We'll keep the light on for you

 This past weekend we stayed at a Motel 6 in Normal.  We were down there celebrating an early Mother's Day with Alissa and Nathan.  You may be asking yourself, "Why wouldn't you stay with the Hunters at their house?"  Well, let me tell you, they are living with Nathan's dad while Nathan finishes school and there is not any room for visitors.  John and I don't mind one bit, since we do like our privacy.  This time around we chose the Motel 6 that we had stayed at a few times while Alissa was in college. 
For a mere $39.99 a night we were able to enjoy the bare essentials of a Motel 6.  Most of the time, we pay twice that much for many ammentities that we do not need.  Here at our Motel 6 we had all we needed, which included:

 Our own entrance right off the parking lot,

 A very comfortable bed.  (sorry I should have taken the photo before we slept in it and I threw the covers back on for a photo)

 Somewhat of a view,  many of the more expensive motels we stay at, don't even have this much of a view,

 A TV that worked well with a remote even though it didn't have many channels to choose from,

 A clean bathroom with a great working shower and enough space around the sink,

And just like the commercial states, they kept the light on for us!

Oh, and they even have a pool (outdoor) but a pool, not the less.

We have decided we will stay at this Motel 6 again.

And Motel 6 is not even paying me for this ad.

Back from a fun weekend

 We just returned from our early Mother's celebration with Alissa and Nathan in Bloomington.  We started our weekend out on Friday night with dinner and beers at Elroy's.  On Saturday, Alissa took to Peoria so we could see where she works.  There she is in front of her office building.

 She works just a block away from the river walk which is very pretty.  I was quite impressed with the way that Peoria has designed this nice walkway.  The bridge in the background is the one that Alissa uses during snowy weather since as she says, "it is the flat bridge, so less icy as the steeper one."

 Splash pad fountain along the walk.  It was so nice and warm on Saturday that some little kids were playing in the fountain.

 After exploring Peoria, we checked out the condo/resort we will be staying at this summer.  More on that later this week.
Saturday night we met Alissa and Nathan at Firehouse Pizza for yummy pizza and beer.

 Ended our night at Pub II, a favorite spot of mine from Alissa's college days.

Today we checked out Starved Rock State park on our drive home.

It was a great early Mother's Day celebration!

An Early Mother's Day

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John and I headed down to Bloomington to spend the weekend with Alissa and Nathan celebrating an early Mother's Day.  It is always fun to visit Bloomington, it brings back such happy memories of Alissa's college years.  We started our celebration weekend with dinner and $3.00 pitchers at Elroy's.  John and I are staying at Motel 6 for the next two nights and it is worth every penny of the $39.99 we are paying!

A great start to a day

My Friday is off to a great start.  I have this little lady with me today and nothing gets better than that!

I am doing some computer work and Tiz is watching Curious George.

Today 35 of my Preschoolers go to Gymtastics for a field trip.

Tizita and Courtney are coming along to join in the fun.

After that, we will go out to lunch and take our annual trip to Ebert's.

When John gets home, he and I are taking off for Bloomington to visit Alissa and Nathan for Mother's Day.

It is going to be a fun day and a great weekend.



And just one more look back

 This will be my last look into the past at least for now.  I just enjoy looking back at these pictures so much, they are filled with happy memories, but I don't have anymore scanned onto this computer, so I am done for now.  One of these days when I have some free time, I will have a scannning fest and add many of our old photos.
The above photo was taken on a fourth of July.  We love that holiday around here.  The girls had created some sort of fruit dip and are presenting their lovely fruit display.  At this point of their lives, I think they looked the most alike probably because their hair was similiar.

 This photo was taken somewhere in West Virginia on our trip to Washington D.C.  It was the period of big shorts and big hair.  They were probably in sixth and eighth grade.

 This photo was taken in Daytona Beach after a day trip to Disney.  Courtney was fifteen and Alissa was thirteen. 

 Here are my two swimming gals.  This is a picture of a picture before the days of digital.  It was their swim team picture taken at the Aquatic Center that they both ran for years.  We loved our years as swimming parents which spanned almost 20 years.  It was our life for a long time.  The comittment and craziness of competitive swimming is something only a swimmer and their parents can fully appreciate.

One of our many trips to St. George Island.  The girls are in the sink washing their sandy feet.  Who would know at this point that Courtney would go on to get married in this beautiful place.  (the island, not the sink!)

And finally, this is from one of our back to school trips to the Mall of America.  The girls are modeling their new shirts.  This is one of the few times that Alissa had shorter hair than Courtney's.

Good times with our great daughters.  Time goes so quickly!

Just a few more old time favorites

Okay, I confess, I had so much fun traveling down memory lane yesterday, that I had to revisit it again today.

Just look at those two excited sisters in the above photo, all ready for the first day of school.

I think it was third and first grade.

I am especially fond of those shoes and socks.

Didn't Alissa have the prettiest hair?  I usually had to put it in those high braids due to my lack of hair styling ability.

These were taken before a Christmas program, maybe sixth and fourth grades.

Christmas Eve was always such a wonderful night with our girls being part of the big two service performance.  Great memories of those nights.

Here I think Courtney has the winning hair style with that side pony.

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And this final one for today was taken when we spent a week up in the northwoods at a rustic cabin.

Not sure how our family survived without a TV for that long.

At any rate, we had this fun blow up boat that the girls would take out on the lake.

I have some fond memories of that trip, too, even without the TV.



My Girls

I just wanted to post a few pictures of my little babies today.

They are all grown up now and I don't get to see them as often as I would like, but everytime I do see them, we enjoy our time together so much.

I may not have made many marks in this world, but I did bring these two lovely ladies into the world and they turned out extremely well, if I do say so myself!

My wish for my granddaughters is that they will enjoy each other as much as my girls did and that they will stay close to one another even when they are all grown up.