Stormy but wonderful weekend catchup

Nea enjoyed her slide-assisted-jump in the backyard. Yesterday the slide got put into the wading pool for better splash effect-wonderful sunny afternoon just hanging out in the backyard!

And then I just had to run down the street to see the wonderful homemade octopus costume being worn by Marcos!

If we had to watch Mexico get booted from the World Cup, we couldn't have had better company. The Lopez' joined us for homemade pizza while we watched the sad end to that soccer match. Our pizza brigade was in fine form.

Hope everyone's week gets off to a good start. It's going to be rough getting ready for a really short week with the holiday ahead....gotta do whatcha gotta do!

Freaky Friday Family News!

OK, mom agreed to meet for lunch today and warned me that she had something that would "knock my socks off"! Sure, mom....OK.

She's doing a little family history homework, preparing for a trip to Wexford, Ireland in July with Bill and Dave to look up the family connection to all things Lamport. My great-grandmother, Jenny Lamport DuBail's brother Richard did extensive research into the family line more than 50 years ago. Mom inherited much of the family history documentation including a tracing of the Lamport line back to the early 1600's in Ireland.

So here's the cool thing that mom and Bill found out......William Lamport, our distant relative, turns out to be more famously known as "Zorro"! Mom had the pages of family history to prove it and its just incredible to learn about our tie then, to the precursors of the Mexican revolution as well.

There seems to be some pretty reliable confirmation of this link to the real life inspiration for the characters of "Zorro" and the "Scarlett Pimpernell".

Makes me want to travel to Mexico City again and visit his tomb. I think at the very least, we'll make a movie marathon or two of my favorite movies celebrating these characters.

Can't wait to hear the tales Mom and the boys uncover on their trip to Wexford. Marcos is so happy to learn that he has a legitimate claim to pirates!

Fun at Kent County's Millenium Park

Friday updates

The new header photo says it all. Most weekends since Memorial Day have been muggy, stormy, rainy, in short....great growing weather.

As you can see, the garden is thriving and as I sit here updating the blog, I'm thinking I should try to mow the grass between raindrops today. Otherwise, I'm just checking off the usual chore list and getting caught up on some work I brought home. This seems like the final week of coughing and hacking...a bothersome chest cold that mom, Anne and I all seemed to share post-Milwaukee adventure. Hope you're feeling better, Mom....you too, Anne!

This past month we've seen 0ur share of doctors and hospitals. Quite enough for the time being with Gregg's cyst and gall bladder surgeries, Nea's poison scare (she ate a seed pod from the neighbor's false indigo plant-no harm done) and Em's pregnancy getting really uncomfortable. On top of that, Gregg was told he should get his deviated septum repaired and yet another cyst (this time in his sinus cavity) checked out. We think he'll hold off til the fall for that. Enough with the sickness, etc. eh?

Ahhh, Mexico just scored! FIFA fever has struck Elmwood Ave and the rest of the world this weekend. Gregg had official Marcos-sized jersey's delivered just in time for our grandson to dress appropriately to watch the matches with his poppa this week!

To do list for the rest of June: to Holland for Father's Day; trip to Mt. Pleasant and then Chicago for work the next consecutive weeks for me; birthday's, birthdays, birthdays.....9 total this month in the family. Plus a couple of anniversaries for good measure!

Looks like the rain and now thunder will keep me in the house today after all, though I need to clean up the paint on the decorative window frames I painted last week for the garden fence.

Happy Friday to all. GO MEXICO!!