HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE

Happy Birthday Skater Girleee....Love, MOM

Check out Aunt Sue's Blog for more pix...

ON TO THE NEW YEAR....

Yea!!! Christmas was Great!!!

Happy New Year everyone!

NEWS NEWS NEWS

Okay. Since this blog seems to be the family neutral blog, I'm just letting everyone know, who didn't know otherwise, that Diana and Sunny's wedding photos are up. In other big news, Dorsa and Erik put an offer down on a house and they got it! YAY. For more on this, go to there blog erikanddorsa.blogspot.com

Still the Dancin' Man

Cool Guy Kev. He can dance!

Happy Birthday Uncle Kevin!

Happy Birthday to you, 

Happy Birthday to you, 

Happy Birthday dear (Uncle)Kevin.......

Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! 

Watch out for the flames on the cake!!!!!!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in Elmhurst. Who plans to attend? The Elmhurst Thanksgiving Dinner is planned closer to lunchtime to accomodate second helpings at other family gathering places. Anyone want to consider alternate year "stay in one place for Thanksgiving" options?

Happy Birthday, Matt!

We're not sure if you read the blog, Matt, but happy birthday anyway! And you don't look a day over 30.

Fun Wedding More Pix to Come.....

Grandpa Frank

People in Black (and some blue)

Here we are at the game...almost all in black. Some people are not fortunate enough as to have EVERY article of clothing in black.

I know I have a big butt and belly but now I see I also have a big turkey neck. NEEDED: less food more exercise. Also those glasses make me look like a geek. They need to be replaced.

Patrick starts a new job on Monday with EON....a wind energy company based in Germany with offices in Chicago, IL and, I think, Austin, TX

White Sox Advance to the Playoffs

WoooHooo....White Sox won tonight....we were there (Dad/Uncle Kevin and Mom/Aunt Sue)...I wore EVERYTHING black...the only thing not black was my skin and hair....I suppose I could have dyed it for the game, but since they won anyway it's a wash!! ha ha....now Chicago has both major league ball teams going to the playoffs.

Mom Mom's Hip

More aging parent-grandparent events.... MomMom broke her hip yesterday. She is now recovering after surgery and they say they will have her up and walking by tomorrow. Hmmm...be sure to keep drinking lots of milk.

Smile. Be Happy.

Having a bad day? Just look at the pix of this happy guy and you'll feel better. What could be better than a bubble bath in the sink??

Happy Birthday Sunny!

Happy Birthday to Sunny from the Seubert clan! Hope you're having an awesome day, and it's weird to think we've known you since you were 17 and now you're 27! TEN YEARS! Yikes...

Update on Grandpa

Grandpa Frank is now at Michaelson Health Center, 831 N. Batavia Ave., Batavia, IL 60510.
His direct phone line is 630.406.5191. Granny Char tells us that Michaelson is very nice - far, far better than Pine View and it is only about a mile from the condo so it will be a very easy commute for her and she will be able to be with Grandpa several times during the day. I plan to go visit on Wednesday after work.

Four Guys at Notre Dame

Storm winds and hurricane monsoon rains do not deter ND fans from traveling to South Bend to watch the Fighting Irish beat Michigan. It was Aidan's first visit to the holy football mecca.

Dad (Seubert) visits STL

A surprise work trip brought dad to STL for a few days this week, and we had a chance to hang out. He took Sunny and me out to dinner on Monday night - we went to a tapas restaurant on "the Hill" (an old Saint Louis neighborhood with lots of great restaurants). Then, on Wednesday at sunset, we headed downtown for the obligatory visit to the arch, followed by dinner at the boat house in Forest Park. Good times - we're glad we got to see him since we missed him in Lake Geneva this year.

Blogging from Batavia

I'm blogging from Batavia.The pix are from Wheaton and one from LGBA

Granny Char is overnight in the hospital after a heart procedure - all is well - but they wanted her to stay overnight for observation. I am staying the night with Grandpa Frank (A Sleep Over! ) - Grandpa is doing well and very happy to be home. The care giver woman who comes from 10am-4pm daily to help out was here when I arrived - VERY talkative. She also reads the entire paper out loud - so no need for Grandpa to read it himself. Fortunately she left shortly after I arrived as I already read the paper earlier. As Grandpa and are were having dinner (Yes! I actually cooked! Granny Char supplied all the ingredients...so all I had to do was pop the salmon and potatoes in the oven...perfect!) Aunt Deb, Bob, UBG called - psychic (oh bad spelling?) vibes indicated that she should call and - voila! We yak, yak, yakked.

Quinn Patrick McCoyd

Here's Quinn! 6lbs 15oz

Happy Birthday Sperbeny!

Happy 25th Sperbeny! Hope your having a great day, and we hope the next 25 years of your life are as wonderful as the first 25 years were. We love you.  

Welcome Quinn Patrick

Just heard the news from Aunt Sue that Quinn Patrick newest McCoyd made his appearance today September 5th at around 3 pm.  Mother, baby and father are all doing well.  Congrats to all!! and welcome baby Quinn!  (How many Patricks can one family have????)  Sorry, no pics yet...stay tuned!

Mom and Buzzie's Lill Purses (A Joint Post)

Yay! Pursies, we love pursies! 

Mom's purse (far left) 

Buzzie's is reversible.

Splory's Lill Purse!

Hey people

This is my new Lill bag!

Lill Bags are here!

Yay!! Here's mine! When you get yours, post a pic!

Lake Geneva and Wedding Shower Pics on Flickr!

Buz made a great post, but here is the photographic evidence of our awesome family vacation:

Pics from Lake Geneva

Pics from the Wedding Shower

to purchase prints, sign up for a free flickr account here and add me (sperbeny) as a contact!

Enjoy!

Summer Endings

Everyone in the world has badgered me into posting on the blog, so here I am, trying to think of what to say. I suppose this will just be a recap of the families summer, and my jitters about starting my senior year. Hopefully you don't find it too boring, and forgive me for my illiteracy. 

The summer started off real slow, as you know, but it got much more exciting when we went to visit Aunt Sue and Uncle Kevin's lake house in Wisconsin. It was definitely the highlight of my summer. 

I enjoyed everyday, going to the beach and sun bathing. I also 

loved getting some time to ski. Erik even tried out the wakeboard, although he was only able to get up once, that was pretty impressive for having no instruction or help. I think an all around favorite was tubing. We all enjoyed watching each other fly through the air on that big, yellow tube. 

While we were out tubing and what not, Aunt Sue and Mom were at the house doing little projects, one of which was converting a changing table into a potting shelf.

But, it was time to leave the lake and head up to Elmhurst for Diana's bridal shower. I'll make this short and sweet; good food, good company, good fun. And it was great to see Aunt Maura. 

Anyways, my summer returned to its boring self once we got back to Virginia. Poop. This is my final week before my senior year commences, and I am going to try to make this year go by as slowly as possible. I got my schedule the other day and I'm pretty happy with my classes. I'll be working my butt off this year, plus i'll be working. Wish me luck...

Summer Landscaping Adventures

I have been reshaping our backyard since April and have gotten zapped for the third time by my lovely friend pictured to the left. Yes, for the third time this summer, poison ivy strikes.  You may  ask if I am stupid or just crazy to which I would answer yes to both.  Just when I think I have rid the yard of this creeping vegetation, I find a whole new crop!!! 

Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I'm spending the day lathering on Jewel weed lotion and taking benadryl every four hours.  No more gardening for awhile especially since it is suppose to be in the 90's this whole week!!!  And all my efforts to make a pleasing to the

eye and relaxing to the soul backyard will undoubtedly dry while we are vacationing in Wisconsin!!!  Oh well, what else does an old lady do in her spare time but tend to the

garden.  Looking forward to a gardening free vacation in the midwest.  

Results of the landscaping work in progress.

Weekend in LGBA for Paddy's Bday

I took the train up to Chicago and the Metra up to Harvard this weekend to hang out at the lake house for Paddy's 1st birthday. The party was baseball themed, with White Sox and Brewers paraphernalia and baseball music. All of Paddy's cousins were there, as were his aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents, plus me and the Zapatas.
Aunt Sue, Kate, Paddy and I survived some intermittent loss of power to the lake house on Friday, and were relieved when it came back on just in time to keep us from changing the party venue. It threatened to rain around noon on Saturday, but once everyone started to arrive, the sun came out and the fun began!
The party was great, and involved only one minor incident. Later that night, the microwave, on its last leg, decided to take a hostage: Patrick's after-dinner brat. This led to much hysterics and Aunt Sue wielding a pipe wrench. For a photographic account of these events, visit my flickr page.
Thanks to Kate and Aunt Sue for hosting the party and also to Matt and Teresa for letting me stay with them on Thursday night and showing me a good time downtown on Sunday afternoon before taking me to the train station!

Hey, Gang. So, my summer started off pretty boring. I spent most of my first month of summer sitting around and watching T.V. (not my idea of a fun time). But then, one saturday afternoon, my old boss from Dairy Queen called me and asked if I was interested in working again. I said yes, of course, and now I am working at the DQ again! I am very happy to be making money.

Also, I've started taking pottery classes again, a

nd this will be the third session of classes I've taken. I really love it, and I've improved a lot ever since I started one year ago. I'm able to make a lot more in a shorter amount of time, so be prepared to receive some 'Anya Pottery'. 

Here are some of the pots I was able to finish in my previous classes. There is much more coming, however! 

I can't wait to see you all on vacation and give you my pottery, and demonstrate "how to make a blizzard"! 

A New Blog to Cancel Out the Others

Hey gang

My last two posts were both kind of bummer posts, first my bike and then not being able to find a third roommate for our apartment.  But I got two second chances all in the same week.  My mom bought me a new bike, it's even better than my old one.  I plan on paying for about half of it because it was expensive but definitely it's a better fit for the road and more comfortable.  So far I've either been keeping it locked up in the trunk of the van or in my apartment.  I've learned my lesson this time!  :)

Also I no longer have to move because we found a new roommate to split the rent cost three ways instead of two ways so me and erica don't have to sell our organs to science in order to pay for rent! Yay!  She sounds really nice and she's been really quick with applying and getting everything done so yeah it's been a great week!  Now I can't wait until vacation in Wisconsin!  

Cubs game???

Erik and I were discussing what fun things we can do when we get to Chicago and we were thinking of going to see a Cubs game. We thought it would 

be a fun 

family event, and we want to know who would l

ike to join us.

Friday 8/1 to Sunday 8/3 the cubs play the pirates , tickets are $59, $50 and $30 respectively.

8/4-8/6 they play the Astros, tickets are $30, $34, and $45 respectively.

8/8-8/10 they play the Cardinals, tickets are $55, $77, $25 respectively.

We can look at the tickets to see where the seats are, but I expect they are going to cost around $50. I know we cant go on Sat the 9th, but any other day is fair game.

I don't really know when we are going to be in Chicago and when we are going to be up at the Lake.

Ideas are welcome!!

We can't wait!!!!

Lauren Is Moving!!

Hey Gang

Well it looks like me and my roommate Erica are moving to a new place.  We can no longer afford to live in our current apartment since the rent is increasing once the lease turns over in August.  So we've decided to 86 the whole 3 people living together and would rather just find a place that the two of us can afford since we're totally awesome and can actually stand living with each other!  Our last hope for a third roommate found a one bedroom that she liked so she's taking it and our other friend decided she wanted a place of her own as a single resident.  It's back to apartment hunting for the both of us so when we're not working we'll be looking for a place!  

Books Worth Reading

I don’t know why I’m in the mood to post this but I suppose I am just really bored at work. I wanted to recommend a few books for a little by the pool summer reading. My current obsession is reading, I presume reading is a good thing to be obsessed with. Anyway, these are the books that I have been reading over the last 2 months and I highly recommend them.

Kite Runner; By: Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns; also by Khaled Hosseini

The following books are by my new favorite author Jodi Picoult. The topics in her books are a bit heavy but her writing style is wonderful. They are definitely page turners.

Change of Heart
My Sister’s Keeper
and the book I am reading now is The Tenth Circle.

I wanted to blog and this was the only thing I could think of to write about that I haven’t already blogged about in ErikandDorsa.

Happy Reading!

Flooding in the Midwest

I've gotten a couple of calls this week from friends and family concerned about the flooding in towns and cities bordering the Mississippi River. Based on some cursory terrain research, I've determined that our house is relatively safe from flooding of any of the local rivers. We're about 200ft above the Meramec River, which is just a mile or two away, and we are plenty far from the nearest upstream portion of the Mississippi (about 10-11 miles). However, the river IS awfully high right now; a friend/co-worker make this short movie of the river from downtown at the Jefferson Expansion Memorial - the first shot is from the top of the Arch. Enjoy :)

Diana on YouTube

Hey guys,

XPLANE produced a short video case study about one of our projects from last year for Unicef, and I was interviewed. It's very weird to see yourself on video, but I thought you guys might like to see this :)

Stolen Bike

Well it finally happened, somebody stole my bike!  I'm not quite sure when it happened but I think it was in the middle of the night or very early morning.  I first noticed that my bike was gone yesterday afternoon when I was about to take it to work.  Luckily Erica's friend Nathan was with me at the time so he was able to drive me to work.  Who ever took my bike though actually went to the trouble to break the fence post I had it locked to.  Just so everybody knows I have a U-lock which is the best lock out there that cannot be broken in to.  So the stealer not only has my bike but they have my U-lock still connected to the bike, but I have the key still. 

I've already called the police and they have my bike's description and they're already on the lookout for it.  They told me that they don't always find the stolen bikes so I should make an insurance claim on it.  I don't anything about that stuff, I'm just really angry that my bike was stolen from the back patio of my own place!!! It's the worst feeling in the world.   :(

Summer Plans

Tentative Summer Plans:  Mom Seubert has vacation time July 30 to August 12.  I'm hoping to fly..and hang out in the Chicago and Lake Geneva area with family if that is okay with ya'll! Please leave comments soon.  Oh yeah, we can be there for the Shower Event on August 9!! 

This blogging is very cool.  (Anya helped..or did most of this).  I'm learning.