End of September 2016

I volunteered again to help out at the elementary school during Kindergarten Lunch Time (again- at 10:30!)  It's a tight run ship during that half hour.  The kids just sit there and eat.  They aren't really allowed to get loud and talk a bunch.  Towards the end of lunch they will play some calm music as well but that's really it.  The kids are getting the hang of it - I was needed far less than the last time I came.

Landen

Avery

Mr. Dimple

His lunch is usually a slice of deli turkey, apples, cheese, snap peas, crackers or pirates booty, and some dried blueberries.

He is wiped out from those long days from 7:45 - 2:55

My car is always a mess, especially since now Emmalyn is big enough to contribute to the mess by bringing stuff into the car.  

I had one last work trip for the month - I went to a leadership summit for the Network of Executive Women in Orlando.  It was a great conference plus it was a lot of fun that I had a good group of friends from work there too.

Unfortunately, it appears that Emmalyn has gotten Hand Foot and Mouth Disease when she went to Britt's church (when Peter and I were in Chicago).  So it was hard to leave her knowing that she was sick.  

Kallie, Kari, Beth, Amy, Jessica, Stacey

Beth!!  Her office used to be right next to mine and it was great.

A couple of us went to Downtown Disney for dinner.  Dinner was just eh but it was fun to walk around and I got a couple of Disney shirts for the kids.

This musician was playing a didgeridoo.  It was impressive!

A picture I got of Emmalyn in the morning.  

Hanging with dad at Maxwell's tennis lessons.

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He's on the right side, smallest kiddo there.

Snapchat entertainment with dad

We had some time before the dinner gala so we went to get pampered!

I sat with Laura, who works for one of my clients, at dinner.  It has been fun building a friendship with her especially since she was pretty cold and aloof when I first joined the team.

Facetime at bedtime.  So glad I can still see my kids even when traveling!

Red carpet

We clearly were letting loose!

Kari Jessica and Beth

We decided to leave the party and go to Kari's favorite line dancing club.  We all piled into an Uber and it was non-stop laughs.

This line dancing place was like nothing I've ever experienced.  They lined danced to everything from country to Brittney Spears.  It was a ton of fun.

We had an epic time!

Amy Purdy was the keynote speaker in the morning.  She was great!

Never a shortage of cheese

Playing with one of the toys from Peter's birthday

We were "BOO'd" by our neighbors!  The kids were really excited!

A big moment happened this week.  On Sept 26th, it was the first morning that when Emmalyn woke up, I didn't nurse her.  It was time to be done nursing.  I was really proud that I nursed her past 2 1/2 years.  She was so upset with me.  I had even prepped her a few days ago and told her that she was a big girl now and didn't need Momma's milk.  In the saddest voice ever she goes, "I'm not a big girruhl... I'm not!...I'm not a big girruhl."  ("Girl" is a two syllable word for her.)  It was super sad.  Then when Peter came into the room she told him she wanted to nurse.  It was so hard for me not to give in!

The next day on the 27th was rough again.  She had slept horribly and was up at least 6 times crying and whining throughout the night.  When I said no, she yelled at me, "I...want...to...nurse!!!!" Multiple times.  She was so mad at me.  I felt awful :(

Emmalyn is such a Momma's girl and misses me a ton when I'm not there.  She just clings to me and begs to go to work or wherever with me.  She's getting feisty though too.  She hit me today when we were in the eyeglasses store because I was stopping her from running around. 

Maxwell still says, "Demember" instead of "Remember" and "Cucancumber" for "cucumber" and "panacake" for "pancakes".  I love these little things.  :)

September Chicago Trip - Adults only fun!

It's hard to tell what's going on in this picture, so I'll tell you... Emmalyn is all snuggled up to me on the couch.   I love snuggling with her!

My cousins Lindsay and Brandon got a cute new puppy that we got to play with when we were visiting them.  Emmalyn was pretty much in love.

Look at this handsome kid all dressed up for school.  It was picture da).  What a cutie!

Dad did a great job getting him ready for school since I was out of town.

Maxwell's school picture (with his half smile)

I had a work trip to Chicago for a meeting with my client that is based there.  I love going to Chicago.  It's taken over as my favorite city (sorry San Fran).

We got to go to a Cub's game.  It was a lot of fun!

I saw on Facebook that my friend, Rick, from High School happened to also be at the game so we caught up for a few minutes during the game.  It was great to see him and say hi since it's been more than 10 years. (And pretty cool that we met up in a city that neither of us live in.)

Got a cubs shirt.  I was pretty excited to get a shirt that I could fit in!  (My weight loss journey is going well and I'm starting to feel like things are changing with my body.)

Sunrise from my hotel room - so beautiful with a view of Navy Pier!

The view of Navy Pier and the lake from my client's office - it was VERY high up.  Look at how little those skyscrapers look.

View of Millenium park and the "bean"

My friend Melissa was at the kid's school during lunch and sent me this picture of Maxwell at lunch.  Looks like he's having a good lunch, most of it is gone except his turkey.  See his badge that he's got on?  All the kids wear one every day.

When my meetings were over, I had previously decided to stay in town and have Peter come join me for a fun kids-free couples weekend with our friends the Parrigans.

While I waited for Peter to get to the hotel from the airport, I went down and walked along the lake and even put a foot in, just so I could say that I've been in it.

I'm sure this beach is a great place to be in the summer.

Beautiful rainbow stream of water over the river that I found during my walk.

There's always new things to find and enjoy in this great city!

Our first night of vacation was spent hanging out with Sarah, her husband Brad, and her sister and brother-in-law.  We started out at a Korean restaurant for some cook-it-yourself Korean BBQ.  We've never had it before and LOVED it.  It was a total great experience and yummy too.  It was way too much food!

Cooking the meat

The group

After dinner, we went to a different part of town to hang out, enjoy some drinks, and funny enough - ended up watching part of a BYU football game.

The next morning, we got up early to get some sight seeing in before we met up with Sarah and Brad.  We walked to Navy Pier from our hotel (We walked everywhere today!)

The view of the John Hancock building from Navy Pier

The building over my head is the building I was in the previous day for the meetings.  It is the Aon building and so very very tall.  I think the offices were on the 76th floor.

We walked to Millenium park but didn't make it to the bean yet.

We finally met up with the Parrigan's for lunch.  We went to this fantastic cajun restaurant they knew about that was super cool (look at all that hot sauce!).

I love me some hot sauce!  I was really excited to find the hot sauce that I got when we were in Belize.  It's fantastic.  I enjoyed the hot sauce in my beans and rice.  And since it was like we were in New Orleans, I got a hurricane too.

My food - some po boy sandwich or something.

After lunch we walked to the Sears tower (it's now called the Willis Tower) and waited in line to go up to the skydeck.  The line was ridiculous and just never ended..

At this point we were so exhausted from standing in line (and over socialized too) that we just sat down and everyone played on their phones.

My feet weren't tired from all the walking but from all that standing!  It was awful.  It was no way worth the view we were going to have.  There are so many more great things we could have done with the hours we spent just waiting.  UGH!!!!

Stats on the space needle (remember - we visited it this year!)

Floor 103 is how high we went up.  Crazy

Finally we made it through all the endless lines to stand in the crazy glass boxes hanging out over the edge of the building.

The ONE good thing about the wait was that it meant that we were there perfectly to enjoy the sunset.

It was a LONG way down to the street below us.  Such an odd feeling standing on that glass floor.  It made me uneasy but I was totally freaked out.

The Chicago suburbs in the background - they went on as far as the eye could see.

Things were lighting up!

Brad smiling (probably because we could finally be done!)

How we felt about our time at the tower...

"Get ready for an unforgettable experience"??  It sure was unforgettable.

We might have been a little loopy...

Yup, we were definitely loopy.

We then walked to get some dinner.  At one point we passed a 7-11 and I made everyone go in an get a slurpee.  It was a good idea, we needed a little sugar to pick us up.  We were all feeling pretty rough.

After another long wait, we sat down to have dinner at Lou Malnatti's.   

Peter enjoying authentic Chicago deep dish pizza for the very first time.

Look at how much I walked - - over 25,000 steps in one day!!

The next morning Peter and I did the architecture tour on the river.  It was early but we wanted to fit it in.  I LOOOOOVED the Pumpkin Chai Tea that I got.

This tour was amazing.  It was so interesting and educational.  It really opened my eyes to many things that I never paid attention to in city architecture.  It's totally changed how I look at buildings now.  We both really really enjoyed it.

The kids went to church with Brittany while we were gone.  

It's been a lot of fun spending time together.  We haven't been away together from our kids for a night since Emmalyn was born (at least that I can remember anyway).

We had RPM for lunch - it's an Italian restaurant I've really wanted to try.  It was amazing.  The pastas were ridiculously good.  Probably the best since we went to Italy. 

We met the Parrigans one more time.  They were pretty wiped out physically (and socially) from our previous day so we kept it simple and just met for a snack.  We ate at Snack Shack but I didn't really have anything since we had just had lunch.  They then left to drive home to Michigan.

We made it to the bean!  Last thing to do before walking back to the hotel and heading to the airport.

One last bit of Chicago on the plane - Peter ate a Chicago dog.  What a fun short weekend vacation!!!