Beep Beep

Mark it on your calendars folks JUNE 23 was a momentous day in the Luke household--JODEE GOT A BIKE!!!! Yep that's right I am the proud owner of a new bike! Woohoo! Now you may be thinking "whoopi big deal"- but seriously people this is a HUGE deal...you could compare it to meeting Bob Barker or seeing the New Kids on the Block or something fab like that. For those of you who know me well you can understand my excitement and complete terror about this- see I haven't been on a bike in the last 16 years! Yikes I know. One minor crash and I vowed I would walk, bus it, run etc. to wherever I was going. NO MORE!!! Anyone seen the movie Rad? David and I are already practicing our bike routine for the big dance in the gymnasium! Thanks for the great b-day present hubby-I love it!

Brew Crew

This past weekend we went with some friends to the Brewers game and managed to get some pretty sweet seats.....9th row up from home plate....yeah you could say they were pretty sweet seats. Too bad I talked with Whit the whole time and hardly saw the game. Well I guess I did manage to watch the sausage race. Anyway we had a great time, thanks guys!

Boo on Goodbyes

I've decided that I'm done making friends....they all move..or we move. Last night we had to say bye to our good friends the Donohues. I have a whole mix of emotions about this....happy for them, sad, jealous (I mean they are moving to Denver), excited, lonely etc. I just can't believe we only had 1 year of hanging out with them. Boo. Last week we all decided to go to Six Flags for one last hoopla and I am so happy that we followed through with that plan. Funny because I was so paranoid that the stamp to get back in the park would wash off when I used the bathroom or went to the waterpark and that I would have to pay again or something. I mean it was faded and not placed on my hand very well to begin with. Yeah that lil' bugger stayed on for days...and yes I did shower and wash my hands.


Anyway thanks for great memories Donohues!!!!

So not that type

As I was looking for a card or present for Fathers Day all I could find were things implying that fathers watch TV all day. For those of you who know my dad you understand that this is pretty much the complete opposite of him. He is probably...no wait..he IS the hardest working person that I know. Yes everyone says that their dad is the hardest working person they know but really MY dad is! His days are jam packed with work, service, fixing up a house (either his or someone else) traveling to see grandkids, doing "bishop-type" things etc. He is ALWAYS positive and looks for the good in others and every situations. I am so grateful to have such wonderful and kind parents.

I am also very lucky to have such a wonderful father-in-law. He is a very kind and patient person and has made me feel important in their family. I love the relationship with him and David and I am grateful for his example in raising such a great son. What a blessing to have such amazing families (that get along so well too!)

It was bound to happen

Well my last post was about Chicago so in keeping with the theme of Chicago/Cake here you have it....another one. Sure there are some things that I would change but I'm not going to let myself get carried away...it's all part of the learning process right?

After I finished the cake I was telling David about how I love to use the "leaf" tip and insisted that he try it out on the leftover cake. He was doing such a great job with that so I had him finish up all the frosting. This is what he came up with. Pretty snazzy eh? Taco salad???

Ok wrap it up

I should probably finish my little vacation with the family story before it is too late! On Saturday we headed down to Chicago because when you live that close that's what you do! We just walked around Navy Pier, The Magnificent Mile, hit up the Hershey store and had some fab deep-dish pizza which by the way is turning out to be my favorite meal. It's pretty cool because on the Chicago Tribune building the bottom is made up of stones from all 50 states and various places in the world. The Salt Lake Temple is on the north side of the building. Sorry the picture didn't work out.




After church on Sunday we drove around downtown...yes you actually have to drive around because Milwaukee is crazy and doesn't really have a "downtown" street or anything....or one that we know of! Anyway after that we drove up to Port Washington, it was actually really cool. It's this little town right on the lake and we were able to walk right down to the boats and everything(I'm convinced that I could get into boating). There was a little park near the lake so we just played on that and in the grass for awhile.

As we were heading home we made a little detour to see Dustin Diamonds house-aka this guy. I was a little shocked because it was just a normal house, I mean I still can't afford it but for being on Saved By the Bell (and like every version of it too) I just assumed he would live somewhere a little bigger. Too bad Zack and Kelly weren't there-they were probably at a dance or pep rally. I'm sure Lisa was out shopping and AC (pig) was flirting with Jessie (that little caffeine pill-popper).... We managed to get home before it was time for bed which meant one thing...a quick game of TICKET TO RIDE. Yeah I won 3 out of 4 times thank you very much!

Monday afternoon we drove to Madison to take my family to the airport. I was super sleepy and probably not that fun to be around. Anyway thanks for coming out guys, we hope you had a fun time!

Six Flags

Since we live about an hour away from Six Flags in IL we made the wise choice to go on Friday. David was cute and had a hot breakfast ready for all of us (I was a little skeptical if it would be "power food" or " puke food" for us on the rides but it turned out that nobody threw up or had problems :)


Some things that I loved about our Six Flags trip:
*The smell of ice-cream cones, nuts, cotton candy (bummer I have to work like 15 hours to pay for a small lemonade)
*The thrill of ride after ride-no matter how tired your feet are you always have a little more left in you to travel across the whole park.
*Walking as fast as I could to a ride without looking like I was anxious-I mean after all I am an adult :)
*Convincing Jordan that the Raging Bull would be an "experience of a life time"-funny how we always tell kids to not fall into peer pressure but then we're like "oh try this ice-cream it's my favorite", "come on you'll be the only one not on the ride-you'll love it I promise!"
*The slow beginnings of rides...AAAHHHHHH!!!



Some "not so good" things about the trip:
*Rain + wind = rides closed for 2 hours
*Eigth graders holding hands, hugging, cutting in line and singing along with the Six Flags music (if you can't tell I didn't like having bus loads of eighth graders there)
*Being stuck in the "flying" position on the Superman...it was still my favorite ride
*Having my head feel like a human pinball machine on the Raging Bull (will I go again? You bet!)
*The wonderful idea we had to go to the indoor Batman ride while it was rainy outside...seems like everyone in the park had that same great idea! 1 hour later we managed to get on our 20 second Batman ride! Hey atleast I was able to listen to those 8th graders sing while we stood in line!
*"cheap" parking that was still probably in WI...as if we needed to do anymore walking
*I hate getting wet on rides and then walking around with crusty jeans...sorry we didn't go with you on the ride Jansen...good thing you have a nice dad!

Dustin and Jansen with wet hair, clothes, feet etc.

David and I caved and bought season passes. Is that childish? Yeah I thought so. Who cares, I'm SSOO excited to go again!

Milwaukee Zoo

On Thursday we went to the Milwaukee zoo. Go figure there were buses of students there but thankfully it was still pretty empty for the most part. Our favorite place to visit was the monkey exhibit. I kept thinking "Oh it would be fun to work here and play with the animals then we got pretty close to some giant monkeys and one kept picking his nose and pretty much being gross. Those thoughts of work quickly vanished!

The boys went and saw the sharks/stingrays etc. and actually got to pet a stingray...that was Jansens favorite part.
It was really rainy but luckily my nephew let me borrow his jacket (where was Dave on that one???)