Moving to Cedar Rapids

With a heavy heart, a clouded mind and lots of tears, we are packing up our home to move to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My husband Chris, has accepted a position as the morning and noon anchor at the ABC affiliate there. This means we will have dad home at night and more time together as a family! The one thing we are looking forward to the most is family dinners each night!

The Chippewa Valley has been an awesome place to raise a family! We are leaving behind so many fantastic friends and neighbors. Thank you to the support, love and guidance everyone has shown to us over the past three years. There are so many people we want to thank and acknowledge. Working at RCU Investment & Insurance Services with Bill McCullough and Karla Fiedler has been one of the best experiences of my life. You won't find two better people and we have made a fantastic team! Chris leaves an awesome staff at WEAU TV-13. Thank you to the staff there and to all of the viewers who watched each and every night and sent notes or made phone calls wishing us the best of luck.

As a mom, I have made fantastic friends through two groups, MOPS and Mom's Club West - wonderful, caring, supportive people! As a family, we have spent plenty of time at the beautiful city parks and pools, including the parks and rec programs, the Eau Claire Children's Musuem, the Family Resource Center, the YMCA Gymnastics Center, the Indoor Sports Center, ECCT events at the arts center, Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market and Library and much more. The staff at each of these places is top knotch and we feel blessed to have been able to visit them with our children. I want to give special acknowledgement to Pastor Mark and Pastor James and the members at Peace Lutheran Church! What an awesome place to worship with some amazing people. Lastly, I want to acknowledge Principal Joe Sanfelippo, Ms. Nett , Mrs. Becker and the staff at Roosevelt School who provides our son, Sam (and the other students) with a fabulous learning environment that has established a superior foundation for them to continue to excel in education.

As you can see, from all of the above, the Chippewa Valley is an awesome place to raise a family. We feel blessed to have been here for the past three years. Thank you so much for everything.

Video from Sam's Spring Concert

Happy Easter

We had a delightful Easter. On Saturday we went to an Easter Celebration party at Epiphany Lutheran Church, just up the street. A wonderful time. ...I would highly recommend it. The event boasted several craft activities, such as sand art crosses, stained glass marker windows and scrape art crosses...there were snacks, decorate your own cookies and of course an Easter Egg Hunt! We had a really fun time AND I won the grand prize, a $25 MEGA grocery store gift certificate. Later in the afternoon, after trips to Target & Shopko, separate ones, of course, Chris took the kids to see the lambs at Boiven's meat and berries. The Boiven's offer a nice petting zoo type barn with baby chicks, pigs, cows, horses and baby lambs, mama lambs too. Kate, of course, wanted to bring a baby lamb home, but we successfully convinced her the babies needed to stay with the mama and daddy sheep. Church on Sunday resulted in many nice photos of Sam and Katie in their Easter finery! We were determined to break in our new camera.

Capturing A Moment

It is 8:30 p.m., Sam and I are cuddling in before going to sleep. A bizarre episode of Lost is on. During a commercial break, I cuddle Sam and say, "Stop growing, Sam, stay my baby!" Sam replies thoughtfully, "Mom, I'll be your baby forever, even when I'm a grown up. Even when I'm 55. I will always be your baby." Tears come to my eyes, as I tell my little growing Sam how sweet he is...such a wonderful, thoughtful son. Children grow up so fast, we need to capture all of the sweet, little moments we are able to record.

On to the big bad and ugly: Our car needs new front brakes, new rear brakes and a transmission flush. To the tune of $500. Ouch. To top that off, our 14 month old new oven/range sparked and scorched at the electrical circuit, so a $100 call to the Home Warranty Company will be on today's agenda! Double ouch. I guess this is the government's way of taking our savings! :)

Wishing for spring...

The Earl's definitely have the winter blahs. When will spring finally arrive. We have piles of snow in the backyard and driveway. The front walk has finally made a slight appearance. Sam said, "No more snow!" this past weekend. On Sunday night, we had a delightful time at Jellystone Water Park in Warren's. What a perfect place to spend a night. Sam made his debut appearance apprehensively on the "big body slide." I had to deal with him, and it ended up costing me two transformers, $20 and a movie. After his first time down, he said it was awesome, and proceeded to go down the slides at least 50 more times over the weekend. Kate loved the kids area and she confidently made her way up the stairs to the pink and purple slides. It was a great quick and cheap getaway and the bonus night we receive, will have us back in April for more fun!

Sam had his last night of basketball on Monday night. "Defense is Desire!" He chants. We will have to find another sports program for him to enjoy for the early spring.

Lots of babies in the works: Congratulations to all. Vinnie is three months pregnant. Tracy is six months pregnant with a baby boy "Jack Connor." Chris' stepsister Jen, is newly pregnant too!

Kate has school today at the Family Resource Center. She is very excited to take her unicorn for "favorite teddy bear day." She's not been napping, but falls asleep at the drop of a coin when bedtime comes around. She's learning all of her letters and loves to play with Sam.

Catching up in February