Weeks In Review

So, what's been happening with Ben and Jenelle in the days since the previous post? Here's a recap:

Monday, June 12 through Friday, June 16: The usual work + Tuesday small group + Wednesday church. I think we did have someone come by our house on Friday to give us another estimate for a deck. Jenelle and I are still pondering our options -- with luck, we'll have both a deck AND a fence installed by the end of the summer.

Saturday, June 17: I braved 80 degree temperatures and managed to complete the 10-mile Lighthouse Run in about the same time as last year. Details here.
This is also the day that Andrew, Holly, Ella, and Lily arrived in Wisconsin. We had dinner at my parents' house to welcome them.

Sunday, June 18: Happy Father's Day! Did you know that Jenelle was born on Father's Day?

Monday, June 19: This was a semi-interesting day. Back in 1997, I gave two small vials of blood to get myself on the national registry of bone marrow donors. Having received a call that I was a potential match for a leukemia patient, I went to LifeSource blood services in Gurnee, IL to undergo confirmatory testing. Bascially, I gave more blood -- about six vials this time. There's an 8% chance that I will be compatible with the patient in need. I probably won't find out the results until mid-to-late July.

Tuesday, June 20: Since we moved in to our new house, all but the two coolest phones in the house would ring when we received a call. After a few calls over the weekend to convince the AT&T guy to pay us a visit, we finally got the problem fixed. Something about a bad card at a relay station. Our Uniden something-gigahertz cordless phone with built-in digit-all answering machine is once again working as designed.

Wednesday, June 21: Happy Birthday, Jenelle! After a busy day at work, I gave the message (formerly known as the "sermon") at the evening church service because Pastor Tracy was gone on a camping trip with the high school youth group. There wasn't a big crowd, but those who were there said I did a good job. I think I could do a little better with a bit more preparation. In any case, it was definitely one of those "outside my comfort zone" experiences that I need to have every once in a while.
After church, Jenelle and I had a low-key evening together, which included a trip to Arby's and a stop at Pick & Save for frozen confections. Yum.

Thursday, June 22: We had our family birthday dinner at the Chancery in downtown Racine. We had the back room mostly to ourselves, which is nice, especially when two of the people in your party are less than three years old. It was lots of fun.

Friday, June 23: We spent a bit of time hanging out with Andrew, Holly, Ella, and Lily in the afternoon, and then we visited Aunt Liz, Uncle Randy, Amanda, and Tony after dinner, who we haven't seen in quite a while. More family fun times.

Saturday, June 24: Another "outside my comfort zone" experience. Today, Jenelle and I got to watch Ella and Lily for most of the evening while Andrew, Holly, GrandTom and GrandPat were at a friend's wedding. It wasn't too difficult a task, but it is something I would have to adjust to if I was doing it every day. Shortly after our babysitting adventure began, both Ella and Lily went to sleep, which made our job easy for the first two hours. After that, taking care of Ella wasn't too hard. She's not really talking yet, but she's fairly good at using gestures to explain what she wants. She also has a habit of switching the DVD in the player very frequently. Her favorite movie seems to be Lady and the Tramp. We watched this one several times. The funny part is that whenever we put it back in, we could not resume from the point where we left off -- we had to start again at the beginning! Oh, well. Lily was a bit fussy after her nap, but we managed to keep her busy with a variety of things. In any case, I appreciated the opportunity to spend more time with my favorite nieces.

Sunday, June 25: Happy Birthday, Ed! Jenelle took me out to Tenuta's for my birthday lunch (one day early), and then she baked me a delicious cinnamon swirl cake. We spent a fair amount of time just relaxing and hanging out to gear up for another exciting week.

Monday, June 26: Happy Birthday to me! I brought donuts to work, which were devoured at the usual quick pace. After work, I enjoyed leftover Tenuta's for dinner. I also got a cute card from Jenelle which included a $100 "gift certificate" to RaceReady, which I used to buy most of the stuff on my wish list. It wasn't exactly a "gift certificate" -- basically, she told me I was cleared to spend that much. That works for me, since it all comes out of the same bucket anyways. :)

Tuesday, June 27: We recently finished a big project at work, so I received a bonus gift at a celebration in the evening. It will probably go in the savings account to be spent later on a fence or a deck.

Which brings us to today, when I posted this message. Have a great rest of the week, everyone!

Sunday Fun Times

Today was both fun and productive. After a 13.1 mile run and a trip to church, we returned home for a day of indoor and outdoor house projects. My parents came to help -- thanks, Mom & Dad!

Inside: We installed a hook for our towels in the master bathroom, and added a doorstop in the master bathroom closet. We also re-assembled a TV stand for what we have dubbed "the bonus room", which is the fourth upstairs bedroom that is about the same size as the master bedroom. We now have a DVD player, VCR, and a Playstation 2 ready to go in there.

Outside: I learned to use a lawn mower! After 23 years of living with my parents and 5 years in the condo, I am finally in a situation where I have to cut my own grass. With a little bit of help from my dad, I am now proficient in the art of mowing. Once it's a good day for spreading fertilizer, we'll be one step closer to getting our yard in shape.

But the biggest outside project (and I mean BIGGEST) was removing more weeds from our front flower beds. Check out the BenCam for what I mean.

Class of '96

My ten year reunion was this past weekend. Here's a photo of everyone from the class who showed up. Yes, I know, it's only ten people, but considering that there are only about forty in the class, the turnout was pretty good.

If you're one of the people in the picture, I'd like to say WELCOME to benandjenelle.com. Thanks for dropping by!