ack..... time has gotten away from me

now recital is over and within the next 15 minutes we'll be on our way to Missouri to drop Alex off tomorrow at camp for two weeks!

see you in a couple of weeks!

costumes!

Saturday is the recital so last night the kids got their costumes. I was so excited! I honestly didn't expect to see them until Saturday so it was nice to get a chance to take a few photos (our studio rents costumes instead of purchasing them so access to the costumes is limited).

Here is Clara in her character costume...

She was going through her dance in the photos above.

A photo in front of my favorite door....
One of her ballet costumes...
and the signal that the photo shoot was over....
Her tap costume is still at the studio, I'm not a huge fan of her other ballet costume so I didn't photograph her in it and I just couldn't bring myself to do photos in her hip hop costume... I need to get over it, but hip hop dance costumes can be so cheesy sometimes.

This afternoon I screwed up. We were supposed to garden with our homeschool group at the community garden. Apparently I misunderstood. Even though they said open garden hours had begun... that only applied to WEEKEND open garden hours, not WEEKDAY..... sigh. So, we hung out on the sidewalk in front of the garden a bit.... moms talking while the kids played. Then we ventured off with another family to catch the L home. Well... on the way to the L, we justified just popping into the Starbucks for a little bit to get the kids a snack and let the commuter traffic die down a bit. Ummmm..... this is how it starts.... LOL! The next thing you know they're mopping the floors and trying to close for the evening and we're still there. The kids were entertaining themselves drawing faces on the people in the Red Eye paper and the mom and I were happily chatting. So it's now 8:30 and we've decided that it is late enough that we can head to the L and most definitely get a seat for the kids. HOWEVER, there were problems with the line we were on and trains were delayed... which means the trains were full. Although we had a great time hanging out at Starbucks... we still got on a crowded train with no seats. :-)

Now the kids are in bed and I'm heading that way too!

'nite!

a day late...

I know... I said I would upload this picture yesterday.... but somehow the day completely got away from me.

So here is toothless Clara...
She's pretty darn proud of that gap! But she's decided that the other one can wait a little while before it comes out.

There's really not much else to report... yesterday did get away from me, but I really don't think we did anything of interest. We did go to martial arts but that was rather uneventful. I don't think we'll be any more exciting today. This week is really crazy with getting Alex ready for camp. There's not much to be done, but just having that whole thing looming makes me a little crazy. Plus, Clara and I will be gone the whole two weeks too which adds more packing to be done. And should I even mention that their music and dance recital is Saturday afternoon, so we leave immediately afterwards to drive to Missouri so we can get Alex to camp in time on Sunday? UGH!!! Again, there's not much to be done.... but just knowing what lies ahead is making me a bit nutty.

Okay... off to start my day!

Happy Wednesday! :-)

cubs win!

Today is Jeff's birthday so to celebrate we had a family outing to Wrigley Field!

It was supposed to rain ALL day long.... but, thankfully, the forecast was wrong. We had a wonderful (albeit humid) day at the ball park.

Here's the view from my seat... sadly, I didn't see a single batter all day.... lol!
I think half the fun of going to the game for the kids is the food.

They started with peanuts...


followed by hot dogs...and for dessert.... COTTON CANDY.....

(Clara's just a little excited about cotton candy in the photo above... lol).

They love singing "take me out to the ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. Here's Jeff and Alex belting it out...
What would be the final score....
and Alex belting out one last tune... Go Cubs Go!
With the rain still holding off, we decided to just to walk home (we had taken the L there). We stopped and had dinner along the way. It was an absolutely wonderful day!

I have a few photos still in my camera that I took after we got home. Clara pulled her top front tooth tonight. I'll post those pics tomorrow.

I'm off to watch the weather to see if our rain is ever coming!

'nite!

checking in...

I know, I know I mentioned on Thursday that I thought I was going to go and take new pictures that day. Well... it didn't happen. Clara started out sniffly that morning and by the time we needed to leave she was feeling pretty rotten. So, needless to say, we stayed home.... one sickly girl and one despondent boy (who was upset that we were missing a going away party for some homeschool friends). I hate when it works out like that... it never seems quite fair.

Friday we stayed close to home as well. Jeff came home early from work which was nice... he was home shortly after lunch. Friday night Clara added a cough to her sniffles. Saturday was dance... she still felt rotten but since the recital is next weekend, she wanted to go. That afternoon we went to Devon Avenue to have dinner with a friend and her mom. Our friend ordered our dinner for us so we could try some new food... it was wonderful! We had a great time. The kids loved that we topped off our meal with kulfi (the kids and I had mango). Then it was home and to bed because Jeff and Alex had a big day ahead of them.

This morning they woke up at 4:30am so they could go down to the start of the Bike the Drive event. Lake Shore Drive was closed to cars this morning. The entire ride is 30 miles but Alex and Jeff did the 15 mile north loop. I asked Jeff if he would take the point and shoot camera and thankfully he agreed :-)

Here's a sleepy Alex getting ready for the start of the event....
lots of cyclists....
they had purchased tickets for the all-you-can-eat pancake and sausage breakfast, so here's Alex enjoying his post-ride feast on the lawn in Grant Park...

Clara and I lazed around at home and took the dog out for a walk around 8:45ish.... imagine our surprise to see Jeff and Alex already home when we got back! They rode 15 miles in 1 hour and 43 minutes (including a rest stop)! I was impressed!

We took our time getting ready and then around noon we headed out for lunch. We walked to lunch and afterwards we decided to keep wandering. We ended up a bakery to get some goodies for tomorrow's breakfast. Next door was a photography center... it's gallery was open today so we decided to take a look. They offer classes there that seem really cool. There was a man who worked there who offered to give us a tour of the building. I thought it was just going to be a tour of their classrooms and such but instead we were in for a big surprise! The building is a former bank and in the basement is a HUGE vault!! We got to go inside and the kids got to investigate the workings of the lock. There were all kinds of cool stuff down there. They even had an old dumbwaiter that they think was used to bring money up from the vault downstairs. Alex loved it.

When we got home our neighbors were out playing in the alley.... so, of course, our kids had to join them. This was at 2:30.... they did not come inside until 6:15. They were non-stop action. Clara wanted to get in on the bike riding action and enjoyed jumping the ramp...


She's such a daredevil. She's decided that she wants to do the Bike the Drive next year... we'll see.

Alex was asleep on his feet by the time he came in.... so dinner and then quick showers... now they're both in bed!

We have a fun day planned for tomorrow..... if the weather cooperates! Hopefully I'll have more photos tomorrow!

'nite!

more Hawaii... Pearl Harbor

I'm just going to post a few photos from our visit to the USS Arizona Memorial here on this blog... I did most of my rambling about that visit here on my homeschooling blog.




It was an overwhelming and amazing day!

I haven't taken many photos this week... I figure I only really need "so many" photos of the kids at the park.... and that's all that we've been doing this week that is the least bit exciting. I love that the weather is at the point where we can spend some time everyday at the park.

Other than that... it's just been last minute prep work to get Alex ready for camp. Oh... if you know Alex and would like to send him a note during the two weeks he's at camp... drop me a note and I'll send you the address. Mail is a HUGE deal at camp... at least I know it was for me.

Okay... I'm off... and I just may take some new photos today! :-)

perhaps wimbledon is in our future?

nah.... I didn't think so either! LOL!

They did have a good time though and they burned off some energy so we could finish up school yesterday afternoon!

Last night at cooking Alex made some yummy desserts... homemade Oreos and S'mores Cake... yum. Alex had his piano jury last night at 6:05 but they were running WAY behind. We didn't get home until after 7:00. Thankfully Alex and Clara's friends from martial arts had the next two time slots after Alex so the kids played together the whole time. They were too funny... they found an empty practice room and played musical chairs while one of them played the piano.

Okay... we really didn't do anything terribly exciting so I'm going to cut this off before I start rambling on and on about really mundane things!

later!

kit goes to the park...

... and a weekend review.

Friday we continued our daily trips to the park. However, this time Kit joined us. Poor thing had to ride in what is left of Clara's bitty baby stroller.
She had a great time at the park though... sliding and swinging....

Alex didn't enjoy Kit's presence at the park nearly as much as Clara did. He was a little miffed that she spent more time playing with Kit instead of him. Do you see the little boy sitting near Alex? He decided that Alex was his hero and followed him EVERYWHERE. He did everything Alex did, even if it included sitting and pouting because Clara was choosing Kit over him. :-)

Alex unintentionally got even on the way home. He pushed the stroller part of the way home and somehow Kit's foot got wedged while riding in that little fabric pouch. Her foot ended up wearing a big hole in the fabric and her foot got scraped up a bit from dragging on the sidewalk. There were tears.... oh were there tears! Kit's fine though but the stroller is finally officially trash (unless they rescue it yet again... sigh).

Friday the kids got their yellow belts at the belt ceremony for martial arts. They were soooo excited. I took a couple of photos... I just forgot all about them.

Saturday was dance for Clara and bike riding and errands for Jeff and Alex. Afterwards we had lunch and got ready for our big evening out. Saturday was our 11th wedding anniversary, so the kids went to a friend's house for a night of fun and Jeff and I went for an evening out. Our friend lives near Michigan Avenue so we dropped off the kids and then took a walk. Yes, we could have planned something more exciting and action packed... but for me, an evening out, just the two of us with no agenda and no deadlines was perfect. We walked to Nordstrom so Jeff could buy a new suit. I LOVE the suit he ended up getting. After that we went to the Swatch store and I got a new Swatch watch. Unfortunately I couldn't find the one I got online so I guess I'll have to take a photo later. Then we popped into the Body Shop so I could get some more shower gel and body butter.

From there we wandered on down Grand to India House for dinner. YUM! And the best part is, I have leftovers for lunch today! After a big dinner, we walked back to pick up the kids and catch a cab home. It was perfect evening!

Sunday was church. It was a tough day for Clara... it was the end of regular Sunday school and choir ended. It made her sad. Alex was fine... his choir had a pizza party to celebrate the end of choir. They also got their audition packets for the fall musical.

Sunday afternoon was spent bagging stuff up for a trip to Goodwill and labeling Alex's stuff for camp. I can't believe he'll be at camp in less than TWO weeks!!! Wow! He's so excited though! Clara and I are trying to decide what to do with ourselves while he's at camp and Jeff is working... we're thinking we might go to Texas to visit friends. Not sure yet though.

Okay... I've rambled on enough so I'm going to wrap this up!

Have a great week!

a hair-raising day at the park

Our trip to the park yesterday started out like any other day to the park.

Lots of swinging...

(do all boys constantly make sound effects for everything they do???)
Then they moved on to the hanging slider thing (I'm positive that's the technical name... lol).

Alex discovered that he could do it completely by himself...

and Clara discovered that she could do it with just a little help....

(sometimes)

While one child was taking their turn, the other would disappear and come back and shock me! They thought it was hilarious and kept doing it. I was not quite as amused until I went in search of the source of their static electricity and found this....
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Then I was amused as well! :-)

wave pool!

Who knew our ship would come equipped with one? :-)

Previously the kids had only swam in the pool while we were in port. This was the first time they swam while we were out to sea. I seriously was NOT expecting the water in the pool to slosh the way it did, but the kids had a blast....




I couldn't watch for long for two reasons.... 1. I just kept imagining the worst every time the water swept from one end of the pool to the other and 2. even though I had already taken my sea calm... watching the water slosh overrode the medication... sigh.

This was our last night on the ship.... just a few more photos and I'm done!

recess!!!

Yesterday was a beautiful day and even though we had TONS to do... we decided to sneak out for just a bit after lunch for "recess"!

Excuse the photos... the mid-day sun was harsh.

So, there was lots of swinging going on...



and some playing on the jungle gym...
and a little bit of tree climbing at the end....

After about an hour we headed home and on our way home we ran into our neighbors... they were just coming home from school. It turns out that next year they'll be doing the virtual charter school so they'll be home during the day. The mom and I discussed doing a quick little after lunch recess with our kids next school year! How fun is that?

After that we finished up school and headed to martial arts. After martial arts we went to the shoe store to get Alex new tennis shoes for camp. It was there that the woman at the store made the comment "I bet you're looking forward to him being gone" to Clara, which started her weeping about how much she's going to miss him when he's gone... sigh. Is it so hard to believe that siblings can actually enjoy each other?

Oh... I haven't spoken to the doctor yet.... just received Clara's results. Her thyroid level is within the normal range. Not sure where we go from here. Waiting to hear from the doctor.

Okay... I'm off! :-)