Birthday Fun!

We celebrated some special birthdays this month!  Erik turned 40 and Tyler turned 5!  We made sure the birthday boys felt lots of love.  Erik's family came over to celebrate with us.  We opened gifts and had cake!  With so many fall birthdays (Erik, Tyler, Mary, Mel and Aaron - all within 2 weeks of each other!) we had a lot to celebrate!  For Erik's 40th, I planned a night on the town with 4 other couples who we've known for 20+ years.  We went to a fun restaurant in Chicago called "Untitled" for a delicious dinner, then headed over to the Redhead Piano Bar (an iconic piano bar in the city that Erik has always loved) where we had arranged for Erik to get a surprise call up on stage to play a song of his choice for the crowd.  He played "Piano Man" - it was SO much fun.  For Tyler's special day, he wanted to spend the afternoon at Chuck-E-Cheese - what 5 year old wouldn't, right?!  So we had a blast playing Skee-ball and collecting tickets, all good fun.  Tyler also had a party with his friends from school.  He and his great buddy James are only a couple weeks apart, so they chose to combine their party into one and invite all the boys from their grade.  We planned a sports party over at the local recreation center, and they had a great time playing sports, running around, and eating cupcakes!
Lastly, we had my parents in for a visit from Florida to celebrate these birthday boys and also to attend Grandparent's Day at school.  We made the most of their visit by doing some fun outings - mini-putt, ice cream at our local Graeter's, dinner at Gale Street Inn (one of Dad's old haunts and his favorite place for ribs!), Gillson Beach and the Botanic Garden, just to name a few.  We also took in one of Gavin's baseball games, although the skies opened up halfway through, so it was a quick one!  We always look forward to their visits to Wilmette.  Below are some pictures of all the festivities from the past few weeks.

September Happenings

We've kept busy the past few weeks as the school year has gotten underway.  The kids have all transitioned in pretty nicely and are enjoying seeing all their friends again.

We tried something new this month, sailing!  We have some friends who are experienced boaters, and they keep a sailboat at the local sailing beach.  They kindly took us out sailing for the day.  It's always fun to have new adventures!  And - controlling a sailboat in the wind is a huge workout!

For the past few summers, ever since we moved to this home, we have done a summertime backyard campout with neighbors on the block.  This year we rotated out of our yard and stayed across the street.  Daddy is such a champ for staying out there all night with the kiddos, and my role is sleep inside and make a big breakfast for the crew the next morning.  The kids have such a great time with this and have come to look so forward to it!

We took in a late summer Cubs game and had a fun time as always.  We rode the el downtown early to try and watch the players warm up.  We happened to have Addison Russell warming up right in front of us, so that was fun for the kids to see.  We'd also learned that they allow kids to run the bases after the game on all Sunday daytime home games, so we chose this game specifically to give that a try.  Super fun!  The kids ran their hearts out and thought it was cool to tag home plate at Wrigley.  The Cubs lost this one to the Brewers, but we still enjoyed a really fun day at the ballpark.

Wrapping up Summer - Back to School!

At the end of August, we experienced a solar eclipse!  We live too far north to have been able to see a total eclipse; what we witnessed was a partial eclipse.  The kids were excited and we got special glasses to be able to look at the eclipse without damaging our eyes.  None of us really knew what to expect (I can't recall ever witnessing an eclipse before?).  Honestly, it wasn't as monumental here in Chicagoland as I heard it was further down south, where the moon passed perfectly in front of the sun and created really neat images, and strange daytime darkness.  The first photo below is what our sky looked like - it just got a bit dimmer outside, but the sun continued to shine.  However, when I took a photo through the special glasses, you could see what was really happening much better!

On August 23, the kids returned to school!  Cassie began 5th grade (middle school!), Gavin began 3rd grade, and Tyler started in Junior Kindergarten.  It's always bittersweet; I miss being with the kids and I miss the laid-back, fun pace of summer - but it's also time to return to a nice routine (and learn some things too!).

To wrap up August, Erik and the boys joined Grandpa Brown for a Bears game!  They played the Cleveland Browns (and unfortunately the Bears got clobbered!) - but it was such a fun experience for all of them to go to Soldier Field together.  Grandpa Brown has been a season ticket holder since 1971!  Fun to keep the tradition alive. Go Bears!