Locked Out...

David and I planned on going to a 40th birthday party for a friend of his.  The party promised to be tons of fun and David was excited to go.  On the night of the party (we did something during the day...can't remember what right now!) we were all ready to go and started walking out as usual.  I am in the habit of locking the door from the inside because I always have my keys, and assume David does when I do not and he is driving.  Well, big mistake!  David wanted to go back in for something as soon as we left, and we realized we were locked out.  Not only were we locked out, we didn't have any car keys and were stuck.  If you know my husband, you know that he went crazy.  I had to be the calm one and figure out what to do!  I first looked up a you-tube on how to open your door with a credit card.  This is not so easy and we had zero luck!  Then, we decided that we could call a cab to get us there.  The problem with that was that we had to count on my brother to be home to let us in when we got there.  This was tough because he was at a casino in Indiana and was not so nice about trying to get home soon.  We decided to call the cab anyways, but I thought of just calling a lock-smith while we were waiting.  To sum it up, we went with the lock-smith because we would be able to get back in after.  We ended up showing up to the party about 2 hours late, but they hadn't even eaten dinner yet!  The night turned out fine and we even got Uggs as party gifts!  It was definitely a memory...Enjoy the pictures of David mad at the bottom of the stairs, and me silently mocking him!

A Race a Month - July

July just has not been my month.
I was signed up to do two different races this month.  BOTH did not happen. : (

First, I planned on doing a 10k on July 17th.  I had every intention of running it and even ran 6.2 miles three different times that week to make sure I was ready.  Then, the extreme heat hit.  There were several emails cautioning runners, and in addition I wasn't feeling so hot the day before.  I decided to forget about it because I found a 5k I could run in Des Plaines the next weekend.

I woke up for the 5k ready for the race and it was raining.  We had terrible storms the night before, but I assumed the race would still happen.  Well, I was wrong.  As we were driving to the race, we saw a lot of terrible flooding.  When we got to the race, we realized the race was cancelled because of this.

I have decided that it is just not in the cards for me to run a race in July.  I can't say I didn't try though!

This picture does not give the flooding justice...

What do you do when you are up early and have nothing to do?  Get McDonald's oatmeal!

Mrs. Barnett : )

STORMS!!

We have had some super crazy weather here in Illinois!  About two weeks ago we hit a peek that I just have to tell you about...
I woke up on a Monday morning and realized that we had no power.  I knew that there were storms earlier and figured that it would be out for a few hours.  In a way, I was actually excited because I had a good book to read (The Time Travelers Wife, go read it now!) and it forced me to pay attention to it and not worry about internet/tv.  As the day went on, the power did not come back on and it was getting hot in our apartment.  As evening approached, I was over it.  We decided to go to David's office so that John and him could watch wrestling and I could read my book in some air conditioning.  We came back to the apartment to sleep and the whole night was miserable!

On Tuesday, I heard that it could take a while for the power to come back on after going out for a run.  I decided that I was definitely done with living that way!  It was also getting very hot and my cats were laying around like they were miserable.  I called my Dad and vet and they both said to take the cats out of there.  All of the hotels were literally booked, so we packed up the car and drove down to David's mom's house to stay.  It worked out well until HER power went out at 6:00!  Crazy, right?!  She made us dinner in the dark and the power ended up coming on at about 10:00.

Wednesday I woke up to a text saying that the power was back on at our apartment.  So, I packed up again and went back home.  The whole thing was an adventure for sure which I will not forget!

Our gear!

Mrs. Barnett : )

Froggie and Frogette...A Love Story.

During my second year of teaching, I ordered a tadpole from Grow a Frog.  We were sent a tadpole and my class named him Froggie.  After Froggie had turned into a "froglet" I ordered him a new fancy home.  With the new home, came a friend.  We named the friend Frogette, but sectioned them off from each other in their home because Frogette was much bigger and I was afraid that she would eat our little Froggie!  Eventually, they both moved into these two larger tanks and stayed in them for some time.

When I first ventured into the frogs, I figured that we would just let them go at some point and be done with them.  However, I was wrong!  The frogs were African Water Frogs and literally would not survive out in the wild.  I did not have the heart to give them to a family not knowing if they would be taken care of, therefore they became my official class pets.  My kids have always loved having them and they even made the move up to Chicago with me.


Over the summer and during the fall, David and I noticed how we were having to clean their tanks (they were still living separately) more frequently and it was getting grosser and smellier very quickly!  Therefore, I decided to splurge and get them better tanks with a good filter!  I went to an aquarium store and talked to someone who told me he knew all about frogs.  He said to get them one 15 gallon tank and put them together.  I knew that I had a male and female and he said that would be no problem.  He also said that they were big enough that they wouldn't eat each other and they would like the company.


I trusted him and bought the one tank still nervous about what would happen.  David and I went to school on a Sunday and set everything up.  We nervously put the two frogs in together and within an instant we saw this...

It goes without saying that I was obviously freaking out.  I was not going to be the one that introduced mating to my first grade students!  The two did not separate by the morning on Monday, so colleagues helped me to cover the tank so that the class could not see what was going on.  I told the kids that the aquarium workers told me that the frogs needed to "get to know each other" and I could not take the cover off until they were ready.  Unfortunately, this "getting to know each other" was not stopping!  It went on and on and on and after over a week I was totally fed up!  

Randomly one morning Froggie decided to take a break and get off Frogette.  By this point, I was pretty sure he was dead because he was not eating and lost weight!  One of my co-workers quickly scooped him out and banished him to his old home!  He was not too happy but luckily survived.  I ordered the two frogs a separator for the tank and they now live like this...

I am positive that Frogette is happy but am not so sure about Froggie.  He will just have to survive though!  Oh frog love...

Mrs. Barnett : )