Webupdate August 7, 2005

I guess Sundays are the days we are going to update our website. So for those of you that are continually checking it the newest news will be updated on Sundays or whenever we have news to tell. Our garden is growing great! We are acquiring many cherry tomatoes and assorted chiles. Karl made salsa today with some of the chiles and some store bought tomatoes as our home grown tomatoes are not red as of yet. We are looking forward to more crops and more homemade treats.

This weekend Karl and I went to Robert Allerton Park in Montecito,IL. It is about 15 miles from Champaign. The park has many night gardens and statues. We took a nice hike through the grounds and took some pictures. Karl will put some pictures on the website of the scenary as soon as he downloads them off of the camara.

I am still progressing with Yourself Fitness. I am working out 5 days a week. The program can integrate fitness equipment into your individual workouts. We bought a balance ball to add to the fun. It is going to take some getting used to as I have no balance what so ever. I will keep everyone posted on my progress.

I have finally completed Jemima J a book that I have been reading for I think 2 years. I bored this book from my friend, Janelle, when we lived in Santa Barbara. It is a great book and I recommend it to anyone who is ready to start a new book. It is a fast read, but I seem to put books down and then don't pick them up for awhile. By the way Janelle I will get that book in the mail to you soon.

Update July 24, 2005

I have been told I need to update my part of the site as some people are checking it daily. Life here in Champaign is very hot and humid. When you walk outside your body begins to feel sticky and after 15 minutes you are covered in sweat. It just isn't my kind of weather, but I am hanging in there. Karl thinks my personal thermostat is broken because I turn beet red and start shaking when I get over heated.

I have started my own personal workout program. I think since we moved here I have become sedentary. My co-worker, Jennifer, told me about a workout video game for Xbox or Playstation2. It is called Yourself Fitness, check it out on the web at www.yourselffitness.com. I know if sounds corny, but it is very cool. You set up your own personal profile and indicate what kind of goals you have. The game works with your goals and organizes a workout to obtain those goals. I have done 2 workouts so far and they seem challenging. The thing I like best is the workouts are all different, unlike if you purchase a workout video where it is the same thing day after day. You can also organize a meal plan with the software, but I haven't really used that part yet. There are 4500 recipes to choose from. I will keep you posted on my progress in the weeks to come.

Our garden has started producing veggies. We ate the first of the purple bell peppers this evening. They were similar to green bell peppers and they actually turned green when cooked. We have tons of green tomatoes on the vines in the garden. I am assuming they will be red in a week or so. Karl can't wait until we get tomatoes so he can start making salsa. We have a variety of chile peppers for him to use when preparing the salsa. A new finding in our garden is what I thought was an eggplant plant is actually a tomatillo plant. I must not have done a good job labeling my seeds when we pre-planted. We are excited for the tomatillos as we enjoy making our friend, Bernardo's green enchilada sauce. We are getting several yellow neck squash, but very few zucchini this year. The pumpkin plant is taking over the garden. Hopefully, it will produce several pumpkins, as you all know Karl loves to make pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin.

Our Garden July 9, 2005

Catch up

Hey Everyone! Karl has started this nifty website for us to keep in touch with everyone while we are away. We will try to keep it up to date with everything that is going on with us. We have been in Champaign for almost a year now and we just celebrated our first anniversary in May. Boy, that year went by fast. We celebrated our anniversary by flying to California for a visit with the family and friends. We had an excellent dinner at the Napa Rose at Disneyland's Grand Californian Hotel. The food was terrific and we highly recommend this restaurant for special occasions.

In June, we took a day trip to Chicago to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. I wanted to go see an exhibit that is there temporarily called Body Worlds. It was very interesting and a must see if it comes to your area. We are planning another trip to Chicago here soon to meet our friends, Shana and Carlos from Omaha. We are hoping to go to Shed Aquarium then. We will update all of you on that trip when we get back.

We have our garden planted and it is finall