everyone is back home

Talked to Dan on his cell a little while ago. Everyone (except for me, as I am at work) is back home and doing very well. Bill is registered for all of his fall classes, and he has the specs for the laptop he needs for the college of architecture, so we can start pricing those out.

I spent the day before work not doing much of anything at all. I spent a lot of time with the cats and the dog. I called my buddy in New York state to make sure and his people are not in one of the flooded areas (and they are safe and dry). I went to Panera bread before work and got honeydew melon iced tea and some shortbread.

have a bit more time

I have a bit more time now, so can talk about the day a bit more.

Dan and Bill are having a great and productive time at orientation. For his first term, Bill will have a couple of architecture classes, a couple of honors classes, and a couple of classes that will go towards his general education requirements. They will be giving him credit for freshman English because of his high ACT score, and credit for some French and possibly math and science classes as well, depending on how his placement tests come out. And his first morning class is not until 10AM! That rocks!

Steven is having a great time staying at his friend and his family. He got to play soccer with their church group, and had a blast!

I spent the day running errands (including the computer errand). I was going to do some intensive cleaning tomorrow, but Dan encouraged me on the phone today to take a day off (other than work, of course) and just watch a movie or take a long bath and relax. I think I will do just that!

Today we had another bad storm. I noticed it was getting very cloudy as I was driving in to work. Just as I pulled into the parking structure, the power went out! I looked outside, and it was raining torrentially, and hailing really hard! But the backup generator kicked right on, so everything was fine. I was worried about the power at home, but one of my friends at work drives by my house on her way home, and she called me on her cell to let me know the lights on the outside of my garage were on, so I had power. I did a happy dance then - I did not want to come home alone to a very dark house!

Now my only worry is whether or not the poor old doggy could hold his bladder for the time I was at work...

I really want to talk about our visit to Taliesin, which was wonderful, but I have to get back to work now...

two weeks

Well, I took the computer in today. I won't be getting it back for about two weeks. That is a serious bite on the butt.

At least Dan and Bill are having a great time down in Indiana, and they are missing the terrible weather (and all the hail) we are having today!

Madison

I just talked to Dan on his cell phone. He and Bill are halfway to Ball State and Steven is safely at his friend's family's house. So I will actually have a couple of days to myself other than work. I will not know what to do with myself. Fantasies of long hot bubble baths and being able to watch chick flicks are dancing in my head, but I will probably just do extra housework and take apart the computer and take it in for its memory upgrade.  The computer repair place I talked to on the phone is very near a great little El Salvadoran cafe where I might treat myself to a wonderful lunch.

I have not talked much about the trip, as I have not had much time on either the work or library computers, but I have a few extra minutes tonight so I will talk a bit about the next stop on our trip, which was Madison, Wisconsin.

After finishing our visit to the Field Museum in Chicago, we walked back to our hotel across the street from Grant Park. We then got my little Jeep out of the structure and drove up to Madison, Wisconsin on I-90.

I have always been very fond of Madison. It is a beautiful small city with its downtown core on an isthmus between two large lakes, with a smaller lake also within the city. It is the capital city of Wisconsin, as well as being the home of a major university. We spent the night at a very inexpensive hotel out on the beltway, and ate dinner downtown at a great little tratorria which had great food and Italian soda. We walked around and allowed ourselves to be charmed.

links:

our cheap Madison sleeps: http://www.super8madison.com/

our charming dinner was at: http://www.foodspot.com/tuttopasta/

The following morning we went to Spring Green to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright estate.

Tigers game; still no internet

Friday night we went to the Tigers game at Comerica and had a lot of fun. They were playing against the St. Louis Cardinals and they won the game. There were a lot of hits made by both teams, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Also, a squirrel somehow got onto the playing field and ran around all over the place in the outfield. Everyone was laughing so hard its amazing no one wet themselves! Between innings the grounds keepers tried to chase it out of the stadium, and it ran into the bull pen. The grounds keepers then went into the bull pen with a big empty white plastic bucket. We never saw what happened after that, but hopefully the caught the little critter and set him loose outside.

We still do not have internet at home. AOL downloads patches and updates of itself automatically. It finally downloaded so much of itself that trying to start it sucks up 100% of the CPU, and the computer freezes up. Hopefully next week I can take in the computer and have more memory added to it! The computer is only 3 1/2 years old and was state of the art when I ordered it. This is extremely annoying!

Bill is feeling better from his sinus/ear infection. Steven is finally over his diarrhea. I was pretty sick yesterday, but am feeling better today - I am at work, after all.

Tomorrow Steven is going to a friend's house for a couple of days. Bill and Dan are heading down to Muncie for his college orientation. I was not able to get time off, so I will be home and working at night. It will be very strange to have the house to myself!

making it to the end of the week

Well, it has certainly been an interesting week since we got home. Poor Steven got sick on Monday and has been having diarrhea since we got home; he finally started feeling better last night. Bill has not been feeling well. He went in to the doctor today and has a sinus infection and an ear infection. He is now on a couple of antibiotics, and should hopefully be feeling better soon! I am just exhausted - the first three days of work this week featured overtime. I am hoping that tonight will just be for regular hours.

On the other hand, we made it through the horrible storms last night with no damage to ourselves or our home. Considering how near the tornados, hail, and flooding were we are very lucky indeed!

The computer at home is down and we will have to find time to take it in to get more memory installed so we can access the internet. But we have some alternatives in the meantime, as you can see by my entry here.

Bill will be going to his college orientation at Ball State next week. I am happy for him - I think he will have a wonderful time at college!

And tomorrow night we will be going to a Tigers game at Comerica. They will be playing the St. Louis Cardinals. That should be a lot of fun!

crazy weather tonight

We've been having crazy weather all night long. Every time I have been near a window to look outside it makes me glad that my department at work is two stories underground. Strong thunderstorms, golf all sized hail, winds, and torrential rains have been lashing our area of the state for hours now. There were many tornados in the county to the south of us and the county to the southwest of us. The closest have been about ten miles to the south of my house. We are under a flood warning, a flash flood warning, and a tornado watch as I type this.