First Day of Kindergarten

Anna gets ready to get in the van for her first day at St. Pius Kindergarten.


Anna, Cece, and Dad before we go into school for the first day!


A little McDonalds Ice Cream cone celebration after the first day of school.
No surprise Anna loves kindergarten. Cece was very sad to see her sister go to school. Cece starts pre school in two weeks.

The Visit from Uncle Boog!!!!

Dad, Cece and "the Godfather" Uncle Boog.


Anna and Uncle Boog

Andrew Huffman (Our nephew, Luke sister's oldest) and Uncle Boog or Uncle Snowball.

Tom, Woody (Luke's Dad) and Craig (the student)

Uncle Boog and the Woods family

Yesterday we had the awesome pleasure of seeing Uncle Boog. Tom and his student Craig flew into Rickenbacker Airport in Columbus. After flying over us three times they landed and came into for a little lunch and to talk for a couple hours. Then it was off to Chicago for the weekend!

Words can not express how proud I was to say that was my little brother. I never would have thought that simply watching a plane land and take off would be such an overwhelming feeling. Needless, to say the kids all loved the entire expereince. Cece definitely thinks that her godfather is something else. Her comment on the way home was, "when I grow up, can I fly a orange and white plane and have uncle Boog, my godfather, be my teacher?" (We will all have to see that!)

Thanks again Boog for taking the time to come visit!!!!

Vacation 2008

Well, where do we start....
Our first night of vacation, we stayed at Yogi Bear Jellystone campground in Fremont, IN. Yes, we tent camped with three children. The kids had a blast and the campground was great!!! I highly recommend this place and oh by the way they also have very nice air conditioned cabins too!

Here are the kids with Yogi and Cindy Bear for a photo.

The campground had a water park, water slides, 3 outdoor pools, an indoor pool, putt putt golf, rental boats, a train, and fishing. It was all included in the very reasonable price too!!!

Our next stop was John and Suzanne's house in Chicago. Here the kids loved to play with Clare, Kate and Maggie (dog), not to mention all the kids from the neighboring houses.

We took a train from LaGrange (where John and Suzanne live) to downtown Chicago. While waiting for the train the kids are seen plugging their ears to block the noise of the passing trains. The girls loved the train experience as it was very similar to the train on Polar Express.

We went to Navy Pier in downtown Chicago and Luke, Cece, Anna, Clare, and Patty all rode the Ferris Wheel up to the tippy top. Aunt Suzanne, Kate and Dominic stayed at ground level.
Kate did get to experience her first merry go round ride!!!

Thanks John and Suzanne for letting the Woods family invade for a visit!

Next, we stopped off at Notre Dame. Here we are at the Rockne swimming pool. We went to Notre Dame for a Retreat of Keenan Hall men. (Luke's former dorm)

We stayed in a quad dorm room right on campus. It was great, there was virtually no one else on campus.

Our friends Kristen and Sean Maxwell and their family also came to the retreat and we had a great visit with them too!


Here Luke and the kids are at St. Joe Lake on campus, building sand castles and playing in the water.

The Woods and Maxwells in front of the grotto. Don't worry we lit plenty of candles for all the prayer intentions.

Who would ever imagine, Anna and CeCe on their bikes in front of Notre Dame Football Stadium. As, Luke stated, "I know that these sidewalks are really for thousands of people, they are really nice for bike riding too!"

With our return home, Dominic has learn some new tricks! Watch the video to see!

At Notre Dame we also got to see the Dampeer family. Alex (Andy's little boy) is just one month older than Dominic. Here we all are seen feeding the ducks at St. Mary's Lake!!!

What a wonderful Vacation! Now back to reality!