Fall Soccer

The girls have really come into their own playing soccer.

Labor Day

Here is a sampling of our Labor Day Parade. The girls are getting the candy. I took video of the band---Carl marching, and Lara one of the parent boosters. Below is the photo slideshow.

The Springfield State Fair

In August, we traveled to the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. We went initially because we were taking the kids to see Cheap Trick and Blondie, but unfortunately, that got rained out. However, we did spend the day at the fair on Saturday, which was great.

After the fair, we dropped Carl off with Grandpa. They camped out and then Carl got to experience a shoot with Grandpa outside of Springfield. He is a natural shot.

What I did on Summer Vacation...

The Pughs, as part of Cub Scout Pack 101, just got back from a wonderful trip to the Chattanooga Aquarium and camping at Harrison Bay State Park. Here are some pictures. Yeah, I know, we said that we would have some Alaska pictures up by now....but Lara is in charge of that!

Sorry about no updates lately....

Here is the quick update on family news....sorry I have been so long between posts. I have been working feverishly each weekend on papers for my Ph.D. classes, and it simply takes me a long time to churn these things out, so literally, everything else has to wait until I'm done. Well, I'm done!

Here are some pictures:

Maggie, doing great in soccer this year!
On the prowl!

Carl's Band Performance, and accepting his award for First Superior, and sticking the award to his shoe.

Carl, receiving several school awards, including Beta Club, Scholar Bowl, Honor Roll, Match Club, and Music. He was recognized for winning the Region wide Math tournament, and setting a new record for the number of problems correct. Nerd power rocks.

His awards, including Scholar Bowl, Math tournament, First Superior on saxophone, and the several school awards.

Elvis Update....

Here are a couple of pictures of Elvis. I've taken to calling him Emilio Lizardo, from the movie, Buckaroo Bonzai.

Pageants, Plays, and Productions...

Here are the various children in the church Christmas play and Carl in the School Band Christmas Concert:

FINALLY!

Finally, on Friday, the police were able to return our camera, and about 10 movies that had been stolen out of our van after Christmas.

There were a couple hundred pictures that were on the camera. I will put up the slideshows here, one post at a time, starting with December 14th or so. What's so special about that day, you might ask? Oh yeah, my birthday! And the kids' birthdays, too!

The kids in the Christmas Parade...

Carl and Katie participated in the Christmas Parade this year. Here are some pics:

Pictures of Elvis

Our little skink is alive and kicking, and growing back his tail:

Gingerbread Houses For You And Me

A fun part of the Festival of Trees:

Festival of Trees

This has become a ritual for us...to visit Springfield and takes lots of pictures at the Festival of Trees:

While we are there, we always take a Christmas-y picture:

Trip On Thanksgiving....

No, this is not advice, it is what we did after surviving black Friday sales. We loaded up the kids and went up north to Springfield.

The dogs were more excited at first!

The Lobster Trap...

Carl had to do an assignment for his English Reading class. He had to read an article about a lobster man, called "The Lobster Trap." He did well on the reading comp assignment, and afterwards, got bored and started doodling zombies on the cover. After he was done, I realized the caption was even better for the story now that zombies were involved.

After Carl saw what I saw, and what you will see below, he began to rewrite the story, starting with the same opening paragraphs. When he is done, I will present both stories next to each other. I hope you enjoy the opening sequence of "The Lobster Trap."

A New Pet....

In the course of this summer, two skinks have made it into our house. The first one ended up as Lucky chow, but Lara caught the second one after it had lost its tail. It just so happens that Carl can complete a Boy Scout requirement by raising a reptile, so we readied up an aquarium and now have a skink in the living room. Lara dubbed him Elvis.

This marks the first time that I have not named one of our pets. I feel kind of weird about that. Since it is a blue-tailed skink, I'm thinking blue-tailed calls to mind blue suede, hence Elvis, but when I brought that up to Lara, she said, no, she just liked Elvis. So, I'm gonna call him Elvis, the skink of rock and roll.

Since I don't have a good picture of Elvis, here is an idea of what he looks like:



And here is our cage set-up for him:


Let's hope Elvis lives a little bit longer that Matilda, our Praying Mantis from last year!

Halloween Pictures

Here is the progression of the day, from carving pumpkins to walking the neighborhood, to watching a full moon rise. We had a great night.

Melissa's Halloween Party

The girls were invited to a wonderful Metropolis tradition put on by Mike and Melissa Rushing, a dress-up Halloween party with fun and games. The girls had a blast. True to form, Maggie was a zombie and Katie dressed as a flapper. They both are cute as buttons!

Lara Turns 40!

I wished my wife a happy 40th! Unfortunately, she got this:

Okay, just kidding! It was a crazy day, but a good one.

To come: Pictures of Maggie's broken arm. Yes, not Carl, but Maggie, who broke her arm a couple of days back. Never a dull moment.

Labor Day

Carl marched in the Labor Day parade, which was fun to see. At the beginning of the parade, there was an emergency call, and an ambulance and fire truck in the parade had to hit their lights and sirens for real, and then raced down the street. It was weird to see.

Carl is the little guy playing saxophone. The band practiced Led Zepplin's "Immigrant Song." How cool is that?

The Bike Saga

So, I ordered a bike at the end of August. I was expecting it on September 8th. Late on the afternoon of the 8th, I got a call from Al, of Lloyd's Paint and Paper in Crystal Lake, Illinois, who called to tell me he received my package and it looked like it was in pretty bad shape.

I called and emailed the bike company and UPS, and although it took a little bit for each to understand the situation, I think they did right by me. At first, UPS said I would need to contact the company I bought the bike from, and the company would call UPS and decide how to resolve the problem. So I did that. However, the company people could read as well as I could, and when we tracked the package, it showed it was still in transit, and therefore, there is not yet a problem. I called UPS back, and told them I knew where the bike was, and instead of going through some drawn out process, couldn't they simply retrieve their mis-delivered package, and send it to me? They actually agreed that that made sense, and dispatched someone to pick it up.

Here's the funny thing: Even though UPS apologized every time I spoke with them, and were sorry that they mis-delivered my package, and were willing to go get it and send it to me, when I tracked the package again, the folks at UPS listed the package not as being mis-delivered, but that the receiver of the package, one Al, requested a change of delivery address, and it was now being sent to my address.

Why can't people or companies simply admit when they make a mistake? I would respect that a lot more than the responsibility dodging "solution" that is the official story from UPS.

Regardless of the human drama, here are some pictures of the fattest guy you know enjoying the hell out of his new bike!