The weather has been so nice! It's great to be able to go outside and enjoy the outdoors!

Chace loves picking flowers:


My dad's birthday was last week. We had a cookout at his house and spent a little time outside....


Here's Grace and Shawn playing baseball with a wiffle ball bat and a small soccer ball. Hey, we work with what we have!


Chace found some new friends outside!


Yesterday, Grace and I went to my friend Kelly's house and she had a big blow up water slide up. She also has a swimming pool and a hot tub so, needless to say, when it was time to go, Grace was not ready! I forgot to take my camera....dang it!! But, it was really fun. No, I did not swim....that water was cold! It didn't bother the kids though....I'm sure if I was 7 it wouldn't have bothered me either!

We started packing last night for vacation. Well, I put a couple of pairs of shorts in a suitcase anyway! Grace wanted to pack her own suitcase so I gave her hers and checked in on her after a little while. Her packing consisted of about 20 pair of underwear, a dress, some sunglasses, and a Chinese paper fan. Oh boy. Then, she slept with her suitcase beside her in bed last night! So, when she leaves tonight, I will repack for her.

We have been doing so much to try to prepare Grace for this trip. I have found videos online that show what to expect at the airport like security and such. There were videos of kids, so it was kid friendly. I found videos of an airplane taking off both from inside and outside the plane. We have explained to her the noises and how it feels. Pretty much anything we can to prepare her so she knows what to expect. She has been really excited and wasn't scared at all. Then she comes over to our house Thurs. and says her mother was telling her she will miss all kinds of fun stuff at school (she will miss the last 2 days; one is a field trip to the WF park and the other is a day of games in the morning and playing outside at school....we explained to her weeks ago that she would miss those and she was fine with it) AND then she says she told her that it was going to be very scary when we leave on the airplane. WHY would you do that?! The funny thing is that her mother has never even been on an airplane so she has no idea!! Ugh, seriously.

So, anyway, we leave in a few days and I can't wait!

Grandpa Kopec

This weekend some of my dad's family was down from Chicago. They weren't able to make it to the funeral for my Grandpa, so they were here so we could spread Grandpa's ashes and celebrate his life. We met them on Sunday and we went to one of Grandpa's favorite fishing spots to spread his ashes. For as long as I can remember, Grandpa always said that when he passed away, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread at Rend Lake; then when we were fishing and caught a fish, we were supposed to look at it and ask, "Is that you Grandpa?!"......corny, I know....but that's Grandpa!! And, no, I'm not telling where the spot was....you'll just have to wonder when you're at Rend Lake if Joe is there!!

Here's Uncle Jerome doing the honors:


Grandpa looooved malted milk balls....whoppers, preferably. He always had a box on hand and apparently he had always been that way. One of my dad's cousins brought a huge jar of milk balls and we all were to take one and throw it in the water also. See all the rings in the water?


Grandpa was a great man who always told corny jokes (not always clean ones either!), he would unknowingly shoot corn juice in your face when he was eating corn on the cob, and ate more junk food than anyone I knew. He loved his dog, Jopec, and fed him just as much junk food as he ate. He was a great bowler who invented Ball Trak and was always trying to come up with some crazy invention to improve the game. Grandpa wore the same "Grandpa Kopec" shirt to alllll family functions, because he was proud of his grandkids. He was one of those "old" people who rode the bus to the riverboat casino and took a ziploc doggy bag in his shirt to bring Jopec leftovers from the buffet. He signed every single one of my cards with "God and I both love you"..........love you too, Grandpa Kopec.

I saw the specialist in Evansville this week and we will be starting injectable fertility drugs when I get back from vacation.....as long as a preliminary ultrasound looks good. If it does, I will do the shots called follistim therapy....feel free to google that for more info! This is going to mean lots of trips to E'Ville for ultrasounds to check progress, but hopefully, it will all be worth it!

We've been having a bit of trouble with Grace going back to her moms when it's time for her to go....well not so much "we", but we still have to deal with it. Every time it's time for her to go back, Bill has to talk her into it. She always cries and doesn't want to go, so he has to coax her into going back. Well, the last couple of times, he hasn't done that and it was horrible. There's no reason he should look like the bad guy when all she wants to do is stay a little longer. Her mother had to literally drag her out of the car screaming and kicking and when she finally got her in her car she opened the door and got out and ran to Bill (they had met at Huck's and he was going inside) and her mother had to drag her off of him. It's just nonsense. All because she wants to come here more often and her mother won't let her....

If you saw my previous post, you saw that Chace was in a baby pageant at Herrin Fest. It was fun, though very disorganized and chaotic. They need me to run that show....hahaha! It's not like I would have given first place to my nephew!

We leave for vacation to North Carolina in 11 days! I can't wait...it's going to be soooo fun! It's been forever since I've been on actual vacation. I know, boo hoo me, right?! We've got some fun stuff planned and will be spending some time with family that we don't ever get to see!

Here are a few more pics from Tiffani and Ike's big day....





Have a good night!!

Chace won 2nd place in the Herrin Fest baby contest! He would have won first, but when he was called back for the judges to see him again, he was getting cranky because we had been waiting for an hour already....that's my excuse anyway!! Anyway....2nd place is the new 1st!!

What an exciting weekend! Friday our area had an "inland hurricaine" that caused lots of damage around the area and lots of power outages. We were lucky, we only had tree limbs down and lost a little tree int he backyard. We got our power back late Friday night. Amy and Raymond just got power back last night. It's crazy to realize how spoiled we are with modern conveniences!

My cousin Tiffani got married on Saturday and had to use my house to get her hair done, the beauty shop in town she went to was still without power. She didn't find out until that afternoon that she could still have her reception because the power was out at the Elk's. What a wedding day! But everything turned out great and they had a great time!

Isn't she beautiful?!


This is them with their wedding party, doing a little jump. I think these pics are so cute...it's a little blurry, but still cute!!


Me, Amy, and our soon-to-be sister-in-law, Erin:


Me, Raymond, and Shawn have been at my mother's all morning cutting down a tree that fell on her house. It didn't cause major damage, but it is a big stinkin' tree! We have to wait till Bill gets off of work to get the rest off the house. When I got home from that, I spent a couple of hours in our yard picking up sticks and the crap that has flown off of the crappy old building next to us. I had 2 wagon fulls of debris from the building. Wanna know what I did with it? I dumped it at the front door of the building! Well, that's what he told me to do with it anyway, so I did! I was furious when I came home on Friday and saw all of the junk in the yard and in the dog pin, so I called him and we got into a pretty good argument, with him ending it with "God, I hate a woman!" He's a real gentleman, huh? Anyway, I'm so sick of picking up his crap out of my yard!!! Oh well......

To all of my friends and family: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!! When I got to see Grace on Thursday, she gave me something she made at school with a flower made out of her handprints, it was very cute! I can't wait til I have my own kid that I can actually spend time with on Mother's Day.....

On that note, I got a call from the dr. office the other day and they are now sending me to a clinic in Evansville. They have done everything for me here that they can, so now I go there. They said every patient that they've sent there has gotten pregnant, so we'll see!

This weekend was a fun, busy one! Chace turned 1 on Saturday, the party was great. My aunt and uncle were down from Springfield, so we had a fish fry/cookout on Sunday at my dad's. Grace rode her 4 wheeler, which made my dad get out the kubota, which made Shawn get out his 4 wheeler, which made Raymond get out the old 4 wheeler. We had a great time just being with family!


Grace found some mud puddles in the field!




Raymond found a 4 leaf clover and gave it to me for good luck!


She decided she wanted to try ramping and got a little bit of air!!

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My dr. appt. last Thursday didn't show much improvement. The ultrasound showed that I had plenty of eggs, but not one that was getting large enough for them to feel that there would be a dominant one. But, some other things looked like they were getting better, so she told me to still try because she believed in miracles. She said the same thing happened to another girl and she got pregnant. I've had some saliva ferning, so that was encouraging. So, now I just wait. If my ugly friend, Disappointment, shows up again I'm gonna give her a good cussing!
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School is almost done, I can't wait. This week then next week is finals!! Yay!!

Chace's 1st Birthday -- More to Come!!