Category: Family

Well we are going into the 4th of July Holiday weekend. Sara and I fly out tomorrow night and are looking forward to the trip home to PA. I’d like to take this time to remind everyone of the “quarter bounty” I’ve got going on. That’s an inside joke for Aunt Bonnie. Basically these are the quarters that I currently need for my collection.

Denver Mint Quarters:

1. Arkansas
2. Texas

Phillidelphia Mint Quarters:

1. I’m all up to date on these ones!

Any help here will recieve a dingy old quarter in a fair trade for one of these shinny new ones. Thanks!

Update! I’m only two quarters behind and that’s pretty darn good.
If you need some help to know what these quarters look like check out the US Treasury site that gives all the info on the state quarters and images as well: US Mint State Quarters

Well it’s been a few weeks since my last confession. Sara and I signed a 9 month lease last night on an apartment just a few block west of our current residence. It’s the first floor of a owner occupied house. The owners seem very nice and are even going to paint our place whatever we want for free. Well that’s just spiffy in my opinion. They have two young children and are expecting a third, we have yet to see these whipper-snappers though to verify their existence. They also have a dog which we have yet to meet also. It sounds as though it’ll be nice and cosy. The previous 3 tenants have all moved out and immediately bought houses so hopefully we can follow suit. Even though I love our condo to death, I look forward to the change of scenery. It may be a little bit further a walk to the train, but it’s closer to Lincoln Square, the library, and the park. It helps that it’s a bit less expensive each month too, so the Xbox bribe may have weighed just a bit on my half of the decision.

To those in PA who definitely had more votes cast to bring us home: don’t be too agnry or disappointed, we went with our heart for now, and the consistant flow of money sure helped. We originally planned to sit to it in Chicago until ’08. That doesn’t mean that we will, as you can tell by our near miss moving back home just after 2 years. So keep up the faith, we won’t be out here much longer God willing. I personally look forward to moving home and building our family a nice farm house. You’ll have to wait another nine months to see whether we will once again tease you with moving home or stick it out for some more punishment in Chi-town.

p.s. – Go Cubbies!!!

I stepped off the Metra train today on my way home and couldn’t walk up the sidewalk because some crazy minivan decided to play wrecking-ball to an abandoned shop near by. Actually it’s just across the street from the Sear’s parking lot that we occupy. Now that soccer mom gets some style points for sure!

I managed to snag a very cheap round-trip ticket from Chicago to Denver a couple of weeks ago and this weekend I cashed it in and flew out here on friday to visit Ed and Heather in Colorado.
Friday night we drove to Aurora to see Ed and Heather’s new house being built. It’s the smallest size in there sub-division, but man do they build ’em huge. I suppose small is pretty relative out here. We weren’t able to view the model of their home, but we did walk through their house and it was amazing. Then we had some pizza and Ed took me out for a cruse in his convertable VW Bug just outside of Denver. The climate out here is amazing. Supposedly Denver and San Diego have a debate over which city has the most sunny days out of the year.
Saturday morning we got geared up and headed towards Boulder, which is about 40mins North of their apartment. We walked around some great shopping areas and I fnally got to visit the Into the Wind kite store. It was such a fun store. If Sara has come she would agree that I could’ve lived in this store. They had every fun thing imaginable!!! Then we hiked up a few of the small 6000ish foot peaks in Boulder. These are by no means small. We hiked for about two hours solid. It was awesome. You can view the pictures when I post them soon at Our Photo Page. Side note: It is so freaking dry out here! I mean REALLY DRY. After we were done hiking, in 85 degree heat without breaking a sweat, I wiped my face off and left big white salt marks on my shirt. Gross. It’s really dry, you can drink water by the gallon, go run a mile in the always warm sunny air and never sweat, well, barely anyways.
After the big hike we went through downtown Denver and then headed back to their apartment to get showers to wash off all the salt and dirt. We went and checked out the model home that they are building and it’s very nice inside when finished. Then we headed to Chevy’s mexican restuarant for Ed’s birthday which was today. It was great. Then we chilled for the rest of the evening. And now I’m here typing this up. I’ll continue it later. I’m not sure what we have planned for tomorrow, but my flight is pretty early in the afternoon so we won’t have too much time to do anything over the top.
Well Sunday morning we were pooped and didn’t make it to church so we just decided to sleep in a little bit, get some breakfast, and then drop me off at the airport. It was tough leaving such an amazing place. I really look forward to the return trip.

This was Sara’s birthday weekend so we went to the Shedd Aquarium on Saturday afternoon. It was a ton of fun, despite the torrential downpours we didn’t think that the aquarium would be very busy, but oh how we misjudged the crazies visiting the city during the Memorial Day holiday! The place was jam packed to the gils. We had a great time though. We did a lot of relaxing and I built my new computer. Yesterday we hung out with the other chicago Murphy’s for a cookout, Shelly was there also. Aidan was being a ham as usual. Everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’ for us, which was really nice. Oh and we also went to the new church Harvest Bible opened in Niles, IL. It was very nice and a much better commute on a Sunday morning, it only took us 20 minutes to get there!
Let’s go people with the votes….so far Jim is the only vote so I guess that we will be staying here unless people make it fair. The Chicago people are so out-weighed in the vote even yet they are winning. I guess these guys out here want us more. You can’t claim ignorance people. The link for the comments is right below the entry. Over and out.