Fall is Here...

We are really seeing the season change over to fall!  The kids are keeping busy with fall activities and fun outings.  Cassidy is playing both volleyball and cross country for her school's team.  She's working so hard and we are so proud of her great effort and positive attitude with both sports.  She also completed a school research project recently for her Social Studies class.  They were studying various tribes/groups in history, and she chose to research the "Mound Builders."  She worked hard to plan and create the visuals for her presentation.  Tyler and I enjoyed going to see all the 5th grade presenters!  Cassie continues to do pencil drawings in her spare time, and I posted below a photo of one she completed while we were in Florida in August.  She calls is "Nature Girl."  It's fascinating to see her artistic ability come to life in her drawings, and she just loves it so much.

Tyler has been busy the past few weeks practicing his bike-riding skills.  He was tentative at first, and it took some good practice, but he's up and riding!  His mohawk helmet was at the top of his birthday wish list this year.

Gavin and his great buddy Will got a nice treat when Erik and Dan, Will's dad, surprised the boys with last-minute tickets to a Wednesday night Cubs game (a school night!).  While we wouldn't normally have Gavin out that late with school the next day, this was a special circumstance - this was game 4 of the NLCS against the Dodgers.  If the Cubs lost, it would have been their final game for the season.  But as luck would have it, they won!  The boys got to see a fantastic win at Wrigley together, under the lights!  (Unfortunately, they went on to lose the next game, so the Cubs season ended there!)  Erik had another fun Chicago sports outing, this time with Cassidy - they went together to the Bears game.  They had an amazing tailgate with some fun friends and all sat together for the game.  The Bears beat the Carolina Panthers, so another fun win.

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.