fall fun

here's a little look at our fall....

the volleyball team went to Feed My Starving Children. it's a place that assembles dry food packs and sends them out to starving children all over the world. it's a great organization and we had a great time working there as a team...and i must say, look pretty good in our hair nets.

our volleyball team is now in regional playoffs. we won our first 2 games thursday night against chicago dyett and lisle high school. we are now in the regional championship and our next game is saturday against westmont. the girls are playing well so i'm hoping the game outcome matches what we can do.


last weekend we went to pam's birthday party. since we don't dress up to go out at night that often, i figured i better take a picture of the event. :)

and fall would not be complete without pumpkin carving! i will fully admit that matt was the master artist of our pumpkin....my contribution was cleaning out all the gunk.

metrodome magic

for those of you watching the twins vs. tigers game and know my husband's extreme dedication to the minnesota twins, you could probably imagine what it was like in the van schepen apartment at about 8:45 pm tonight. picture this....matt running around the living room screaming, getting 5 consecutive phone calls and 2 texts....by the end he collapses in his lazy boy, out of breath from the excitement. it was a good thing i came home from my volleyball game when i did or i fear he would not have eaten supper until the game was over. it's like we had the metrodome magic right here in willowbrook illinois. go twins!

busy bee

when people ask me what i'm up to these days, i feel like i need 5 minutes to explain myself, so i usually end up saying "oh a bunch of things." and that's really why i haven't had time to write anything in quite a while. the short answer is, it's a mix of the condo association, school, volleyball, and observation hours for school.....my planner and i are best friends.

volleyball is going really well. right now we are 12-5 and just getting into the conference games of our season, but the regular season is also just about 1/2 over - it's crazy how fast it's been going. here's a picture of the team...

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!

happy birthday to matt

matt's birthday was on thursday + i didn't work on friday = a birthday trip to the field of dreams

matt couldn't believe that i had lived in iowa my whole life and never been to the field of dreams. actually, no one in our family has. so we all piled into the car and took a leisurely drive to dyersville. it was an absolutely beautiful day to play ball. while we were there we also saw a bride a groom come take pictures...needless to say, once matt saw that, he was a little jealous.


i couldn't believe how tall the corn was already - i don't have it as my gauge of seasons passing anymore.

one thing in particular stuck out to me this weekend....color. after spending so much time surrounded by buildings and cars, i forget how beautiful the country is. miles and miles of the deepest green fields and trees, flowing up and down the hills and valleys....bright blue skys after finally making it out of a huge storm....a full sunset with only a barn or tree in the background. God's beauty truly amazes me.


and on a totally random note....as i was coming back from the grocery store today, i was about to pull onto our street when a momma duck jetted into the intersection, lagging behind her babies that had already crossed (i always thought she lead...but who knows). anyway, i found it so ironic that this small bird held up 4 lanes of impatient traffic for quite some time.......and they say tractors cause traffic jams. :)

summer time

with the 4th of july, i guess summer has officially reached it's midpoint. it's hard to believe but we've definitely kept ourselves busy! after nate and nicole's wedding, we had minnesota visitors the past 3 weekends. it was so great to see everyone spend time together again. we love to have visitors!



one of those weekends we met up with friends and family at the twins vs. brewers game. it was a great game...pretty entertaining....but so were a few twins fans a couple rows up with a sign that read "thanks, wisconsin, for brent farve." now i know that favre can be easily misspelled but c'mon now, if you're going to talk smack about wisconsin IN wisconsin, at least get your grammar correct.

my summer nights have gotten a little bit more busy - i am now the varsity volleyball coach at timothy christian and i'm hurrying to try to get open gyms and league games arranged before the season starts. but i'm flying solo right now....we currently do not have a jv, freshman, or assistant varsity coach. so if anyone knows of someone in the western suburbs that would like to coach volleyball, call me! at least the numbers for my team won't be lacking - i think i have around 20 girls trying out for varsity alone in the fall. all in all, i'm really excited about it and hopefully my first season goes well.

i also decided to go back to school full time starting in september. i transferred schools and they had an opening for their full time schedule, so i'm excited to be able to get my teaching certificate even sooner. it may mean some changes with the job scene, but i'm still working those details out and praying everything works out well.

i hope everyone's having a great summer!