let the season begin

tomorrow is the official start to my first varsity volleyball coaching season. i am expecting as many as 20 girls to tryout, and with only 15 uniforms in my posession (and wanting to only have a 12-14 person team), i have my work cut out for me. i already forewarned matt that he may need to have an super listening ear and extra amount of patience for me in the next 3 days. and to his credit, he has been a wonderful husband so far as i throw out scenarios and volleyball jargon that probably interests him about as much as i understand his twins strategy talks.

school meetings start for matt next monday with school starting next wednesday. so before our lives get really busy once again, we decided to go to a kane county cougars game. the game was a great and it was a beautiful summer night, complete with a magic show and fireworks after the game. but only at a minor league game will an ottoman empire band be featured as the pre-game show......wouldn't this get you excited for a baseball game?

christoffels camping

about 1 1/2 weeks ago, matt and i headed out to minnesota/south dakota for a little summer vacation for the christoffels family camping in yankton, sd and then made a short visit to edgerton. i never grew up doing much camping - we were always the family that visited those who were camping, sat around the campfire for a good long time, and then headed back to our own beds. but i thouroughly enjoyed being outside for 3 straight days and managed to come away with only 10 bug bites, a peeling nose, and probably a few extra pounds from all the great food.

i don't have many pictures, but here's matt trying to get tucker to play baseball with him.

and donna and i showing off our bean bag tournament trophy. you can't see it, but there's a spinning elephant on top that lights up - it's quite the trophy.

before camping we made a stop in sioux falls to visit tim, chels, jeremiah, and my south dakota parents, jerry and glady gerdes. it's so nice that we can still meet up, since chicago and zuni are quite a few miles apart! we also got to meet up with a bj and jill and kyle and bri for supper - it's always good to catch up with old friends.

and even before we got to sioux falls, we made a stop that i've been waiting to make for 6 years now. if you've ever taken interstate 680 west, you know what i'm talking about. it's that scenic view that always seems to be open when i'm not driving past or the weather's too bad to make it worthwhile. but this time it was open and the weather was beautiful and we made a little visit to the top of the tower. it was just a small pleasure to break up our trip a little....

all in all it was a great trip - very relaxing and exactly what i needed! life is back to norm in chicagoland now and volleyball tryouts start in less than 2 weeks!