Jackson's First Day of Second Grade

 

Jackson's first day of Second Grade!!!  His teacher this year is Mrs. Comer, and she is getting rave reviews...  He's also reunited with several friends from his Kinder class!  We can't wait to see what this year will be like!

Summer Winds Down

We had our first Family Movie Date to see "Finding Dory!"  It was the perfect activity for yet another HOT afternoon...

We loved the movie and the Qdoba dinner afterwards :)

We'd been meaning to catch up with these friends all summer!  It FINALLY worked out to meet up AND it was Kate's birthday!  We helped her celebrate with a little Cracker Barrel brunch :)

Haircut Day = Treat Reward!

Fill a huge container with Slurpee for a ridiculously cheap price...and then take it on your Target shopping trip!  LOL!

It got a bit breezy, so they got our their umbrellas "just for fun..."

...it pretty quickly turned to this!

Baseball, Here We Go!

Well, we made the big switch to baseball this season...  I was really nervous, but so far, I am already more pleased than I have been in the last three seasons or so of soccer, and we haven't even started playing games!  I'll call that a win...  Our call from our coach came even before the specified date, he was impressive on the phone and seems pretty organized.  We have a list of our first few practices and the game schedule is coming soon. Not only does Coach Rob know what he is doing while running a practice, he has TWO assistant coaches helping him with it all!  Such a pleasant change...

The weather is SOOO hot!  Hitting water balloons off the tee was a perfect end to practice!

This little brother enjoyed Jackson's baseball practice juuuussst fine: Coach Chris came over to Graham and gave him a baseball to hold. He showed G how to hold it and encouraged him to hold it really tightly. Then he asked him to hold the ball over his head and keep squeezing. Meanwhile, Coach snuck a water balloon over G's head and popped it just right so G literally thought he squeezed water out of a baseball!!!  Someone was pretty pleased with himself... 

Getting comfy at the plate

SUCH a *cute* stinker!

Killing time in the dugout during another practice!  Games start soon...!!!

Chicago Tourist Date Night

We celebrated our actual anniversary in Michigan, and then we got to enjoy a present from my Mom and Dad of a Double Date to take an architectural boat tour in downtown Chicago.  I had been on a boat tour of Chicago once in summer camp, but none of us had ever done the architectural one!  We were all really looking forward to it, and it did not disappoint!

 We got on board pretty early and picked great seats.  Our guide was really funny, but he also knew his stuff, so we all learned a lot!

 A shot of Navy Pier in the distance

 The boat paused for some photo ops

Of course, I don't remember nearly as much as I'd like to of what we learned, so we'll just have to go again one day!  The weather was beautiful, and we had such a good time doing something special and fun in "our" city :)

 Oh my!  For dinner, we went to a Millie's Supper Club, and it was DELICIOUS!  This is a picture of my beer cheese soup that came with popcorn as a topping!  Everything was so yummy, and we were SO full!

 Our plan was to meet up with Cassie, Jonah, Zoey and Brody at a playground on Thursday and leave for Indianapolis on Friday for a night or two.  BUT, Katie's family got a stomach bug, so for everyone's comfort we had to cancel that stop :(  BUT, it bought us an extra day and night in Evanston because we had already added a last-minute stop in Louisville, KY to our trip home, so we had to wait until that hotel night was scheduled.  It ended up being a blessing in disguise to just have one extra day before packing up the car again :)

A nice, cool, comfy evening at Mimi and Bampa's in their new t-shirts earned from Camp Curiosity: Summer Reading at the Skokie Library!

Jackson Tries Tae Kwon Do

Jackson's school started offering after-school activities this year!  I was super excited to let Jackson try some new things.  We don't sign up for many after school activities because I really don't relish the idea of getting int he car with both boys to drive in traffic somewhere and then sit with Graham while Jackson participates in said activity.  These programs solved this dilemma because Jackson just stays after school and I only have to drive up the road at four o'clock to pick him up!  SCORE!  The first class Jackson tried was Tae Kwon Do!  He LOVED it!  

At the end of the six weeks of class, Master Justin hosted an Open House at his studio (Prestige Sport Martial Arts) to show the parents what the kids worked on and to have an ice cream celebration!

Each student received a certificate and a white belt!

Jackson can't wait to take more Tae Kwon Do classes :)

Meadowlark Walk of LIghts

For the past few years, I have heard really good things about Meadowlark's Winter Walk of Lights during the holiday season.  We decided to try it out this year!  It was a super fun evening as an early Christmas present for my mom, and we went to dinner first at one of our favorite restaurants, SweetWater Tavern.

I think we all oohed and aahed as we walked outside into the gardens.  It was a true wonderland of lights!

We know three of those carolers ;)

SO FUN!

We had awesome seats to watch this great lightshow!  There were lots of Adirondack chairs lined up on the lawn, so we got comfy and enjoyed the show :)

One Graham a-dancing!

These two had the best time copying the lit-up animals!

Bampa got in on this one too!  I think it was a frog?

Jackson loves nutcrackers, so he had to post like one!

We all had an amazing time trying out something new, and this outing will be added to our regular list next year :)