I have hogged the computer for hours now - there are 3 new posts (4 including this sentence).

Our Series of Pictures... be careful what you wish for, these are pretty sweet!

Can you identify all these little ones?

Drew & Ashley

Ashley 6 weeks old

1996 Tree Cutting

Grandpa's Tree Farm, Woodstock


Drew & his little princess snug as a bug.

Ashley & Alex

Ashley 1 year, Alex 2 1/2 months old
Visiting Santa 1997

Ashley did not want to have anything to do with Santa.

Those are the shoes! The nubuck shoes I thought Ashley had to have. Alex's mocasins were from our trip to Colorado in 1996 before Ashley was born.

Daisy, Alex, Ashley, Tricia & Drew

Ashley 2 years, Alex 1 year, Daisy 6 months

1998 Tree Cutting - Grandpa's Tree Farm, Woodstock, IL

Visit with Santa 1998

Visit with Santa 1998

1998 Christmas in January

Ashley 3, Alex 2, Daisy 1 year old

1999 Tree Cutting - Grandpa's Tree Farm, Woodstock, IL

Visit with Santa 1999

Visit with Santa 1999

Ashley 4, Alex 3, Daisy 2

2000 Tree Cutting - Grandpa's Tree Farm, Woodstock, IL

2000 Visit with Santa at 'The Fishy Store' ~ where Santa lives ;)

Another visit with Santa in 2000.

They must have been really good

& Santa must have been really thirsty to have to visit the grocery store!

It is disturbing why we do not have a picture from 2001. It was a crazy Christmas season. The kids & I made star ornaments using wire and beads as a crafty patriotic gesture.

Ashley 5, Alex 4, Daisy 3

2001 Tree Cutting - I know we cut a tree at Grandpa's Tree Farm

Ashley 6, Alex 5, Daisy 4

2002 Tree Cutting - Grandpa's Tree Farm, Woodstock, IL

The year Grammy & Papa went with to cut a tree. Papa took this picture.

Ashley & Alex

2002 Andrew Cooke Magnet School

Winter Wonderland

January 2003, a great day for snow!

Ashley 7, Alex 6, Daisy 5

2003 Tree Cutting - Grandpa's Tree Farm, Woodstock, IL

At Grandpa's Tree Farm, the trees were $38. You gave them $40 and you got a $2 bill as change. When they started handing out singles as change, we looked for a new tree farm to go to.

Alex with Santa

2003 Andrew Cooke Magnet School Winter Wonderland

Ashley with Santa

2003 Andrew Cooke Magnet School Winter Wonderland

January 2004 Grammy's Christmas Party

Ashley 8, Alex 7, Daisy 6, Maddie 5 months old

2004 Tree Cutting - Richardson's Farm, Spring Grove, IL

Grammy went with & took this picture

Ashley & Alex Visit with Santa

2004 Andrew Cooke Magnet School Winter Wonderland

Ashley 9, Alex 8, Daisy 7, Maddie 1 1/2 years old

2005 Tree Cutting - Richardson's Farm, Spring Grove, IL

Ashley & Alex Visit with Santa

2005 Andrew Cooke Magnet Winter Wonderland

The year Ashley had the lead in the Nutcracker.

Ashley 10, Alex 9, Daisy 8, Maddie 3
2006 Tree Cutting - Richardson's Tree Farm, Spring Grove, IL

The first year the kids cut the tree down.

Ashley & Alex Visit Santa

2006 Andrew Cooke Magnet School Winter Wonderland

The year Alex had the lead, Papa Snowman in the 3rd Grade Play

Ashley 11, Alex 10

2007 Tree Cutting - Richardson's Tree Farm, Spring Grove, IL

The year we thought everything in our life was going to change.

Drew worked the day the kids & I cut the tree.

We ( I) were worried Drew was going to say the tree was too big. I ended up cutting a little much off & it ended up that it could have had less cut off to be just right.

Ashley & Alex New Year's Eve 2007

We got an awesome amount of snow that night & went out to make a snowman in the dark.

Ashley 12, Alex 11, Daisy 10, Maddie 5

2008 Tree Cutting - Richardson's Farm, Spring Grove, IL

As we all get older, this is still one of the best days of the year.

I am thankful for our Family and Friends

While I really loved being up north last Thanksgiving with our friends, the Hathorns, it was good to be with family this year.

Thanksgiving week began a week ago Friday when Drew & Alex got out of work and school to go up to Bill's to hunt deer. They were up there Friday and came home Tuesday night. They did not have a successful trip but the permits are good for the December hunt at well. Wednesday they took Daisy and Maddie out for a treat to hunt pheasant at Chain O Lakes State Park. The dogs had a great day & the guys made some awesome Greek lemon, phesant & rice soup. YUM!

While the guys were gone Ashley & I had a pretty busy weekend ourselves. Friday after school we had friends over for "Friday Afternoon Club" then we were off to rehearsal for Rainbow Official Visit.

Saturday morning we returned to Waukegan Masonic Temple for Raidant's Official Visit. Ashley is Drill Leader of the assembly now. She was an oustanding drill leader. I am very proud of her. As drill leader, she presents the American flag for the pledge and escorts people around for introductions. For OV there are a lot of introductions so she had a lot of floorwork.

Sunday we continued Rainbow events with pie making for a fundraiser. The adults and the girls made a total of 100 pies to sell at the Lake County Court House on Tuesday. We only worked on Sunday but it was fun.

Monday & Tuesday we went to school and enjoyed the Dancing With the Stars Finally without channel flipping.

Wednesday we went to Borders where Ashley got the books she needed to be in the Rebecca Caudill reading club at school. She has 4 books to read by sometime in January after which kids in the 'club' will create questions about the books, answer them and test each other. Eventually they will compete against students from the other schools in the district. Ashley all ready has 1 book read, a book report for Communications class written and has started the next book.

Thursday we picked up my mom and went to Grandma & Grandpas to enjoy the company of family, especially our sweet little nieces and for a great Thanksgiving feast.

Yesterday, I'm not sure what the heck we did. We did not participate in black Friday. We played games, watched football & just hung out.

Help! I'm on Facebook and I can't get off!

Facebook is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004.[1] The free-access website is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.

2004 - that explains why I am now connected.

The excitement of this blog has taken a backseat to Facebook. Facebook has been a fun way of reconnecting with friends from all chapters of life. Some names & faces are blasts from the past. It is amzaing how old pictures resurface! It is amazing where everyone is in their lives - my roommate, Amy from SIU - married, no kids, Senior Marketing Director of Universal Studios in California. Susie Barbacovi - married, no kids, Director, Global Trade Compliance & Policy of Abbott Labs. One month ago, Susie stayed at the Trident and ate at the Oberoi and Taj, which are currently under terrorist seige in Mumba! There are 9 degrees of separation between me, Julie & Geoff's friend, Greta and one of Drew's fraternity brothers, Brian. It is interesting to see who is married to who, who is divorced, who has kids, etc. It is really fun to see children's resemblances to their parents. I decided this morning that it is comforting especially this time of year to connect with people who knew my dad when... elementary & junior high friends who were involved in slumber parties, Halloween parties...
What's really cool, this is a place where most of us are relatively the same age - approaching 40.
If you're not on Facebook, you should give it a try - your friends are there.

Happy 1st Birthday Cora!

Facebook Phenomenon

Facebook is a "social networking website" launched on February 4, 2004.


Thanks to a great friends, I have discovered a great way to connect with friends from high school and college. We are finding pictures like the one below that have been on the internet for years & we didn't know it. I took this picture for the house & as a class assignment. Carbondale is now pretty much a dry town. Drew's fraternity has been gone from SIU for many years as well as some of the places we frequented - torn down!

With the teacher I work with getting married in June, I have recently gone through our wedding album. Looking people up who were in and at our wedding that we haven't seen in 15 years is fun. It is great catching up with everyone, seeing where everyone is geographically, who is doing what, who is with who, who has kids, etc. It is amazing what we remember about each other. I can't decide yet if Facebook makes me feel older or younger. The great thing is that we're all getting older. It is also a great reminder of who we were then and who we are now.

Tricia's Facebook

Pleasantly Surprised

Tonight Ashley played in the school orchestra concert.


The 6th graders played 2 songs with the 7th & 8th graders then the 7th & 8th graders played 2 songs. Much to our surprise, Mrs Dudley announced that Ashley would be playing the last of the 2 songs with the 7th & 8th graders. Ashley knew but kept it a secret. She was awesome. Mrs Dudley is one of the best reasons for Ashley being at Abbott.



Ashley has played the cello since she was in 1st grade. She has never switched instruments. When Ashley was in 3rd grade, Mrs Dudley had her play in the class with 5th graders because she was bored and frustrated with the kids who did not practice and take it seriously.



In the Abbott band, there is one boy who plays the baritone. He is an eighth grader now. That explains Ms Crotty's push for Alex to play with her next year, he will be her baritone.

Drew & I are very proud of our talented kids.

The Great Pumpkins

Our great pumpkin carvers. We got these great pumpkins and others for $.09 per pound!

Our smart pumpkins determined years ago which pumpkins will have more seeds when picking them out by their "physical characteristics".

Ashley likes eating the seeds and doesn't mind gutting pumpkins. Alex likes experiementing for with flavors, his favorite is garlic salt but just about throws up gutting pumpkins.

Alex goofed up his design so the carvings are not yet ready to be unveiled. This is why you have to draw out your design and submit your plan to mom before cutting. Its my fault, I approved his design but didn't supervise the actual carving. Fortunately they were only 9 cents a pound so he gets a do-over.

Saturday we tricked the kids. They thought we were going shopping - they are not great window shoppers. We had lunch at Sams Club then got back in the vehicle and went to Six Flags for Fright Fest. We only went on one ride, the American Eagle. It is much scarier in the dark when it is cold and you close your eyes! We also saw some frightastic shows and haunted attractions. Dead Man's Party was a great zombie show. The Human Freak Show was truly freaky. No, that guy is crazy! We visited Necrioikus: Haunted City of the Dead. The best part for us parental units - was taking the kids into the Mausoleum of Terror: The Horror Heart of Necropolis. It was a haunted house of decaying citizens of the Capital of Fright. The kids were scared good - parents were pleased. :) Can't wait to go back Friday night!

Halloween is coming...

Ashley's Birthday Weekend - Colorful and Full of Events

We started out Saturday morning with a beautiful drive through Wisconsin. This was the peak weekend for the fall colors. Once it gets a cold snap, the colorful display will be over.

We had been at Bill & Shelia's place for only a couple hours before things got really colorful and eventful. The four youngest kids went for a ride on the golf cart. They went down a hill they should not have been and ended up that the golf cart flipped, injuring all of them! The first picture below is Alex on the vessel after being treated. Then Ashley geing treated and the next picture is after all had been treated and medicated (the tears turned to smiles).

Amanda was hurt the worst. She went to the emergency room which is like 10 miles away. They got her an iv of morphine to calm her then got cleaned her up and bandaged up. She ended up scraped up, has a hole in her knees and in her feet where it was unstitchable - just holes that will have to heal slowly. She has both legs wrapped up, her right arm wrapped up and can't walk on her own yet. The bandages went on Saturday afternoon, this morning was the big test to give her a dose of liquid vicodine and take the bandages off. Not knowing how that was going to go made the anticipation horrible for everyone. It ended up going ok. She will not be going to school for a while - can't wear shoes yet.

Roger has scratches and scrapes - looks like a little boy from the suburbs who fell out of a tree.

Ashley got scrapes on her forehead, right arm, knees and on her hands.

Alex got a scrape on his right cheek and knees and pretty good wounds on his shoulder and right arm.

Allison (who will be 16 in June - how did that happen???) was not with the younger kids. She is the only one out of the four Hunt children who has never had stitches or anything broken.

Samantha was in Washington DC.

Relatively, this kids all made it out not nearly as bad as it could have been. With all of the scratches and cuts, so far, there are no bruises.

It was completely scary. Thank God none of the kids remember anything about the crash. I did not see it happen but I was the first to see the kids have had nightmares for the last two nights.'ll see how tonight goes.

Fortunately the kids were willing to cure their fear of the golf cart by getting back on. This time, the driver had her learners permit, they went slower and the ground was softer than the road. The boys made themselves a little bit more of warriors, adding blue tape to their gauze. The dogs ran with the kids. With all the running they did, they will be glad to see us go back to school and work tomorrow.

Saturday night we celebrated Ashley's birthday. I had stopped to get Ash a cake and Shelia did too so there was enough cake for the entire weekend.

On Sunday we went on as planned & went to a great corn maze. Amanda had a ride with blankets and pillows in a jogging stroller. It was a beautiful day, everyone had a good time. We stopped for raspberry picking on the way back. Yum!

Our kids and dogs all got to have freedom they are not normally given in the suburbs. The kids enjoyed theirs and the dogs did too. Daisy and Maddie had a blast romping through the woods. We went for a couple walks on the trails all in where the guys hunt and out to the corn field. It was beautiful. Today I decided to take a different trail back. I let the dogs lead the way. They were both ahead of me. Maddie led the pack running like a bolt of lightning. She would circle around and make sure Daisy was keeping up with her. Daisy would stop now and then to make sure I was still in sight. Then all of the sudden, Maddie would come out from behind me. I'm not sure how big of a circle she made to get there but it is still neat how the dogs stay together, just like Ashley & Alex looking out for each other.

The two pictures right below show a recent scrape on the ground and rub on a tree from a deer.

The dogs and I went down one trail that sortave came to a dead end but then started up again a little way from there. I trusted the dogs and they led me right to the ravine across from the house. They were thirsty from their running and knew just where they were taking me. There was water in the creek for a drink, enough for Daisy to lay in and get all wet just in time for the ride home but little enough that I walked on the rocks to cross it.

Even though it was a little scary, it was a fun weekend. The dogs but full of burrs, combed out and filled up again with burrs. The colors were so beautiful. The fresh air was great. The sounds in the woods alone were awesome.

I am glad to be home and am ready to hit my own bed.