E & E

Just a few cute pictures of the cousins together for those of you that have not seen them on Facebook. They were too adorable not to post!

Ethan loved holding Ellie as you can see from the expressions on his face. He thinks she is just the best thing, but can't quite understand why she doesn't talk back when he says "Hi" to her. Some day, big guy, some day!

Working Hard

As many of you know, my dad recently started working for Paccar in their Paclease Division. Besides the fact that my dad loves it, there are a couple other great things about his new job. 1) His office is located in Hickory Hills, which is about 25 minutes from Glen Ellyn and 2) his office building is surrounded by, in Ethan's words, "BIG TRUCKS!"

Yesterday, my sister, Ellie, Ethan and I decided to take a little field trip and visit Papa at work to see those "BIG TRUCKS" and have a little lunch. Ethan was in heaven, running around from truck to truck, letting Papa show him all of his inventory.

Trying to get there as fast as he can!

Getting ready to climb aboard!

Watch out...I have the keys and am ready to roll!

So excited to be driving!

Working hard in Papa's office

Time for repairs....

Ellie enjoying some "BIG TRUCKS" as well!

Totally conked out about 5 minutes after leaving! Driving semi's is hard work!

We had a great time at Papa's office and really enjoyed meeting him for lunch. Definitely something we will be doing again in the near future. I will say the trucks are pretty impressive and really really nice. Plenty of room to sleep and be cozy! If anyone is ever in need of a "BIG TRUCK" you know who to call; my dad would be happy to help!

The Golf Marathon

For the 3rd year in a row, I will be participating the Alpine Children's Charity's golf marathon. It goes off next Monday. I will play 100 (probably 108) holes in about 11 hours. I need to raise $2000 for the charity to participate, so if you are in the giving mood, donate today!

There are many different ways to donate, but I will let the letter do the talking. You may have received the email/letter below, but if you didn't, give it a read. Any donations will do - even if its a penny a hole.

Thanks in advance and Danke.



Hi Everyone!

I am writing to let you know that for the third year in a row, I will be participating in the Alpine Children's Charity's 100 Holes Golf Marathon on August 2, 2010. Last year I played 108 holes of golf in approximately 11 hours. It was the 2nd worst round of golf I've ever shot - a 435. But I beat the worst round ever, a 454 from the prior year’s marathon. As a whole, the fourteen players raised over $25,000 for charity.

That’s not bad for 11 hours of “punishment.” You might say that golfing can’t be punishment, but I will tell you that in 2008, I had three band-aides covering my already gloved left hand. In 2009 I took about four aspirin at 54 holes because my knee was in pain from the pressure of over 200 swings in about five hours. What will happen in 2010 – who knows.

The Alpine Children's Charity is a small organization run by kids in the Northwest Chicago suburbs that collects and donates money to organizations helping other children. It is set up so that kids are helping kids. The three charities chosen for 2010 are: the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Bare Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation, and the Children's Heart Foundation. The Children's Heart Foundation is especially close to me as my sister and I are included in the 1% of children born with a congenital heart defect every year. You can read more about the Alpine Children's Charity and the organizations they support at their website:

http://www.alpinechildrenscharity.org

The reason I have chosen to get involved with the Alpine Children's Charity is two-fold. One, two of the charities supported affect my family (diabetes and heart ailments.) Second, I support what Alpine is doing by getting kids involved in running the charity. Hopefully it will teach the kids that they can stay active in charitable work throughout their lives. (Much like my mom "making" me volunteer at the Salvation Army after a tornado in Lafayette many years ago.)

So why are you getting this email? Because I need your support. To play in the golf marathon, I must raise $2000, all of which will go straight to Alpine. Fortunately for Alpine, I have not decided to raise $2000. Instead, I am setting my own goal at $2500.

There are two ways to donate. One, you can make out a check to Alpine Children's Charity. These checks should be sent to me so that I can include them in my total (701 Kenilworth Ave, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137.)

The second way to donate puts the pressure on me. You can donate money for every hole-in-one???/eagle/birdie/par/bogey/etc. that I score during the 100 holes on August 2. As many of you know, my hobbies consist of golfing and spreadsheets, so I combined the two to form a few scenarios.

Depending on how well I play, your donation will range. If I play well, you owe more money, if I play poorly, you will owe a few less bucks. In the prior two years, if someone wanted to donate around $100, they would have donated $94 in 2008 (I played poorly) and $109 in 2009 (I played really well.) I can’t foresee the range ever being greater than 10% either way. So if you want to donate based on how well I play, tell me you want one of the following performance plans:

Standard – donate around $100 – will range from $110 to $90
Half – donate around $50 – will range from $55 to $45
Quarter – donate around $25 – will range from $28 to $22
Double – donate around $200 – will range from $220 to $180
The Fiver – donate around $500 – will range from $550 to $450
Big Dog – donate around $1000 – will range from $1100 to $900

No one has ever opted for the Big Dog – so who wants to be the first?

If you want to pledge for how well I play, please know that the total contribution will not be known until after the round on August 2nd, but your contribution should be fairly close to the target. Also, I will send email updates from the course on that day so that everyone can track our progress.

All donations are fully tax deductible. Receipts will be provided after your donation. Please inquire of your company if they have a matching gift program.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all or would like more information on the Alpine Children's Charity. Email me, call me, write me a letter, however you want to get your donations in, I will take them!

If you want to join me on the course, play hour and a half rounds of golf, take the most golf swings you could ever imagine, and most importantly raise some money yourself, let me know and I will get you in contact with the correct contacts.

Here’s to another long, albeit charitable day,
Matt

A Little Boost

For the last couple of months, Ethan has really taken a liking to sitting at the "adult" table in an "adult" chair. Meaning, he will not eat in his high chair on most days and we spend most of our meals up and down on our knees and feet to reach the plate. Because of this, I have been in search of a booster seat that is not huge and plastic-y. Well, I finally found one yesterday when I was at Babies R Us picking up PULL UPS (more on that later) and a few other things. The Baby Smart Cooshee Classic is exactly what I was looking for! Ethan gave it a test drive last night at dinner and absolutely loves it!!! Mom and dad love being able to have meals with their big guy, too!

4th of July

We celebrated the 4th of July this year in Green Lake, which is something we have not done in quite some time, if ever since my mom and dad bought the house up there. The weekend was great....boat rides, nice weather, good food, fireworks and wonderful company.

We arrived up there Friday, late afternoon. After a quick trip to the grocery store with my mom, we all headed to Walker's for Friday night Fish Fry. It had been a long day for Ethan and we were eating dinner at what is normally his bed time so our "night at the bar" was cut short in order to get the big boy to bed. After all, a good night's rest is necessary to co-captain the boat with papa.

Saturday, we woke up to a beautiful, albeit windy day. The big boys had some tree trimming to do in the morning so Ethan and I spent some time outside with nanny, playing with his "windmill" and new water table.
After the trees were all trimmed and sandwiches were made, it was time to head down to the boat for a pre-nap ride.

Ethan insisted on carrying the pretzels (and not wearing a shirt)!

Come on Papa, let's go faster!

The ugly green "octopus" that was caught on our anchor

We were out on the boat for a couple of hours before it was time for Ethan's nap. Nanny was nice enough to take Ethan and put him down so Matt, my dad and I could have a couple hours to relax on the boat. We enjoyed a nice, extremely speedy and bumpy ride out to the middle of the lake. We happened to catch up with Livermore's for a little swimming and beer drinking (well, some of us were beer drinking)! After a little too much sun, we headed in to get cleaned up for dinner.

Just a few pictures of Ethan and Ellie during bath time. The were too cute not to post!

The dad's taking care of jammies!

Come one, Ellie, let's play!

I guess I will have to resort playing with my dad for now!

Sunday, we woke up to another nice, but still windy day. Because the water was so choppy, we decided not to go out on the boat, but just enjoy being outside around the house. The ladies went on a walk while the guys washed and waxed the cars. After showers and naps, we headed to downtown Green Lake to kick off the 4th of July Festivities.

First the parade...not the greatest parade that we have ever seen, but they did save the best "floats" for last with a huge bulldozer and a couple fire trucks.

Our best attempt at a decent family picture

So excited to see the bulldozer coming down the street!

After the parade we went to the Livermore's for dinner and fireworks. The weather was not the most cooperative, as there were rain showers on and off, but the sprinkles stopped just long enough to eat dinner and enjoy the the fireworks show from across the lake.

Papa and his 2 favorite grandkids...all sporting red!

Maddox...Cole's puppy...the most adorable little pup!

Cooper and Ellie

The boys....sitting on the dock...

Onto the fireworks show...or "tireworks" as Ethan calls them. We are not sure what was more entertaining, the fireworks or watching Ethan and Bobby react to the fireworks. I can't even being to explain how excited they were each time one lit up the sky. They could not get enough!
Just a couple picture of how cute they were below:

And a few more pictures of Ellie, just because she is such a doll! How much does she look like my sister in the first picture?!?! What a sweet baby!
We had such a wonderful weekend at the lake and can't wait to celebrate many more 4th's at Green Lake with our families. It truly was the perfect weekend!