New driver

Erin got her drivers permit last Friday.  It was a date that she looked forward to since she turned 15 in October.  Lucky for her, she was born in 1996 because as of today, anyone born in 1997 has to wait until they are 15 1/2 to get their permit.

I'm not so sure what prompted the change in age, but Erin seems to be counting her blessings.  She has a lot of anxious moments, especially when there are other cars around her, and she is always afraid to cause an accident because she will lose her permit.

I do have to keep from smiling sometimes, because she is SO serious, but I know that is a good thing to be.  And, she needs to get used to the fact that there will always be someone on the road.  She has improved a lot from when she started. She is getting used to taking a turn and feeding the gas at the same time.  She used to stop and let the car coast, and as you know, that doesn't always work well, she learned that a St. Louis roll is NOT a good thing, and that dad's car is much easier to drive than moms.   This next year and half will be a huge learning process for her and one for me as I let her go a little each day.  This is sad for me, but I know it's best for her. 

Erin --- keep driving.  You will eventually "get" it and by this time next year, will probably be driving yourself to your piano lesson and Sunday night Bible study.  (We'll see, though).  I may still want to take you sometimes.. I mean I will miss talking to you.

Love,
Mom

Erin

Isn't it funny how life can be sometimes?  I mean just think about why am I here at this place and time, and I'm in this family.  How come I wasn't born during the 1940's and have other people as parents?  I mean it blows my mind.  Which brings me back to Erin.

Erin was a gift given to our family when we thought there were no more gifts to be had.  Katie was 12, and Julie was 10.  We started thinking about longer vacations, high school, colleges (well maybe not college), but the future was coming on.  We were done with baby stuff, and everyone was old enough to be a lot more independent.  That was until that cold February day when I was told "hey you're having another baby"!!!.  I was 39 years old, and just couldn't wrap my head around this knowledge.  Surprise wasn't a strong enough word.  It took me a really long time to finally realize that yes, we were being blessed once again.  After a long, hot summer, our family was finally blessed with Erin.  She arrived three weeks early on a day like any other -- Katie and Julie had homework, the world series was in full swing, it was a gorgeous fall day, I worked that day, and even drove myself to the hospital because Brad was out-of-town.  I remember telling the girls that they should bring their homework with them, because we would be home soon and I would get them dinner.  Well the afternoon turned into evening and evening into late night. 

I remember that seeing her for the first time and noticing that she had cute dimples and big blue eyes.  (Just like her sisters).  She became a very social person from the get go -- meaning that everyone got a chance to hold her after only being a few minutes old.  She captured our hearts that day.  That was in 1996.  Fast forward to 2011.  This past Sunday was her 15th birthday.  The years have literally flown by.  She went from a toddler in pig tails to a grade schooler, to a middle schooler, and now a high schooler. She sings, gets moody, cries, laughs, has many friends, plays piano and sometimes drives us all crazy.  We love her all the more.   It saddens me to think that in three short years, she will move on to her future and life.  How exciting for her.  In addition to her birthday, this past weekend she went to her first high school dance.  Excited doesn't begin to describe her.  She talked about this for weeks, went with Julie to get a dress, spent hours wondering how she was going to fix her hair, but in the end, it seems the dance was everything she hoped for.

Then on Sunday, it was her 15th birthday.  So Erin...  Here's to you -- to a future filled with love, happiness, peace, success and more blessings than you can imagine.  We all love you.

Erin's baptism with Nana and Pa

Recognize these kids? 

First Day of High School

Erin is a freshman in high school.  Time has surely flown.  I seems like yesterday, I was taking her to Miss Sheri's and then pre-school.  I drove her to Immanuel for 11 years.  Now she walks to school.  She has grown up.   I hope her days of high school are fun and exciting!!!

Graduation

Since I am writing this in July, I guess by now you have figured out that I have been incredibly busy.  So in this blog post, I am going to attempt to catch up so I can talk about the great vacation I just took.  So here goes...

Erin Graduated from 8th grade on May 27, 2011.  She was Valdictorian of her class and I couldn't have been prouder.  She gave a remarkable speech, and my hope is that she remembers what she spoke about her whole life.  Anyway,  here are the pictures.  Enjoy!!

Opening her gift  -- a heart necklace

Giving her speech

Getting her Diploma

Proud moment

Yummy Cake

The whole gang

Erin and Mr. M

Chicago -- Last and Final Fun Day

Today I am writing about the last day of the Chicago trip.  It was a very long and busy day, but we left there with a lot of memories. 

After getting up and getting a decent breakfast, our first stop was to The Museum of Science and Industry.  There are a lot of really cool things to see.  We went on a "Coal Mine" trip with the whole class, and then everyone split up into groups and saw what they wanted.  We saw some of the human body stuff, although I didn't want to see everything they had to offer.  Spent some time looking at tornados, just a really neat place to visit.  Here are some pictures to show you:

Space Man Erin

Tornado

Erin in "The Big Green Tractor" tire

Climbing the Wall of Success

Wall of Jelly Beans

After that it was lunch time and off to Ed Debevicks.  Ed's is quite a different place.  The waiters and waitresses dress up in costume, and love to hurl insults at you.  The food was good, and everyone had a great time.  The inside also looked like a fifties diner...

Our Waiter

How the tables were set up

Crazy Girl

After that the last thing we did was go to the Willis Tower.  Willis Tower used to be called Sears Tower, but some person bought it and renamed it.  Now being a person who hates heights, I really can live my life and never go to this, but since I didn't want to be the odd man out, I went.  It really is neat, but all I could think of was what if there is an earthquake or some other natural disaster.  I know,  I'm a worrier.  Anyway, here are some pictures.  The one thing they did to the top was build a clear walk out.  It really creeped me out, but I got my picture taken anyway.  I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN  I promise :)

The city of Chicago

Skyline

This makes me shudder

Mr. Marolf  A really great teacher

Anyway...  that was our trip.  A lot of fun, a lot of memories, and a lot of really good times.  I will always remember my last 8th grade trip.  Thanks for the memories.

Chicago Day 2

Okay well the next morning we all got up (way to early), and went to have breakfast.  The poor guy at the cafeteria we went to wasn't aware that we, or another school, were coming and he had absolutely nothing ready.  The guy finally was able to rustle us up some food, and off we went.  (I left my bag of food at the dorm meeting area, and when I came back it was gone. So no snacks for the rest of the trip).  Anyway, we started the day by going to the Shedd Aquarium.  It is a really neat place to visit and I highly recommend it the next time you are in Chicago.  Anyway, during part of the visit, the class got to dissect a squid.  It was really interesting and Erin really liked doing it.  She wasn't skiddish AT ALL!!!  I was very proud of my up and coming scientist.  Take a look :)

A Baluga Whale  -- Very cute!!!

Emily and Erin sliding down "ice"

 

Erin and her Squid

After the aquarium, we went shopping along Michigan Avenue. It was a very beautiful day and everyone had a good time.
 

There was a lot of construction and this sign fascinated me.  Why not just have a straight up arrow

Bloomingdales.  We didn't go here, but I thought the sign was neat

Emily underneath "her"sign

Proof I really was on Michigan Avenue

We then met up with everyone at Millenium Park home of the world famous Bean sculpture.  It is really neat as it is like a mirror and you can get some really cool reflections...

Facing the Bean...

...Away from the bean

Odd Reflections

Erin and me

After that, we went back to the University, had an hour or two rest, and then got ready to go to Medieval Times in Schaumberg.  They have this dinner theatre that have kings, queens, knights and real horses.  You get a meal -- we had dead bird (chicken), spine of rat (bbq ribs) and vegetables.  Everything was eaten without utensils and then they put on a show about someone taking over a kingdom.  The horses were beautiful and some of the knights weren't too shabby either ;)  Each section had a color and ours was blue.  Erin was chosen Queen of Love and Beauty for our section.  We had a lot of fun, as you can see ...

All of the Knights and pretty horses

The Queen of Love and Beauty

Then it was off to a very peaceful night's sleep ... shh tomorrow comes with a vengance !!!!

The Windy City

Since Erin is in 8th grade, the tradition at her school is that the 8th grade class take a class trip.  All three girls went to Chicago for it's sights, sounds, and education.  So this time I was picked to be a chaperone.  What a great time we had.  We started off at 5:30 a.m. (yikes) and met at school.  During the school year, there were a lot of opportunities for fund raising, which we did a lot of.  There were train shows, soup suppers, trivia night, etc.  We earned enough money to pay for the entire trip plus a chartered bus.

We started our trip off by packing 18 sleepy kids and adults on this bus, only to be lectured by the driver about not destroying "his" bus.  Really?  He obviously didn't know he was driving the best bunch of kids you could ever meet.  They all behaved really great, and never did any of us have to discipline them. 

After riding/sleeping/talking/listening to music/watching movies etc. for 6 long hours, we arrived at our first destination -- Wrigley Field.  Since all of us were Cardinal fans, we couldn't help but "rub it in" when the opportunity presented itself.  The tour of Wrigley was really interesting and we learned alot about it's origin, owners, players, etc.  Here are some pictures of what we saw:

In front of "our" bus at Wrigley

Picture of the field

Erin in front of the sign

Erin, her classmates and chaperone posing on a really cold day

Erin -- You can see the score board that is kept by men.  No electronic scorekeeping

After we left Wrigley, we visited Navy Pier and went on a speed boat ride/tour on Lake Michigan.  It was so cold and windy, (they don't call it the Windy City for nothing), but we had a great time.  We also got a chance to look at the shops and Erin bought Cody a camo bear from Build A Bear.  It was a lot of fun.  Just take a look:

The Navy Pier Entrance

Our Speed boat.  The tour guide was really a lot of fun.  He had fun picking on us

The "gang" with the skyline in back. We also met a really nice dog

Mr. M and the kids

Chicago Skyline

Then we finally left and headed back to dinner at Genos'.  Usually I don't care for this pizza, but since no one had eaten anything since early in the morning, and we had been running all day, I think we all could have eaten anything that was put in front of us.  I have never experienced a bunch of kids eat so much food so fast in a long time.  This may just rival our family the time we went to Disney and ate at Perkins, but that is another story.  At Geno's you get to write on anything that you can.  Everyone had fun doing this and leaving their memory:   

Erin leaving her legacy at Geno's

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We then travelled to Oak Park Illinois and stayed at Concordia University.  We stayed in the dorm call Martha/Mary.  May of the kids thought is was fun, but we had to share a bathroom, and actually it gave them a little dose of college life.  I have no pictures of the campus, because I was too tired to take them.  We had about an hour of rest and then off to the Blue Man Group show.  It was really really good, and would warrant a trip to Chicago just to see them.  Here is the only picture we were allowed to take:  

 After this we went back to the University and off to bed.  It was a very long and exciting day, but stay tuned for day 2...