Summer is over

Well, it seems Summer is over with Labor Day behind us now and cooler evenings more frequent. We had a busy, but fun, Labor Day weekend. Saturday started with Sydney and I grabbing breakfast at Cracker Barrel for some daddy/daughter time. We had fun talking and playing "egg-na-ram-oose" while we waited for our food. We then headed to Lowe's to pickup some supplies that we needed to build a shelf in our storage building. Sydney loved that we had lumber hanging out of the passenger window on the drive home.

Max helped me empty the building, build the shelf, but I was on my own when it came time to fill it back up. After that project was done we raked the grass I had cut the night before. It has been so wet that it grows like bamboo it seems! We've only raked a handful of times since we moved out here, but this year we've had to rake at least 4 times.

The final project of the day was to install a cellular amplifier in the hopes of boosting cell signal to the house so I can work from home more effectively with a 3G signal. Long story that features many trips up and down the ladder, minimal cursing and fun on the roof it was installed. The sad part, no help at all since it is a uni-directional antenna and is booting the EDGE signal, not the 3G we need so I've ordered a yagi (yes, that is a real word) directional antenna so that we can aim towards the tower we want. Always something, isn't it? We wrapped up Saturday with mass and pizza so that was fun.

Sunday we went to Dublin to the Italian Gathering car show to drool over the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Alfas, Lancias, FIATs and more. It was an awesome collection of very nice cars from all over the midwest and we enjoyed it. Sydney of course had to have her picture taken next to each Lambo - except the Lambo tractor for some reason. Yes, Lamborghini makes tractors! Max loved the Ferrari F-40, Dodge Viper and Ford GT that were parked away from the Italian cars in the "Lot of Distinction." I found a new favorite Ferrari, above and beyond our Donatella - the 2009 Ferrari California. Now to save the $279,000 it cost. LOL!

We drove home to drop Julie off so she could go with her mom and sister to visit one of her aunts in Ashland that is sick. While she avoided the fried pickles, marcellated potato chips and doughnuts (the local yummies in Ashland) I took the kids to my parents house for a cook out.

We had a ton of fun talking with everyone and the kids always enjoy playing with their cousins. Of course a trip to Ma and Pa's isn't complete without getting as dirty as possible and the kids were successful! It was an interesting combination of food, CapriSun, popsicles, dirt and grass that seemed to be the order of the day. Ma was kind enough to give Max and I "El guapo" hair cuts which were much needed. We came home and proceeded to try and get clean before mommy caught the kids as grubby as they were. Mission accomplished! We had just wrapped up baths when Julie came home.

We made Monday the official lazy day of the weekend and proceeded to do virtually nothing all day. The kids were all cranky from the fun the day before so that was a bummer. Max and I played Ferrari mechanics changing the spark plugs on the Mondial before taking it for a test drive to see if we fixed the intermittent miss. We didn't and the good news is - we didn't make it worse either. Back to the smart guys on FerrariChat.com to see what to try next. It was fun though for Max, Sydney and me to take a few "laps" around the block before the miss came back.

So you are probably wondering what we did to move the adoption ball forward - sadly, not much. We were waiting to hear back from our agency on the formatting of Julie's medical forms and the good news is that we heard back on Tuesday with some minor changes. Ron's lab results came back and I am OK across the board. I have a slightly elevated blood sugar but nothing they were too worried about. I need to lose a few more pounds to make weight - I never wrestled in high school but remember the guys who did worrying about that - too bad I need to now, too. :(

Well, it is late and time to get some sleep before another exciting day of work. Thanks for reading!