Millennium Park

Millennium Park is....wow, what to say! First of all, it is a huge, 24.5 acere park now connected to Grant Park. It contains all kinds of sculpture, amazing landscaping, an outdoor concert venue and is probably one of the most popular destinations in Chicago. I'll get to the best part, people watching in a bit. Let me at least appear to have paid attention to other things besides the crazy people in the park!!

I was completely impressed by the flowers and landscaping. The views of the city were none to shabby either. It was odd to me to see huge buildings and yet be surrounded by vibrant flowers.



I loved seeing "The Bean" which I discovered is actually called The Cloud Gate. I like "The Bean" much better. It's basically a big, stainless steel bean. Loved it! It's also lots of fun trying to take your picture with its reflection...and as Chris also discovered, it's fun to mess with other peoples pictures!





Ok, so now lets just stop with the nicities and get down to what was really so great about the park....the crazy, wacky people who were in the park! I love people watching! It's the best!! I'm not sure how best to prove how good the people watching was other than to show you the pictures and tell you about the pictures that got away.

There were several wedding parties in the park for obvious picture reasons! I guess I have missed out on the newest wedding trends, but I believe this is what hooker brides ask their best friends to wear.



I think she was actually proud of her dress. Can you tell? And, these poor sailors got sucked into nearly ever photo opp with every bride.



Ok, sing along with me now...."One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong!"



Now here is just an example of a people watchers dream come true. You got bad bridesmaid hanging out waiting for her photo opp, the other bridal party whoring out to the sailors and then you have Asian girl that just appears out of no where and practically starts undressing herself for her own photo opp. WOW!!!!



And then, just when I thought is was safe to leave because all the great spotting had been done, in strolls Miss Thing In Pink! Hold the boat folks, I'm not going anywhere.



and....she brought her pimps along too!



Yup, my friends, you can't make this stuff up!!!



Oh...and there was more. It was like worlds collide when the "Bad Bridesmaids", met up with the "Good Bridesmaids" and the "Vision in Pink" for a photo opp all together. Wow! Then, right after all that cleared out we had a crazy old guy dressed in a bag pippers uniform, with no bag pipe, that came strolling by saluting anyone who would make eye contact with him!

Truly, it was complete people watching fullfillment! A dream come true.

Chicago!

Chicago was fantastic. Chris and I had a wonderful weekend together (just the two of us) celebrating 10 years ago that we "reunited" in Chicago! We had a blast and the weather was gorgeous...almost too hot!

After dropping the boys off at G & G's house Friday evening, I drove to Napanee to meet Chris. I had forgotten that Napanee is home to a very large Amish population. I was reminded of that Amish population as I was driving down back rural roads in the dark trying to dodge buggies and cycles! Yikes!

He and his crew had a Friday night football game at Northwood High School. It was the first, in a long time, that I had a chance to watch him officiate. I enjoyed myself and got a good taste of high school and middle school children. Mine are never allowed to grow into that breed! Agh...they were awful!



After his game was done we drove on to Merrillville to spend the night. It was well past my bedtime but I managed to stay awake for some food at Buffalo Wild Wings! I guess that is a standing tradition that the crew always eats there after a game.

We drove into Chicago on a beautiful, sunny, Saturday. For old times sake we went past downtown and into the Lincoln Park neighborhood, where Chris had his apartment. This is the same small apartment that we managed to co-habitat for a few months after we were married. We took a few pictures for the boys to see where we used to live!


It's the building with the black door.

We then proceeded downtown to an early check-in at the Renaissance Hotel. The hotel and the room was gorgeous. We have stayed at many different Renaissance Hotels and they have never let us down. It was perfectly situated on the river at Wacker Drive. Which was a great spot to walk to Michigan Avenue and Millennium Park. Millennium Park was an event all in itself and worthy of a second post!



We joined the thousands of shoppers and Chicago Marathon Runners who were walking up and down Michigan Avenue. To our disappointment, FAO Schwartz had closed their store. We had hoped to do some early holiday shopping for the boys. Oh well.





After relaxing, after all our walking, we got ready for the highlight of our weekend. A virtual beef feeding frenzy was in store for us at Fogo De Chao. It was the most full I have ever been after a meal. The food was amazing. And, it just kept coming and coming for as long as I could take it....and the mashed potatoes were great too. I finally had to stop after I thought my button on my dress jeans was going to pop off and wound some other diner. And, as if that wasn't enough...the amazing wait staff overheard us talking about our 10th anniversary and brought out this huge piece of chocolate cake with "Happy Anniversary" written on the plate. We were both surprised! It was all I could do to walk out of there.

It was a beautiful evening to walk and we had a great time! After an hour or two I started to feel like I could breath again...I really have never been so full. Thanksgiving meal has nothing on that place.

Sunday was the Chicago Marathon. Obviously, we were not running the race, but we watched it from the 18th floor of our room. That is about as close as I will ever get to a marathon! Runners started going by on the street below at 8:00. You could tell the real runners from the fun runners. The real runners were hauling ass and had the trucks with the camera guys following them. The real mass of runners came by much later!

We headed back to pick up the boys Sunday and just hung out for the rest of the day. Thankfully, Chris took today off, so it was nice having him around for the long weekend.

I can't thank Chris enough for remembering this special anniversary for us and for finding a way to make the weekend happen. Thank you for handling all the arrangements, reservations and taking the time off to spend the weekend with me! You are the best! I'm looking forward to many more anniversaries with you!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my Grandma, Mouse. Yes, that is what I call her and I always have. Don't ask, I don't know why! Anyway...Happy Birthday to Mouse. When I called her this morning in Michigan she was debating going to "see the Indians". Which is code for going to the casino. Good luck if you go!

These were some pictures the boys sent to her today!

Miss You!

Chris is headed out for business to Colorado today. Sniff, sniff...I will miss him. I'm always sad when he isn't here! Fly safe, Hun! Funny, I always told him that when he traveled every week....like he has any control over his flight!

But, I definitely have something to look forward to while he is gone. Chris and I will be headed to Chicago next weekend to celebrate a 10 year anniversary. It isn't our wedding anniversary, but it is the exact weekend that we "reunited" 10 years ago. We are both very much looking forward to roaming around Chicago together, just like old times!

I'm on my own till Thursday, so hopefully my little dudes will behave themselves. Have a good week everyone!

Post Turtle

I get lots of e-mail jokes and such, but this might be my new favorite!

This is the best short summary of the Palin phenomenon.

Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, ' Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.'

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was. The old rancher said, ' When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.'

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain.

"You know, she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with."

Curious?

I'm curious how the whole current financial drama is going to play out over the next few days. I see that McCain wants to suspend his campaign to return to his real job and try and "fix" things.

Apparently his fix, and our current crappy administrations fix, would be asking American taxpayers to cough up our hard earned money. Where exactly do they think all this money is going to come from in order to fix things? I fail to see the logic of asking us taxpayers (some of us who seem to have our financial affairs in order) to pay for the mistakes of businesses and individuals who screwed up.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I went out and overspent thousands of dollars on credit no one in their right mind would just give me the money to pay it back??

Crazy!

Pumpkin pickin'

I took the boys to Flint over the weekend. Chris was in his happy place with a Friday night game and a Saturday Purdue game. Rather than stay home bored with the boys, I headed to Flint. As usual, the boys had a blast hanging out on the farm.



While I thought it would be too early, the pumpkins were mostly ready to be picked. What the deer hadn't eaten were starting to rot. Something about the weather this season was not good for pumpkins. So, the boys helped find pumpkins in the field while us grown ups did the "harvesting". That was a good work out I might add. I can't tell you how many times I almost fell on my butt trying to get through the weeds carrying a huge pumpkin!



We were almost all covered in mud by the time we were done. We then got to haul all the pumpkins up to the barn, wash them and stack them. Dad saw fit to let the boys take turns with being hose handlers. So by the time all that was completed I was a muddy, soaked mess! And, you guessed it...the boys loved it!



They got to ride the big tractor, fling poo or spread manure, drive the golf cart, drive the 4 wheeler and get dirty. Basically ever little boys dream come true weekend. Oh, and there was a new barn kitty to play with as well.

Findlay Reunion

I took the boys with me on Saturday for a mini University of Findlay reunion with my Findlay friends. All three of the gals live in Ohio. There is Laura from Columbus, who was my maid of honor, Stephanie from Cleveland and Melissa from Findlay. We all vary in different life styles but we enjoyed getting together and visiting for the afternoon.

Counting my two boys there were 6 kids total and mostly close in age. This was nice because the boys had new friends to play with. Although, once they discovered the Wii they didn't venture too far from the living room. The Wii is definitely on Santa's list this year. It will have to be highly monitored, otherwise they would just play it all the time. Much like how we currently only will allow Play Station to be played on weekends.

Anyway...I digressed.

Saturday was a lot of fun. It was nice to get caught up with everyone. Plus, we made a trip out to the farm. I haven't been out there since I graduated, 13 years ago. They have made some nice improvements and the barns were completely full of horses. And, much nicer horses I must add from when we were there. We were one of the first classes in the English program, so it was in its infancy. I'd give an eye tooth for any of the horses they have there now!

It made me want to start riding again. Not an easy taste for our current life style. It was a fun day and I'm glad we all found time to make it work.

Take a hike, Ike!

My thoughts are with all Texans tonight as they prepare to be hit by Ike tonight and tomorrow. This storm chicken would be well out of there by now, but for those that stayed, be safe and good luck!

Haflinger National Horse Show

Thursday I was able to escape with Connor for the day to head down to the Indy area. My parents have been there for most of the week at their Haflinger National Horse Show. They took three horses with them this year. They were only showing their five year old, Deb, in halter classes and driving their other two geldings. I wasn't able to be there today while they were driving. Darn! I enjoy watching mom and dad drive. She is tough to beat!

I was happy to see them do well while I was there. Their mare won her halter class and then took Senior Grand Champion Mare. She was then up against the Junior Grand Champion Mare and got Reserve Grand Champion. Which, was a joke because she was a way better horse than the one that beat her...and I'm not just saying that because I'm a sore looser. I will always tell mom the honest truth of when a better horse beats them. But that wasn't the case this time. I've sat and judged those classes for years and I know enough to know they got screwed! Nothing you can do about it. I felt bad for my mom because she wanted Grand Champion more than anything! Not to mention that mom can be scary at horse shows so it is always better when she wins!

Here are a couple of pictures from while we were there.

Connor did great!

Big sigh of relief here. We made it through the first day of preschool for Connor. And, I do me WE. I shed most of my tears last night with just Chris and got it out of my system.

Connor was excited and happy to be at school this morning. Tami and I walked Connor and Zoe into their classroom and off they went. I manged to get a kiss from him and Zoe took him by the hand and away they went. I get bonus points for not shedding any tears. I was just really happy to see him be okay with it all. He seemed to really enjoy playing on the playground the most.

We took them out to lunch at Pizza Hutt afterwards to celebrate their first day. Good for Connor! I did manage a picture or too...perhaps Chris can get them on the computer for me later!

Connor and preschool

Just got back from Connor's preschool open house. He did very well and was good with his teachers. We stayed for a while because it takes him so long to warm up to different places. I'm sad to be taking my "baby" to preschool. I had to actually hold back tears a couple of times while I was watching him explore. It just doesn't seem possible.

Monday is his first day of school and I'm sure I will be a babbling idiot then. Looking forward to that...NOT!

Politics

I don't like to talk about politics.

There is a standing agreement between Chris and I that we do not talk about politics, ever. We do not agree on any single aspect of politics. Nothing positive ever, I repeat, ever comes out of my talking about politics with Chris. I guess you can say that with certain aspects of my relationship with my husband, opposites attract. I'm a Democrat, he is not.

I know I shouldn't do it here either...but I have to make a few comments about politics and mainly the newest poster girl of the week. No, I did not watch the Republican Convention last night so that I could listen to Sarah Palin. Shocking I know...especially because I'm a woman and a mom and I'm supposed to bow to her mommyness. I'd rather have the remaining nine toenails I have ripped out one at time than tune in to listen to her or the rest of her party. In all fairness, I didn't watch the other "historical" convention hoopla either.

I wasn't going to be voting for the McCain ticket, so it isn't like putting her on the ticket swayed me or anything. But I want to say this about her... I'm sure she is a great speaker, I'm sure she is an up an coming Republican, I'm sure she could be a terrific Governor given more time....but as a mother..she sucks.

I obviously have none of the basic details of how she mothers her children. I don't know if she reads them a bed time story at night or car pools them around to practice. I don't know if she has sewn many Halloween costumes or suffered through bad pregnancies. I'm sure she can make just as mean of a chocolate chip cookie as the rest of us moms. However, she has no business being on that ticket and subjecting her family to all that it brings with it.

She knowingly, with all the facts prior to making her decision, chose to be on the republican ballot with a 17 year old pregnant daughter at home. Her daughter will need her. She knowingly chose to be on that ticket knowing that she has an infant child at home. Let alone an infant with Down Syndrome. Her infant will need her. She knowingly chose to walk away from all five of her young children so that she could further her career based on the token move of a desperate old man grasping at straws. All of her children need her.

I have on rare occasions been away from my young children for more than a few days at a time and they miss me. Dad does a great job and the boys are just fine upon my return, but they miss me and I miss them. I couldn't imagine being away from them for the kind of commitment a presidential campaign entails.

No mother in her right mind would dare put her young pregnant daughter into the limelight. Especially knowing that the press would be all over it and she would be dragged through the news. I'd sooner give my right arm before bringing national attention to an unwed pregnant daughter and a child with a disease. Using her mommy goodness to win votes is disgusting. Even if the press hardly touched those stories everyone in the country knows her daughter is pregnant. That is just not okay!

I don't like her for a lot of reasons....she is pro NRA, she believes Roe vs Wade should be overturned, she wants to teach creationism in schools, she has no international experience and she is a Republican...but allowing negative attention to be brought on her children based on her own political career should be the definition of bad mom! Even if she were a Democrat and I agreed with every single one of her policies I would still feel the same way. What she is doing is shameful.

Once again, I'm probably all alone in my boat, that's fine. I'm used to being the wacko with weird religion and political beliefs. I won't take the token bait that McCain is hoping moms across the country will bite upon. Don't expect me, a proud woman and proud mom to be singing All Praise Palin. She should be ashamed of what she is putting her daughter and other children through. All I can hope is that for the sake of her children McCain takes a shit and Sara gets to go back home to Alaska to do some hunting, fishing and grandchild raising.

"I Kissed a Girl....

....and I Liked It"

The context of that song may be a bit off, but my six year old son kissed a girl, and he liked it. Yes, there are so many things wrong with that statement, that I don't even know where to begin!

I guess I could be happy that he likes girls. I'm trying to hold onto the positives at this point. I know that is what my husband was thinking, he just hasn't had the nerve to admit that to me yet. The girl he kissed is his six year old best friend and neighbor. She has been best friends with Wes for nearly 3 years and their birthdays are two weeks apart.

Apparently she told her Dad that Wes kissed her. The kiss in question happened Sunday while our families were together for a cook out. We spent the afternoon next door and Chris smoked a pork butt (which was great - I must add). We had a great afternoon and evening. Played lots of ladder toss, drank lots of beer, ate lots of food, played dominoes and apparently Wes did some kissing! Who knew?

He is six! What the hell? After Chris asked him tonight if anything weird happened on Sunday he fessed up.

"Does kissing count as weird?"

Hmmm....let me think about that. Hell yeah... when you are six! I think my eyes just about popped out of my head at the dinner table. My innocent six year old is kissing?

If I hadn't been so appalled and near crying because my six, did I mention he is six, year old son was kissing his best friend I probably would have been laughing. He was obviously super embarrassed because he dropped his dinner fork about 4 times and kept giggling. Eye contact didn't exist much either.

We had a nice long chat and according to him she asked him to kiss her. To which he obviously obliged. It seems that there was a second kiss that he decided to give to her. After talking to Tami it sounds like it was mutual and no one put them up to it. Worse yet...experimentation at six. I also believe that her having an older sister probably had something to do with this. Wes just doesn't know a darn thing,or so I thought, about kissing and relationships. He never watches that stuff on t.v. and I know her and her sister are always talking about boyfriends and all that stuff.

I guess this is the point that I become thankful that I don't have girls.

Obviously we told him the problem with kissing girls at a young age, especially his best friend, and he agreed that the proper age for kissing is 20. I asked that he wait till he was 18, but he thought 20 sounded better. Far be it for me not to agree with 20.

I feel some gray hairs sprouting this evening.

Big day, big day....

...it's back to school today!

Wes is hopefully enjoying his first full day of first grade. Kindergarten for him last year was half day, so he is taking a big step today by going to full day. He will be eating lunch as school, having recess on the "big playground" and riding the bus home.

He was very excited about school today. I'm happy that he likes school and doesn't seem to get stressed about new things like this. I can't wait to hear how the day went for him.

On a mom note...I'm a bit sad about his being gone all day. While the peace is sure nice and Connor is loving it..it's just hard to believe that my little boy is old enough to be at school all day. Where has the time gone? I don't want him to grow up just yet.

It's Official...

...football has begun.

Chris had his first of a series of officials football meetings last night and tonight is his first game to ref. Even though he says, "It's just a scrimmage"...it's the first of the high school football season. I have to get my game back and start the boys and my Friday night rituals!

And something else football season means....school starts for Wes next week. Thank goodness. I didn't think I was going to make it another week with a bored first grader. He is excited to go back to school. Good for him and even better for me. Connor will start pre-school a couple of weeks later.

ADT update

Props to ADT. I must admit that I didn't expect much to happen with ADT. I was wrong. It was nice that they took me seriously and decided it was worth the time to fix things at our house.

A repair tech was here earlier and replaced the basement fire detector. While here he also looked at and changed batteries in another problem area in our house.

Thank you ADT for good customer service and hopefully fixing our fire alarm problem.

Fire ADT?

It happened again at 2:45 last night. It has probably happened, with us at home, 3 other times and always at night. Every time it happens I swear it takes a couple of years off our lives.

You are wondering what IT is, aren't you? Our very loud, very intense, ADT fire alarm went off again at 2:45 in the morning. This happens from time to time and there is no logical reason for it...according to ADT. It is terrifying to wake from a dead sleep to a deafening alarm and a male voice blaring "FIRE, FIRE, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY". And, of course there is no fire - thankfully! Another scary part of this is that our boys do not wake up. I know they are sound sleepers...but it is mind boggling to me they can't hear it. I believe the neighbors could hear it.

Chris and I bolted out of bed. I failed to get the alarm turned off upstairs during my heart attack and Chris ran downstairs to turn it off. We have this routine down now. I grab the phone because ADT will be calling in seconds from when it goes off to decide if they need to stop the firetruck.

Yes, a firetruck is deployed automatically unless ADT tells the fire department it is a false alarm. We have been out of town when this has happened and the firetruck came to our house. We have also been home when this has happened and somehow missed the call from ADT only for me to have to greet the firemen at our front door in the middle of the night. That was embarrassing. It NEVER happens during the day, of course.

You can see that that this is highly frustrating. I've tried to deal with ADT about it and I refuse to pay for a service call to fix their problem. Last I talked with them the basement fire detector (which is always the one with the problem) had been put on stand-by to not do this, but obviously something has changed.

Now here is our dilemma. We keep talking about firing ADT. We hardly ever use the home security part. However, I do feel safe having the fire service (even if it doesn't seem to properly work) because it would definitely protect our house if we ever actually had a fire. Hell, firetrucks have been out to our house twice. The system also has a dinger on the doors whenever a main door is opened. That is my favorite feature. I know if the boys have gone in or out and it really helps to keep an eye on them. No one can get in without me knowing it.

All that being said, the heart attacks in the middle of the night are getting old. We can never get back to sleep because it is just terrifying to wake up like that. I could only think last night after going back to bed what could have happened and I really never got back to sleep. How would we have gotten out, would we have been able to get out the main floor, would we have to use the fire ladder....aghhhhh.

So, we don't know what to do. I'm going to call ADT back again today and "talk" about last night...but I don't think anything will come of it. Anyone out there had this problem?

Girls Weekend Revisited

We had a great weekend. I would recommend this trip to anyone looking for a quick getaway, families included. We loaded up the car and left around 5:00 on Friday and it only took us about 2.5 hours to get to South Haven, Mi. We went to our camp ground, which I will give high points too.

South Haven Family Campground was easy to find and almost brand new. Any concern I had about the facility being clean were quickly gone. Our cabin was just as cute as could be and very clean. It had two beds that could sleep 4 on the "main" level and then a loft that could also sleep children. Plus, it had AC or heat, if you were there in the winter. Directly across from us were the bathroom facilities and they were also very clean and had individual showers with doors that you could lock, a bonus.



We had some very interesting neighbors. Let me just say that they provided lots of entertainment for us while we were sitting out in the evenings. I will say no more! They informed us once (and I think they thought we were lesbians) that we were the quietest neighbors they have ever had. I don't think they thought it was a compliment, even though I took it that way.

We spent Saturday making our way from South Haven, to Saugatuck and then to New Douglas. Each town had lots of fun shops, cool places to eat on the water, beaches, and bonus, wine tasting shops.





We made our way to only one winery on Saturday and that was Fenn Valley. We were there with less than a half hour before their closing. That wasn't a problem, but the ladies behind the counter serving us were grumpy. They hardly even conversed with us. Which, isn't generally the way wine tasting works.

We had a great time in the tasting room for Tabor Hill Winery located in Saugatuck. The gentleman that helped us spent lots of time with us and answered lots of questions. Plus he carded us...that made our day!

While in New Douglas on Saturday we came across a little wine tasting room called Corkscrew. They make their own wine from purchased grape juice. We were the only two people in the shop and the gentlemen there spent lots of time with us explaining how certain wines are made. He was lots of fun!

Sunday we packed up and headed out to roam around the Benton Harbor area. I think we actually ended up in St. Joseph. We lucked out and found a large antique show going on. That was interesting to check out. We went through a few shops and then headed out to find a few more wineries in the area. Along the way we came across the town of Coloma. The Glad Peach Festival was going on, who knew?

We checked out the Glad Peach Fest and then headed to the Karma Vista Winery. Karma Vista had very nice views perched on top of a big hill. We enjoyed tasting there. There was an expensive painting there that I just loved. Had I known at the time that my husband, back home taking care of the boys, had purchased himself a new toy (a Play Station 3) I may have pulled the trigger on that painting. Probably best for our budget that I didn't know!

Our last winery of the trip was Contessa Wine Cellars. Contessa wasn't there. Just two odd girls who weren't very talkative. They did have a cat, but that was about the coolest part of their place.

We had a fun time. I ended up buying a lot of wine, local fruit, and a new purse! It was relaxing and as always, full of laughs with Heather around. We get in so much trouble together. Thank you to Chris for taking care of the boys this weekend, I couldn't have gone without him.

If you are interested in visiting any of these places check out the following:

www.southhavenfamilycg.com

www.karmavista.com

www.taborhill.com

www.miwinetrail.com

Girls Weekend

It's that time of the year again. As summer draws to a close Heather and I take off for our annual Girls Weekend. Last year we had a fantastic time in Traverse City, Michigan. We visited a lot of wineries, did a lot of shopping and ate some great smoked salmon.

As much as I would like to repeat our trip there, we have some time restraints on us this year. We opted for a mere 2.5 hour drive to the South Haven and Saugatuck, Michigan area. The region has a lot wineries, a must, as well as shopping, dinning and new this year, camping. Sorta camping....we decided to try a small cabin at a South Haven campground. It has plenty of beds, electricity and AC!!! It is supposed to be very hot this weekend. The AC better work...or I'll be getting my travel on to somewhere else!

I should have a wrap up next week. I'm really looking forward to shopping, drinking lots of wine and sitting around a campfire with my best girl friend eating 'smores and cheetos.