Westmoreland Asays

It's the middle of spring break and my bed-mate's alarm goes off. Daylight Savings time began a few weeks ago, but it's never light out at 4:30 a.m. I help Meg load her bags into the van and drive her to the airport for her day-long flight across the country. Final destination: Philadelphia, where her older sister would pick her up and eventually they would travel south to Virginia/Maryland for their oldest sister's wedding. As is tradition when Meg leaves me alone with the children, I stop at VooDoo Donuts on the Eastside for a sugary treat. I return to my bed by 6:00 a.m., but I fail to fall back asleep. And thus began my week as a single parent. It's never too early for pajamas! I honestly would have preferred to have had the kids while they were in school--especially since it rained every single day that Meg was gone (sometimes all day). We tried to play outside when we could, and I wanted to go on a hike but it never worked out. We watched lots of movie...

The fifth-grade students at Llewellyn Elementary perform a play every year in the spring. Aaron's teacher wrote the script many moons prior and has expanded on it over the years. It mashes together various historical events (surrounding the American Revolution) with some contemporary humor, told in a Christmas Carol fashion. Aaron drew the role of George Washington and was excited to perform. He memorized all of his lines and delivered them with gusto. He seemed to be on cloud 9 after performing and had trouble calming down--he was that excited. Most of the kids did a great job (Edward and I snagged front-row seats, so we had unobstructed views and could hear the kids better), and a few performed marvelously. I'm biased, but I think I would add Aaron to that latter category. Our kids have been attending this school for five school years now, but it never amazes me how much parent participation I see--the venue was packed 15 minutes before the curtain rose. I find this encou...

Returning home always comforts my soul I traveled to Chicago for a week of business meetings. Even though it was the week before St. Patrick's Day, there was still snow on the ground, and six more inches fell during my stay. I traveled with three other co-workers who were also attending the same meetings--and two of the guys have made several trips to the ADP office there--so having company experienced with the area made the traveling aspect easy. Although this was the second time in nine months I've had to travel, these are the only two trips I've made in the nearly ten years working for ADP. My hotel in Hoffman Estates Our office sits in the suburbs (Hoffman Estates) about an hour west of downtown Chicago, and our meetings were long and intense, so we didn't have an opportunity to get out much and explore--the snow and below-freezing temperatures failed to encourage as little outdoor activity as possible, too. The Hoffman building has been recently remodeled...