Planet Stahl

Pekin is getting a Starbucks…  What towns are left?  Canton, Lewiston, Lincoln?

If you own stock, sell it now!  They are fully marketed!

Well, its been really hot…  I mean really hot.

The PC is not in an airconditioned area of the house, so I have not posted about all kinds of things…

Pekin Bike paths covered with kids toys and broken beer bottles

Eric getting sick and going to the doctor, getting misdiagnosed and being covered in hives from the bad medicatiion

Summers Birthday, and party

Tom getting engaged

Me being hot all the time in my house

Those are the subjects that I am not spending time on due to the heat!  Maybe while I’m at work!

Took the kids to Dickson Mounts near Havana on Saturday….  They were pretty bored until we got to the playground!  I tried to see if Summer picked up on anything during the visit, and was shocked when she knew what a Wigwam was… 

After that, we took a bike ride around some national wildlife refuge down the road.  It follows the Illinois River, and had a nice hiking trail to follow.  The kids liked that, so I looked like a hero by the end of the day!

I have to mention this…  I had this conversation with Joe and Syl the other night about England.  One thing that kills me about our country, is the complete and utter lack of hiking trails.  I would have loved to have ridden a few more miles on our bikes, but that was not possible without getting on a major road.  I really have this socialist bend about letting us walk through your private property. 

On that note.  I am shocked at the lack of national park involvement with the “Mounds”.  You have this GREAT facility in the middle of nowhere and you are hard pressed to find a single “mound”.  I can find ONE!  In England…  “English Heritage” would have these areas fenced off, and surrounded by a walking tour of the area.  I realize that most of the mounds have been tampered with and “owned” for many generations….  But anyone who owns property with such a structure should be jumping at the opportunity to show it off.  (Then they can set up a soda machine down the way and make a buck as well!)  Its depressing when you start to think about the legacy these people left… 

Today…  Ang noted to me that Randy had left a few bales of hay for us after he did a cutting on the waterway…  No problem, lets fill the truck up and bring it in to the barn….  Ha Ha!  Once we got down there, we saw that he baled the WHOLE waterway!!!  It was like 60 bales!  The Tundra said “No Way”…  We made 4 trips, and had to throw all those suckers up in the loft.  (I was bleeding on my forearms!)  On a positive note.  This means we don’t need any hay for the next year!  We are stocked up!

Did I mention I liked Superman?

I love Netflix!  We rented the “4400″ on DVD and watched the first 2 shows of that last night… Pretty darn good.  The kids liked “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. 

Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant…  Brilliant… 

Ummm…. I liked it.  Ang did not care for it either way.

If you liked the first 2 movies back in the early 80’s.  You will love this movie.  If you didnt…  Am I really your friend?  LOL!

On the 3rd… I worked till normal time.  We had a cookout planned at Joe and Syl’s for later that night.  But first, we had to take the kids to the doctor for school checkups.

The doc said Summers foot is infected…  So, we now have drama and antibiotics 3 times a day.

We headed to Bloomington, and hit a monsoon.  No lie.  It was unbelievable!  Joe was cooking outside his door with an umbrella.  I would have just broke down and thrown everything in the stove!  Joe, Syl, Dan, Little Syl, Pete, Marie and our family were the atendees.

Today we hit my bosses holiday party in Lincoln, and then watched fireworks in Hopedale.  Its been a long 4 days!

No trips this weekend!   And if you read this whole post, you are gonna wish we did something interesting!

Started off the day at T-Ball.  Ang keep saying the kids need work, but they looked good to me today.  Aiden is by far the youngest in the class, and he has as much skills as some of the 5 year old!

I started mowing the lawn today, I got about 10 feet out into the yard and my “New this Summer” Cub Cadet stopped in her tracks…  ???  I have not mentioned to much about this mower on the site, it is new this year…  It was not cheap, and I bought if off the showroom at Central Illinois Ag in Tremont.  This thing has broken down every other time I have mowed this year!  Called the Ag co…  They sent someone out to say “Yep, its broke”.  Now in all fairness, they did verify that my attempted repair would hold until they could get out on Monday.  So, I nursed the mower around the yard, no sudden turns.

I tried to work on the hedge, but my gas powered trimmers will not run on “full open”.  Running it at half choke made it take a long time!  So, I got about 1/3 of it done.  These problems are fully my responsibility.  I have not had thing serviced in 5 years.  Shame on me!

Next, Summers foot.  She jabbed it with a 2 inch splinter last Monday night.  Well, since then, it has received all the medical attention that she will let us give it…  NONE…  It was all swollen and abscessed, so something had to be done.  I negotiated with her for about an hour (Ang was gone) about letting me get the last remnant of splinter out of it.  We went from crying to laughing to cryng to freaking to screaming…  Never once did I get to touch the foot.  Ang came home and we did it the old fashioned way.  I laid down on top of Summer and Ang dealt with the foot!  Problem (mostly) solved!

We decided to go to downtown Peoria for dinner.  Not something we do…  If we are seen downtown.  Its at Kelehers.  We parked in the (Free on weekends) riverfront area and walked the length of the riverfront.  The kids loved checking out the boats!  We ate dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab.  It was lame, we had a terrible waitress, the food was average and not terribly hot…  But Summer went on to proclaim that it was her favorite restaurant ever.  I think I need to re-prioritize my sensibilities and be more like her!

We took a carriage ride downtown.  Ang was ready to wager that the kids would be bored within 3 minutes.  I should have taken the bet.  They wanted to go again when we were done.  The best part, Aiden didn’t realized a horse was pulling us until 15 minutes in.  He was like “Wow, a Horse is pulling us!”.