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.
