What a fantastic weekend! Saturday was spent finishing up mowing around the house and moving more rocks from the north side of the house to make way for Hostas.

Orion had his B-day party on Saturday which took up most of the afternoon, but it was a good time. I also dug the hole for the tetherball pole Mom gave us for Christmas and poured in the concrete.

Donald and Tei came out for dinner, which was lovely, although they came out late enough that they didn't have much day light left.

There was a huge fire in Savoy that we could see from the house. Emergency vehicles were there for several hours and we learned that night on the news that a sporting goods store had burned.

Sunday, we got up and made it to church on time. After coming home for lunch, we headed out to Homer Lake Park and had a really nice walk along the SaltFork river. It brought up the idea of taking the family to Turkey Run this coming weekend to go canoing if it is already open. Hopefully this way, the water will be high enough to enjoy and it will still be cool.

On the way home, we stopped by the pet store to pick up 100 goldfish for the pond and restocked our aquarium which was down to 1 fish. :)

Then, we just relaxed the afternoon away playing tetherball and watching Sam trying to get the kids on the hammock.

We also found that yesterday was perfect for rolling around on the trampoline and shocking each other.. humidity must have been perfect!

I uploaded some new pictures... especially one of this bright blue-green bird I found in the prairie. I was hoping to get some nice pictures of Pheasants... but no luck.

I can't believe how big Sam has gotten. This time last year, he was still a twinkle in his father's eye.

To help people look at pictures that have been added over time, I've added new functionality to my Gallery pages that allow you to view pictures that were added on certain dates. In theory, you can look to see all pictures that were added after your last visit, regardless of category..

Display pictures by Date added

Well.. I am sure everyone knows that the Illini was not able to overcome UNC for the national title. They played a good game, although their shooting was way off. Augustine fouled out almost impossibly early. The last time he was on the floor, he was out for less then a minute before he got his last foul. :( Head had a few nice shoot attempts in the last minute, but they didn't make it.

But, congrats to the team for making it so far! If we would have been playing well, I have no doubt that we could have easily beat them.. just not our night.

On a side note, google just announced their googlemaps..

Google Maps - "1413 E Old Church Rd,urbana, IL" You can switch between street map mode and satellite picture.

Couldn't believe it when we were watching TV last night and heard the frogs out singing by the pond. I have a feeling that we're going to have a ton of tad poles out!

To start off on a sad note, the Pope passed on today. Kinda like electing a new president, you have to wonder who might fills his shoes. I didn't know much about him, but from everything I've read over the last few days, it seems that he was a amazing person.

I forgot to mention the Shiavo died last week. I am not sure how I feel about the whole thing, but I am glad it is over. I hope that situation never happens to anyone I know.. I can't imagine trying to make that decision.

The good news, Illini won today so Monday night we are playing in our first National play-offs ever. I called my big Bro Trent with about 40 seconds left to see if I could rattle him. "So, watcha doing?". :) He said he suspected it was me when the phone rang, so we had fun yelling into the phone for the last few seconds of the game. Donald, Tei, and Claire are visiting him this weekend, and his yelling upset Claire.. kinda funny to listen to on this end.

My feelings go out to Carrie as MSU lost their playoffs to North Carolina. I was hoping MSU would win... for one, it would be great to have 2 Big Ten teams... but we've also beat them at least once this year.. so we can do it again.

It was another windy day today, but tonight it finally calmed down so we had our first bon fire of the year. We spent the day cleaning the house (well the dining room, living room, and Holly's shop). The dining room is the last room downstairs that isn't anywhere close to being done. But, now it is clear so you can easily walk through it and it looks huge. This winter, that room has turned into my shop.. so it was filled with saw dust, misc junk and totally disorganized. So, we had a ton of boxes and cardboard to burn.

For you fire fans.. don't worry... we still have a lot of downed branches and sticks to burn and I imagine that we'll have a lot of fires again this year!

Mom brough some trees out today for me to plant. Some Hazelnut, Maples, and Plum trees. Tomorrow, the weather is again going to be really nice, so I'll get them planted.

I put Lefty into the North pasture today, he really enjoyed having some newer grass to much on.

I uploaded our pictures from the cruise. I haven't updated all the information and links or added comments... but for people who are interested...

The Barnhart's Pictures! - 2005 Cruise to Cozumel, MX