.

Goodnight again.

Yes we have food in the kitchen.

No you can not bring an entire mug of bright red juice into the bonus room.

I'm sorry she's so mean.

Goodnight.

GO!!! TO!!! SLEEP!!!

Start the dishwasher, discover trash shredded and strewn across the 1st floor. I guess my nose - I mean my dog - wanted some Corned beef and cabbage too.

Sigh.

Down a bottle of water.

Watch the clock tick.

Doze.

Soon it will be time to take the middle one on her mid-night potty break.

Happy. Tired. Confused. Hey my feet don't hurt!!!

This really is bare bones yet. it is truly amazing how much one can actually squeeze into a single day.

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Merry Christmas!

Our new Life in the quiet and quaint village of Cary is definitely a change. There’s really not much here though but the train and the river and lots of beautiful green space. Spring & Summer were short but lush and green and beautiful. This year much of summer was spent in the pond catching frogs.

Winter transforms the world into an arctic like tundra with endless snow and the frozen river. The train station and cute downtown shopping area are bathed in lights and evergreen boughs and even the engines are wrapped in bright
and sparkly Christmas décor.

We are so in love with our little spot here on the river. Surrounded by woods and wildlife, our duck pond that attracts 200+ ducks in winter, watching the snowmobiles race down the frozen river, it’s all so refreshing! Our house is so cute – but doesn’t quite meet our needs. We really want to be settled somewhere though so I guess only time will tell what happens next.

Health wise we survived a Hernia repair surgery (with sooo much help from both our moms!) and for Matt another 3^rd Degree Ankle Sprain and a full year without gluten (except for a few random poisonings). We celebrated 17 years of marriage this year and someone turned 40! Starting to feel it!

Long awaited changes at Chopper Trading have brought Matt a much better Work environment with only a few unexpected repercussions.

Izzy (10) finished a year of home school and returned to 5^th grade at 3 Oaks. She is mostly interested in Horses, Chickens and Minecraft.

Alex (8) is in 2^nd grade and is our family smarty pants/ politician girly, girl drama queen! She does the best pirate accent ever!

Max (3) completed a year of speech therapy and not only can he call me MOMMY now – he is talking non-stop. He qualified for the Early Childhood Preschool and is having a great time there!

The sweet Border Collie rescue puppy we call Lucy joined our family this spring – we found out later that she is really Rat Terrier (yikes) and English Shepherd mix. She is small, crazy, and fast! She is still no match for our tree climbing, duck chasing, German Shepherds play mate kitten, Charlie – who may grow to be bigger than Lucy. Sadly, we said goodbye to our 17 year old cat Elmo – who succumbed to lymphoma – the last of our original 9 cats L.

We’ve kept busy enough in church too. Becca is currently serving as Relief Society Meeting Coordinator and Matt is serving as Sunday School President and Cub Scout Master.

We’ve had the privilege of enjoying many friends from Kansas City & St Louis, All 3 of Becca’s Sisters, Both Grandma’s as well Becca’s Sister Lisa and her kids who stayed for a little longer-term as their family made their transition to Alabama. Our guest room is now open again to visitors!!!

We look forward to a new year full of learning about managing well water and clogged ponds, repairing walls and soccer, violin and horseback riding lessons and hopefully teaching Miss Lucy some fly ball (agility training) !! We hope to take in a few more Bulls games and Cubs games and hike, bike and explore a thousand more of the infinite fabulous trails, preserves and green spaces that make Illinois so beautiful. We'll see how much of that actually happens :)

God Bless you and yours for this Holiday season and in the New Year.

With Much Love

The Secor Family

Sisters Meet Again

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 04:37:00 +0000

Today miss Lucy Lu met her litter mate - Dixie.
It has been maybe 8 weeks since they were together last.
There is no way to really know if there is any remembrance there.

Dixie is 5 lbs and some height and length bigger than lucy.
Lucy was the runt and it still shows.

Dixie's 1st look at a cat - our Charlie by the brush pile.

Running at top speed - some happy dogs!

And meanwhile in another part of the forest a wild Tiger stalks his prey....

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:26:00 +0000

Birthdays and Friends

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:01:00 +0000

Met up with one of the BFF's
last weekend

Had a fabulous lunch at the
Grand Lux Cafe

My flash was still feeling naughty and
my subjects very wiggly
thus my pictures = all blurry
:(

LUSH - our fav-o-rite!

So we gave Izzy her bday present a week early - because we needed her there to size it and our weekends are filled up!

We had the girls do a "reorg" of the school and toy areas and had this
puppy hiding inside one of the toy bins.

Her first clue

2nd clue lead her outside

A Bunch more deer, and a cat.

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 03:17:00 +0000

This cat is Charlie Byrd. He is 2 timing his family with us.

Charlie was very curious about the deer.

They were even more curious about him and chased

him around the tree

Easter

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:43:00 +0000

American Girl Easter Weekend

Camera Flash Misbehavin'

Turn Down Time for Paige

Turn Down Time for McKenna

Turn down time for Airplane :)

Happy Easter Bunny

There are no cool pics - but we finally got to do our
glow in the dark egg hunt.
HOTELS are PURRFECT 'cuz you just
draw the curtains and BOOM!
Super Fun!

Here's Daddy's Work...

Our Sad attempt at Easter pics....

Izzy's Presentation About COLD

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:58:00 +0000

Lots of Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 05:20:00 +0000

Riding the train on St Patty's Day Eve

Cute Max after church.
I can see Grandpa Hastings in there.

good bye hugs with Alex crying in the background

Luv and Miss this sweet baby girl

she loved to run with Logs

It may have been 28 degrees out but on our deck in the sun with out wind\
- it felt SOOOO good and was evidently warm enough for Popsicles and belly art

I think this picture shows 15 deer.
This day we counted 26 total that came in 3 groups to feed.
I realize after much thought that they may be migrating deer.
Several years ago Lisa and I drove from Arizona to Utah - through a Deer Migration Zone - at night - in March. We saw hundreds of Deer, mice, owls, a bob cat and a lamb.

The Snow Just Keeps Piling UP

The cousins built this snow tunnel and icicles formed inside overnight.

Tika and Elmo.
Tika was so patient, sweet and Calm with Elmo.

Tika and the big stick.

This pintail visited with the Mallards for about 2 weeks.

Snow Baby

Ducks

Sledding Hill

These 2 ducks went to sleep and got covered with snow.

Mating Geese Pair

Duck in a tree. Weird.

Swan on the River.

Funnies from the kids

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 05:40:00 +0000

I saved these pictures aside so I could print and send them to family
along with little quotes or snippets about the kids.
I just keep looking for ways to help us feel connected
during the holidays when we can't be together.

Well this year technical difficulties were the name of the game.

We put pen to paper quite a lot when we usually would have been hitting "print".

Anywhoo - here are the pics and the snippets.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grandma's & Papa's and Aunts & Uncles and Cousins & Friends
We love you and miss you!
Merry Christmas

We were shopping a couple weeks ago for fabric
to make a fleece blanket for Max.
Max loving all the bright patterns kept pulling the
bolts of fabric from the shelf and I kept putting them back.
Finally I said to him
"Max stop touching everything, just look with your eyes!"
So Max stepped forward and pressed his face to the fabric, rubbed his eyes around and then turned to me.
The look on his face was classic -
it was as if to say
Mom, that was really wierd, don't ask me to do that again.
Izzy and I were dying. Silly kid.

Alex is anti strong emotion.
She doesn't like the words kiss or love.
For a long time she didn't even want us to say
I love you to her.
Well last week after backing the car out from the garage
I asked Matt to stop for a minute.
He stopped and I bent over to kiss him.
Well little miss anti love belts out
"shouldn't you be doing that in the moonlight?"
and Izzy's add's
"yeah, on a cliff!"
-------------------------------------------
Makes you wonder 2 things
1) Is Alex changing her tune a little?
2) what they've been watching!

Izzy wrote this poem in her home school journal.
She can choose to write whatever she wants in her journaling time
and I'm thrilled to see her not just reporting about life but feeling it and being creative.

Merry Christmas
by Izzy S.

Squirrels gather nuts
birds gather seeds
the world is quiet
yes indeed.

The snow falls
on the ground
with tiny footprints
all around.

Then out of
the sky a
sleigh appears.

Full of toys
and treats so dear!

And here is our Christmas card picture.
I am so greatful I have this because the Christmas card itself
is on the computer that died.
Sigh.

Merry Christmas

Images of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 05:40:00 +0000

Images of Christmas

Appearing in random order

Max and his chocolate.
He loves chocolate.

The girls sipping cocoa while watching
Aurthur Chrustmas.

The ducks have returned and brought a couple friends.
Our highest count of ducks in the pond is 110.
As of Christmas Eve all surrounding ponds are frozen and the river is
frozen along the banks.

Christmas Elves

Cookies for Santa

Making Reindeer Food (which turned out to be duck food)

Playing in the Christmas fort at the ward party.

Ogilvie Train Station Down Town with Grandma S.

Riding the train with Grandma.

We got lucky enough to ride the decorated train!

Matt and Becca
on our way to the Chopper Holiday Party

Our first sighting of the owl in day light - pretty cool!

The project I made at the Pinterest Party - I love it.

Our friends from St Louis - such a great weekend and so good to be together!

All wrapped up and nowhere to go.

We tried these poses from Pinterest but
little man didn't want t cooperate.
Still came out pretty cute.

Max and Grandma just outside the OTC downtown.

Michigan Avenue

October: Fall, Halloween, Pumpkins, Michigan....

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 02:24:00 +0000

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/

Little Man Turns 2

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:06:00 +0000

My Baby turned 2 today

and he was sick, again. :(
He was sick when he was born.
He was sick on his first birthday.
He was sick today.

Thank you to Tylenol for short bouts of happiness

Yes, he sleeps with his digger, like a stuffed animal.

He wishes he could sleep with the tongs and the spatula.
I draw the line at utensils.
-------------------------------------------------------------

By the time Daddy got home Max was in a horrible state. Screaming and throwing fits and
just miserable and bringing us all down with him.
Waffles for dinner followed by a short outing to look for trains helped to lift
his spirits so that he and all of us could enjoy and quiet family bday together.
It was actually super duper nice.

He's not sure what to think of the cake.
I'm thinking he is wondering why the diggers are ON
his cake and not in his hands.

Since we didn't go through with his bday party (good thing with the sickness and all)
I set up "digging" stations in the garage. Everyone had a lot of
fun digging for treasures in buckets on beans and rice.
We also played bounce the ball into the bucket and listened to songs about diggers, tractor tipping etc.

He was very excited to try out his new balance bike.
I had bought this before we left Missouri and
I am very excited that I was able to keep it hidden for so long.

It is heartbreaking that you my little baby are not a baby anymore
-it is so hard and so wonderful all at once.

Barn Owls: A Family

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:24:00 +0000

A rare bird around many parts - we were SO LUCKY and EXCITED to get to see and hear these guys.

We recorded this short clip in a yard across the street from our home.
There were 2-3 smaller raspier voices and 1 louder stronger voice.
They were in trees directly above us - but moving about some.
We saw them fly from tree to tree 2x - with a flash light.
They were crow sized and very light in color.
We could not ever pinpoint them in trees and were trying to not be too invasive.
We are quite familiar with Barred and Great Horned Owls from many years of them visiting our chimney and roof tops in St Louis.
These were too small, light colored and strange sounding for either Barred or Great Horned.
Their calls were long, harsh, LOUD hiss, suck, whistle.
Have looked about for pellets did not find any.
Were not present a second night. :(

We live on a heavily wooded private street that runs along the north side of a river in Illinois. There are a few abandoned buildings nestled in wooded lots here. There are also barns to the North and East of us.

God Bless you little family - may you be strong, wild and free!

A little bit of my little Man

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:59:00 +0000

Learning to swing

Every morning we go for a walk. Usually in his PJ's. Only sometimes in mine :)
He doesn't want to be bothered by going back inside after the girls get on the bus.

So I have to get myself all ready too
if I want to be presentable for a walk.

This is the view from the back of our property.
We usually see at least one train pass.

This is really the only view of the river also.

In this picture we are standing on the
little side road the goes around our house.

Here are some silly's

Max at his Gymbo class. He is really too advanced physically for this class.
It will be good for him however to be in a "teacher" situation. He is attentive, follows directions well, and is excellent at cleaning up. He took one class to be observant but not shy in regards to the teacher. The next class he did everything she asked with out missing a beat.

Other recent posts

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/wildlife.html

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-little-bit-of-my-little-man.html

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-birthday-party.html

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-birthday-part-2.html

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/08/chicago-to-st-louis.html

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/08/our-first-adventure-and-oh-yeah.html

The Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:59:00 +0000

Deer visiting the bird feeder not long before the party

Sore Sore Feet that didn't want to walk another step AND a strongish wind
lead me to ditch my plans for a fairy garden party under the tree's and we brought
the main events in doors.

Finding the
DEW DROPS
the first item on their Fairy Scavenger Hunt

They RAN everywhere! Up and down our yard several times.
I am sure we had some very tired legs that night!

Other recent posts
http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/wildlife.html
http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-little-bit-of-my-little-man.html
http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-birthday-party.html
http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-birthday-part-2.html
http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/08/chicago-to-st-louis.html
http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/08/our-first-adventure-and-oh-yeah.html

THe Birthday Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:58:00 +0000

Wildlife

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:58:00 +0000

This would be the tiny, streaky, yellow guy I shot today on our morning walk.
After some study and looking at the following pictires
- I am leaning towards a CAPE MAY WARBLER ?!?!?!

places/pictures for comparison

We've watched this sweet little guy "grow up" over the last few weeks. He started off fairly plain colored and tiny. My battery died just in time for an adult to come feed at the opposite side of this little guy - that would have been a great comparison shot. The little guy was really struggling in the rain,

Been hearing this guy for weeks - glad to finally get a LONNNNGGGG range shot.

This little cutie was running around all through the rocks squeaking. When he realized I was there he ran into the clovers to hide leaving 3/4 of himself sticking out. He reminded me a lot of Nacho.
I am pretty sure it was a mole. Silly things,

The Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Alex's Birthday Present started with a scavenger hunt

her first clue led her to the train station

here comes the train!

Where will it take us?

She had 7 clues.
This clue was to listen carefully to the stops
- and on the 7th stop
tell Mom the name of the city at the 7th stop
and then she got the next clue

She was headed to...

The girls thought grafitti was pretty cool.

Here is our first glimpse ever of the big city.

There's Willis Tower
- Daddy works really close to it at the Chicago Board of Trade

Her final clue,
wasn't really a clue.
It said
"Tell the TAXI driver to take you to
The American Girl Store"

This picture is the smile and the squeal
that preceeded A LOT of jumping up and down.

We counted on the fact that Alex would want Izzy to have one too
- since they love to play together.

We did NOT count on Mom leaving her bank card in the diaper bag.
So we were down town with no cash, no bank card, we don't even have credit cards.
THANKFULLY we had Daddy's monthly train pass
so we could at least get home!

So, we did some light sight seeing.

We were only just a little sad :(

Bummer that the REAL birthday
DAY was a school day.
BUT we were still happy and excited.
The night before she couldn't sleep at all!

This sweet card Izzy worked on for several nights.

This is the first year that Izzy showed a lot of interest AND initiative in
selecting gifts for Alex and making her a card.

Izzy started shopping about 1 month ahead and collected several little things
that she saw Alex point out. It was very sweet. I don't know if Alex really comprehends
what Izzy did for her, but I know Izzy felt great doing it.

Izzy even decided on her own to decorate the living room for Alex.

Here Daddy gets the worlds biggest hug for selecting the WINX CLUB newest movie for Alex.

We love you baby girl!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look back here Sunday Night for more pictures from the Birthday Party and
Cary Fireworks Display.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DON'T MISS

the previous posts!

BACK TO SCHOOL, MORE HOUSE PICS, RANDOM STUFF

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/09/back-to-school-more-house-random-stuff.html

CHICAGO to ST LOUIS

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/08/chicago-to-st-louis.html

OUR 1st ADVENTURE and OH YEAH

http://ramblings-rlsecor.blogspot.com/2012/08/our-first-adventure-and-oh-yeah.html

Back to School, More House, & Random Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 18:35:00 +0000

Good Times at the Spray Park

Our New Nightly Ritual
Checking out the pond... throwing rocks, looking for frogs, and then going for a walk.

Here are some pretty views from different angles.

Just a short walk down the trail near our house and we ran into Mamma and her babies.

Family Room, Breakfast Area and Kitchen

Kitchen

The Day the Ducks Came Out
We've had a steady group of about 16 wild juvenille Mallard Ducks.
They don't come to food.
On this day we had wondered why the ducks weren't swimming and thought
they looked awful dark. Later when we threw a pile of crumbs to the yard - they came running.
Ahhhh, that's why they were acting wierd, they were different ducks.
They stayed with us for 1 nigh before moving on.

Chicago to St Louis

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 07:13:00 +0000

GOOD BYE'S

Hit the Road Jack

AND THERE SHE BLOW'S

Mess N' All!

The best part of anything at all so far is the yard.
The nature is calming, soothing, distracting.
And only a little worrisome.

Our First Adventure - and oh yeah...

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 07:11:00 +0000

The train is a pretty big deal around here
and you know how we just dislike trains ourselves right!?

Well most mornings I get up early with Matt and drive
him to the Train. It's so cute that they have these KISS & RIDE spots
to park at when you KISS your sweetie goodbye so they can RIDE the train
to work and then you'll see them again in like 2 million hours.

For our 1st adventure we took the train about 7 little towns away
then Daddy picked us up and we drove the rest of the way to IKEA.
IKEA was fabulous but a little hard on Daddy.

Aren't they cute at the station - both inside and out!

Here are a couple more pics inside
the total disaster which we are calling home.

Piano Room/ Dining Room

View into the Butlers pantry from Piano Room

This really was Good Bye...

Farm Camp 2012

Wish I had made time to coordinate basic outfits and gone
back here to take family photo's.
There just wasnt any time.

A Random Picture Catch up News Breaker

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 03:42:00 +0000

celebrating!

We had 3 of these guys (Cooper's Hawks) in our yard tonight. One of which was sitting on the wagon at the top of the drive way looking in to our garage. I am guessing they are fledglings and Mamma said c'mon guys I know a great place for dinner (since I feed small birds in our back yard).

Izzy and Alex and Max
with our neighbor girls after a tea party.

Headed to the Party

More Party

So if you haven't heard....
we are moving to Chicago.

Yep. Crazy. Feels like a whirlwind.

The kids and I took an impromptu road trip to check this place out
and as Alex put it
"Make sure it's not LAME!"

We pictured this... not knowing anything else.

We discovered
the suburbs
to be a little
unexpected:

Woodsy

Lake Homes with private beaches and parks

LOTS and LOTS of highways

Abundant farms and greenspace and CORN

Trains Trains Trains
You know how we LOVE trains!

We leave in a month or so... no final details yet though...

Here's just a random pic of my cuties.

A little bit of Random that almost got missed

noreply@blogger.com (r.l.secor) — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 05:43:00 +0000