Less than two weeks before Christmas, Dave woke up with pain in his abdomen. He had an umbilical hernia and needed surgery. He had to wait about a week before he had his surgery. The timing was both good and bad. It set him back a little at work as he pretty much had to work from home the whole week before the surgery and then have almost another week after to recover. And as far exercising or physical exertion, that was a no go too. Lucky Dave, he did get out of some serious snow shoveling and any gym time. It sort of felt like just when he had plans to get things going, all of sudden he couldn't go.
On the other hand, this happened in 2013 which saved us some money. If it had been after the new year, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums would have reset. Fortunately (and sadly) with all of Dave's health problems this year, we reached our max on everything sometime in the summer so basically this surgery was 100% covered. In fact, he had surgery on Friday, Friday the 13th. Some people may have been a too superstitious to have surgery on that day, but believe me neither of us wanted to wait or get any closer to Christmas.
The surgery was a pretty routine, out-patient surgery. He had his surgery at a newer hospital that is SO fancy, the people who work there call it the "Taj Mahal." I won't say its the Taj Mahal, but it is definitely the nicest hospital I've ever seen. The patient rooms feel like you are staying in a high-end hotel. The rooms have beautiful views and 2 (yes, 2!) flat screen tvs. I got to enjoy free fresh fruit and Starbucks herbal tea while I waited for Dave. We ended up spending the whole day at the hospital but everything went well. I'm glad he was okay and all patched up.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Monday, December 9, 2013
Nutcracker 2013
Ah, the Nutcracker Ballet. This was the second year Paige danced in the show. Thank goodness it's only once a year, because it gives parents plenty of time to forget how hard it is. Parents forget, sign their kid up again, and then once they remember what performance week is like, it's too late!!!
Let me tell you what performance week is like. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday there are mandatory technical and dress rehearsals. They run from 4:00 pm to almost 10:00 pm. Basically, the second Paige gets home from school, I rush to get her dressed, do her hair and makeup (in a VERY specific way) and then run over to the theater and basically sit there for 6 hours of rehearsals. I also want to point out that these are school nights. After the rehearsal, she has to come home and shower off all the make-up, hair gel, spray, etc. She gets to bed pretty late.
The shows are on Saturday and Sunday, which basically means repeating the whole, hair and makeup routine. The show itself is about three hours long. To add to my joy this year, the two numbers Paige was in required a hair change. Usually, everyone wears their hair in bun for every dance, but a few numbers require hair down and curled in spirals. Lucky me, Paige had one of these dances, which meant curling every single piece of her hair in ringlets. Then running backstage during intermission to re-do her hair and help her change costumes. Fortunately, Paige and her best friend Riley danced together so I could tag team with Riley's mom and take turns helping the girls.
It was all pretty exhausting. Paige was pretty grumpy and sleep-deprived and I was definitely running short of patience, so we had some bad moments during that week, but we survived. Paige loved dancing on stage. The show was great and in the end everyone was happy. And we will probably end up doing it again next year, sigh.
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| instead of flowers, we bought Paige a ballerina Nutcracker |
Shed a Tear for the Magic (Christmas spoiler alert!!)
So, last year Paige got an Elf on the Shelf as a birthday present, which put me in the position of having to welcome an Elf into our home. I am not a fan of the Elf on the Shelf. Don't we have enough to do already? However, Paige was super excited and I didn't want to let her down. So during the Christmas season last year, we had "Candy Cane" our elf showing up every night.
Fast forward to this year, as December is approaching, Paige is eagerly anticipating the arrival of her elf. She asks me when I think Candy Cane will come back. I tell her it will be soon. Well, Paige being the inquisitive person she is, decided to google Elf on the Shelf to see if there was specific day that she comes back. Uh, oh! What she reads about on Elf on the Shelf is shocking!
She comes to me and tells me that it says, "parents move the elf around!" "Is that true?"
Now, there are a few problems, to name two:
1) I am not prepared for this. I am caught a little off guard.
2) I do not like Elf on the Shelf and am probably predisposed to any way to get out of doing it.
Soooo, without really thinking it ALL the way through, I give it to her straight. She is shocked and sadly says, and I mean sadly, "I thought she was real."
Of course, Dave being wiser than me says, "you know what this is going to lead to, right?"
And not 10 minutes later, Paige comes back and asks about Santa. Shoot!
All I can say, is that it was sad. She even shed a few tears, not all out upset but just sad. This made me so sad. I knew this was coming, she had asked about it a few times in the weeks before, so it was probably time, but I wasn't quite ready. AND I COMPLETELY BLAME IT ON THAT STUPID ELF! Curse you elf!
Anyway, she did say, that she wanted to know and was glad we told her but I definitely felt the loss of the magic and innocence in a way that I didn't feel with Ashley. Maybe because Ash was a year older, I was more ready and of course, Paige is our last child, so Christmas won't be the same anymore.
Honestly, Paige seemed to get over it quickly. I was a little melancholy and sad for a few days, wishing I could have a redo, but life moves on. Christmas was different this year, but it was still special, just in a different way.
And for the record, it was probably a good thing this was my gaffe and not Dave's otherwise, I'd probably still be holding it against him. Thank goodness he is so forgiving and was so tender with Paige.
Fast forward to this year, as December is approaching, Paige is eagerly anticipating the arrival of her elf. She asks me when I think Candy Cane will come back. I tell her it will be soon. Well, Paige being the inquisitive person she is, decided to google Elf on the Shelf to see if there was specific day that she comes back. Uh, oh! What she reads about on Elf on the Shelf is shocking!
She comes to me and tells me that it says, "parents move the elf around!" "Is that true?"
Now, there are a few problems, to name two:
1) I am not prepared for this. I am caught a little off guard.
2) I do not like Elf on the Shelf and am probably predisposed to any way to get out of doing it.
Soooo, without really thinking it ALL the way through, I give it to her straight. She is shocked and sadly says, and I mean sadly, "I thought she was real."
Of course, Dave being wiser than me says, "you know what this is going to lead to, right?"
And not 10 minutes later, Paige comes back and asks about Santa. Shoot!
All I can say, is that it was sad. She even shed a few tears, not all out upset but just sad. This made me so sad. I knew this was coming, she had asked about it a few times in the weeks before, so it was probably time, but I wasn't quite ready. AND I COMPLETELY BLAME IT ON THAT STUPID ELF! Curse you elf!
Anyway, she did say, that she wanted to know and was glad we told her but I definitely felt the loss of the magic and innocence in a way that I didn't feel with Ashley. Maybe because Ash was a year older, I was more ready and of course, Paige is our last child, so Christmas won't be the same anymore.
Honestly, Paige seemed to get over it quickly. I was a little melancholy and sad for a few days, wishing I could have a redo, but life moves on. Christmas was different this year, but it was still special, just in a different way.
And for the record, it was probably a good thing this was my gaffe and not Dave's otherwise, I'd probably still be holding it against him. Thank goodness he is so forgiving and was so tender with Paige.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Wicked
Way back in August, Ashley's birthday present was tickets to Wicked. She had to wait, for the show to come to town and for the best seats, we chose a show in December. It was a long time to wait, but it's Wicked, so it's worth it!
Dave and I saw the show quite a few years ago when it first came to Chicago, but this was Ashley's first time. I consider our experience this time, the tale of two stories--the good and the bad. The show itself was fabulous, but everything else that evening was a bit of a nightmare for us as you shall soon learn…
First up, we had three tickets to the show. Dave, Ashley and I were going to go. Paige had mandatory dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker so she couldn't go. Unfortunately, the day before the show, Dave developed a hernia and was in and out of some serious pain. He decided that he probably couldn't go with us. We thought about taking Paige, but she decided she needed to be at rehearsal so we had an extra ticket. Considering the $100 price tag for each ticket, I didn't want it to just go to waste, the least we could do was give it to someone to enjoy. So last minute, Ashley invited her friend, Jane, from church to go with us. This was seriously, last minute, the girl went to school thinking she was going to have to babysit her brothers and sisters that night, but came home to learn that she had about 1 hour to get ready to go see Wicked. Surprise!
The original plan for the evening had been for Dave to drive to work and Ashley and I would ride the train downtown and meet him after work for the show. That way, we could avoid rush hour traffic going into Chicago and have a car to drive home after the show. We could also grab a quick bite to eat before the show. It would have been perfect. Unfortunately, with Dave sick we had to change plans. I will say that I still thought that we should take the train. The only risk was that after the show we had a short window to catch the last train out of the city back to the burbs. If we missed it, we would be stuck. Dave suggested we drive in. We could leave home at 4:30. Even if traffic was bad, it wouldn't take us 3 hours to get downtown. The show started at 7:30. I didn't know what to do but eventually decided to drive. I did, however, buy parking in advance, because I didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of parking, once we got there.
Ashley had bowling practice that afternoon, so the plan was to pick her up at the bowling alley, go get her friend and get on the freeway. When I went into the bowling alley to pick her up, I saw her sitting down, face red and puffy from crying and an ice pack on her hand. What?! How did she get injured bowling? Apparently they were practicing some kind of rolling technique on the carpet of the bowling alley and her finger got stuck in the hole of the ball and her hand got smashed between the ball and the ground. It hurt pretty bad and her fingers were very swollen and already starting to bruise. It looked bad. But we had tickets to Wicked, no refunds! Since she broke her finger before, I have a little knowledge about broken fingers and although they were smashed, she could bend them and they didn't seem broken. Still, her hand was throbbing with pain. I felt bad for her but we stopped at the store and bought her some ibuprofen and decided to continue icing as we drove to Chicago.
We quickly picked up her friend and headed downtown. Things were okay for about 20 minutes then it all went bad. TRAFFIC JAM, it was epic. I think there must have been some kind of accident. Plus one thing we did not consider was that traffic inbound is always worse on Friday night. For whatever reason, this was a perfect storm, literally the worst traffic I've seen in my 10 years here. At first, I wasn't too concerned. It was going to be slow going, but it couldn't take us 3 hours to go 40 miles, right?!
At one point, we were basically at a standstill. All I could do was watch the clock. Eventually, as we crawled along, the panic started to set in. It was a very real possibility we would not make it in time. This is live theater, if you are late, they might not seat you. I had Ashley searching the traffic maps on my phone. I told her to look and tell me what color the road was on the map--red or yellow. She said, neither, it was black! Not good, black is worse than red. Then we tried to call Dave and see if he could map out an alternate route for us if we got off the freeway. He couldn't see a better way so we just had to wait and pray.
Basically, we entered the city at 7:10pm. I drove like a madwoman or maybe I should say a crazy cabby to get over to the theater. By this time it is 7:20 and I still have to park the car. At this point, I didn't want the girls who had not seen the show, to miss anything, so I gave them their tickets and let them out in front of the theater and told them to go straight in and text me when they were safe and seated. I then rushed to park the car. What a blessing that I pre-purchased parking. I still had to drive through the garage to find an open spot and ride the elevator back down to the street and run like a crazy woman to the theater. I don't know how it was even possible but I walked through the front doors at 7:28, just as they were making the last call. At this point, after having been in the car for so long, I definitely could have used a bathroom break, but there was no time for that.
Okay now the good part. Our seats were amazing. We were on the front row of the balcony, no one sitting in front of us. It had been so long since I saw the show, in some ways it was like seeing it again for the first time. Ashley, Jane and I loved it. The music was fabulous. Even though it had been hectic getting there, we were rewarded with a great show.
At intermission, once again I had to send the girls out on their own. I gave the girls some money and told them to go get some concessions, because remember, we didn't have time to eat dinner. I HAD to go to the bathroom. The thing about the Oriental Theater is that there are not enough restrooms and there always huge lines. I seriously, made a run for the bathroom line and probably had about 25 people ahead of me and 100 behind me. Intermission is 15 minutes. I stood in line the whole time. Just as they flashed the lights to give a 5 minute warning, I was number 3 in line. It was not an option to wait until later. I finished my business with seconds to spare. It was crazy.
After the show, this was the first time all evening we weren't in a time crunch, so we took a few pictures.
Then we tried to figure out where we could get some food. The bad thing about this is that it is 11pm at night and nothing is really open and most of the downtown area is deserted. I just decided to drive towards the freeway entrance and see what we could find. Fortunately, we drove by a
Subway. A Subway that was looking pretty sketchy and deserted with only a homeless guy inside. The girls were too nervous to get out of the car, so I illegally parked right in front, locked the doors and went inside to buy sandwiches. We ate in the car and thank heavens enjoyed an uneventful ride home! Man, the things we do for fun.
Dave and I saw the show quite a few years ago when it first came to Chicago, but this was Ashley's first time. I consider our experience this time, the tale of two stories--the good and the bad. The show itself was fabulous, but everything else that evening was a bit of a nightmare for us as you shall soon learn…
First up, we had three tickets to the show. Dave, Ashley and I were going to go. Paige had mandatory dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker so she couldn't go. Unfortunately, the day before the show, Dave developed a hernia and was in and out of some serious pain. He decided that he probably couldn't go with us. We thought about taking Paige, but she decided she needed to be at rehearsal so we had an extra ticket. Considering the $100 price tag for each ticket, I didn't want it to just go to waste, the least we could do was give it to someone to enjoy. So last minute, Ashley invited her friend, Jane, from church to go with us. This was seriously, last minute, the girl went to school thinking she was going to have to babysit her brothers and sisters that night, but came home to learn that she had about 1 hour to get ready to go see Wicked. Surprise!
The original plan for the evening had been for Dave to drive to work and Ashley and I would ride the train downtown and meet him after work for the show. That way, we could avoid rush hour traffic going into Chicago and have a car to drive home after the show. We could also grab a quick bite to eat before the show. It would have been perfect. Unfortunately, with Dave sick we had to change plans. I will say that I still thought that we should take the train. The only risk was that after the show we had a short window to catch the last train out of the city back to the burbs. If we missed it, we would be stuck. Dave suggested we drive in. We could leave home at 4:30. Even if traffic was bad, it wouldn't take us 3 hours to get downtown. The show started at 7:30. I didn't know what to do but eventually decided to drive. I did, however, buy parking in advance, because I didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of parking, once we got there.
Ashley had bowling practice that afternoon, so the plan was to pick her up at the bowling alley, go get her friend and get on the freeway. When I went into the bowling alley to pick her up, I saw her sitting down, face red and puffy from crying and an ice pack on her hand. What?! How did she get injured bowling? Apparently they were practicing some kind of rolling technique on the carpet of the bowling alley and her finger got stuck in the hole of the ball and her hand got smashed between the ball and the ground. It hurt pretty bad and her fingers were very swollen and already starting to bruise. It looked bad. But we had tickets to Wicked, no refunds! Since she broke her finger before, I have a little knowledge about broken fingers and although they were smashed, she could bend them and they didn't seem broken. Still, her hand was throbbing with pain. I felt bad for her but we stopped at the store and bought her some ibuprofen and decided to continue icing as we drove to Chicago.
We quickly picked up her friend and headed downtown. Things were okay for about 20 minutes then it all went bad. TRAFFIC JAM, it was epic. I think there must have been some kind of accident. Plus one thing we did not consider was that traffic inbound is always worse on Friday night. For whatever reason, this was a perfect storm, literally the worst traffic I've seen in my 10 years here. At first, I wasn't too concerned. It was going to be slow going, but it couldn't take us 3 hours to go 40 miles, right?!
At one point, we were basically at a standstill. All I could do was watch the clock. Eventually, as we crawled along, the panic started to set in. It was a very real possibility we would not make it in time. This is live theater, if you are late, they might not seat you. I had Ashley searching the traffic maps on my phone. I told her to look and tell me what color the road was on the map--red or yellow. She said, neither, it was black! Not good, black is worse than red. Then we tried to call Dave and see if he could map out an alternate route for us if we got off the freeway. He couldn't see a better way so we just had to wait and pray.
Basically, we entered the city at 7:10pm. I drove like a madwoman or maybe I should say a crazy cabby to get over to the theater. By this time it is 7:20 and I still have to park the car. At this point, I didn't want the girls who had not seen the show, to miss anything, so I gave them their tickets and let them out in front of the theater and told them to go straight in and text me when they were safe and seated. I then rushed to park the car. What a blessing that I pre-purchased parking. I still had to drive through the garage to find an open spot and ride the elevator back down to the street and run like a crazy woman to the theater. I don't know how it was even possible but I walked through the front doors at 7:28, just as they were making the last call. At this point, after having been in the car for so long, I definitely could have used a bathroom break, but there was no time for that.
Okay now the good part. Our seats were amazing. We were on the front row of the balcony, no one sitting in front of us. It had been so long since I saw the show, in some ways it was like seeing it again for the first time. Ashley, Jane and I loved it. The music was fabulous. Even though it had been hectic getting there, we were rewarded with a great show.
At intermission, once again I had to send the girls out on their own. I gave the girls some money and told them to go get some concessions, because remember, we didn't have time to eat dinner. I HAD to go to the bathroom. The thing about the Oriental Theater is that there are not enough restrooms and there always huge lines. I seriously, made a run for the bathroom line and probably had about 25 people ahead of me and 100 behind me. Intermission is 15 minutes. I stood in line the whole time. Just as they flashed the lights to give a 5 minute warning, I was number 3 in line. It was not an option to wait until later. I finished my business with seconds to spare. It was crazy.
After the show, this was the first time all evening we weren't in a time crunch, so we took a few pictures.
Then we tried to figure out where we could get some food. The bad thing about this is that it is 11pm at night and nothing is really open and most of the downtown area is deserted. I just decided to drive towards the freeway entrance and see what we could find. Fortunately, we drove by a
Subway. A Subway that was looking pretty sketchy and deserted with only a homeless guy inside. The girls were too nervous to get out of the car, so I illegally parked right in front, locked the doors and went inside to buy sandwiches. We ate in the car and thank heavens enjoyed an uneventful ride home! Man, the things we do for fun.
Friday, December 6, 2013
First Bowling Meet
We are all novices to the bowling world, so we sure have a lot to learn. Ashley's season has started and admittedly we are still trying to figure out how bowling meets are scored or even that they are called "meets!" There are a lot of terms, equipment and rules to learn, but everyone is learning by experience. I'm just really glad that she gets her own locker at the bowling alley, so she doesn't have to lug her bowling ball between Seminary, school and home everyday!
Ashley had her first bowling meet and was so nervous that she didn't bowl her best. She was a little down about it, but we told her all she can do is go up. I think it was hard for her because she had been bowling really well at practice and was one of the top 3 bowlers on the JV team. Bowling is one of the those sports that depends a lot on the state of mind of the bowler. If you let it get in your head, then it can really affect how you bowl. Letting mistakes go and over-thinking are two things Ashley has always struggled with. I'm actually thinking this whole bowling thing will be good for her, because she will have to learn to deal with this stuff in order to be a good bowler.
Anyways, she has practice or a meet everyday of the week so she is getting better and her personal best score is rising. She started out around 125, then 147 and now 183. She did much better at her second meet, when the nerves were out of the way.
It's also kind of fun for us to go to watch her meets. There are all these rules for spectators but honestly the best part is sitting in a bowling alley where you can order food and just watch a bunch of bowling. Fun times!
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Favorite Things Party
One of my friends had a big "favorite things" party for all her girlfriends. Each invitee was supposed to bring 3 gifts to exchange. The 3 gifts had to be all the same and be one of your "favorite things." At the party, you would explain the what and why of your favorite thing and then we took turns choosing and exchanging gifts. Seriously, it was awesome and so fun. Everyone left with three different gifts of some really cool favorite things.
We also shared some of our favorite Christmas treats too. It was fun to eat, visit and share presents. A great idea for the girls to have some fun before the crazy Christmas season really hit.
So here is the "favorite thing" gift I brought. This is one of the suggestions Carolyn gave me while she was here. One of my favorite things is LEMON and included the awesome C.O. Bigelow lemon hand wash and jar of lemon curd from Trader's Joes. I wrapped it up with a fresh lemon and some yellow tissue paper and ribbon.
There were a lot of neat things to see at the party and even though I couldn't bring everything home I definitely have a pretty good list of things I should try including jewelry, make-up, hair products, books, etc.
And now for the fun part, here are the three things I came home with:
1)an ice cream scoop and a gift card to Oberweis Ice Cream so I could buy 4 quarts of their delicious and creamy ice cream. YUMMY.
2)a gorgeous pair of earrings and a movie theater gift card. I love movies too!
3)a gift card to a fancy chocolate and dessert shop, called Le Chocolat du Bouchard. I haven't used this one yet and I've never been to this place, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.
We also shared some of our favorite Christmas treats too. It was fun to eat, visit and share presents. A great idea for the girls to have some fun before the crazy Christmas season really hit.
So here is the "favorite thing" gift I brought. This is one of the suggestions Carolyn gave me while she was here. One of my favorite things is LEMON and included the awesome C.O. Bigelow lemon hand wash and jar of lemon curd from Trader's Joes. I wrapped it up with a fresh lemon and some yellow tissue paper and ribbon.
There were a lot of neat things to see at the party and even though I couldn't bring everything home I definitely have a pretty good list of things I should try including jewelry, make-up, hair products, books, etc.
And now for the fun part, here are the three things I came home with:
1)an ice cream scoop and a gift card to Oberweis Ice Cream so I could buy 4 quarts of their delicious and creamy ice cream. YUMMY.
2)a gorgeous pair of earrings and a movie theater gift card. I love movies too!
3)a gift card to a fancy chocolate and dessert shop, called Le Chocolat du Bouchard. I haven't used this one yet and I've never been to this place, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Picture Time
So it has been a while since we have had a family picture, individual school pictures etc. I don't love school pictures, so we skipped doing them but of course, that means I have to make my own arrangements. This would be fine except we have been busy and sometimes I feel like I'm in survival mode and honestly getting pictures done is not a priority.
Fortunately, while Dave's parents were here Grandpa snapped a pretty decent picture of our family. I'm going with it.
Having this picture, I felt like I should get some pictures of the girls too and just get it off my to-do list. So one day after church, we went to the gazebo down the street and snapped a few pics.
Obviously, I'm not a professional, but these will have to do until I decide to use a professional!
Fortunately, while Dave's parents were here Grandpa snapped a pretty decent picture of our family. I'm going with it.
Having this picture, I felt like I should get some pictures of the girls too and just get it off my to-do list. So one day after church, we went to the gazebo down the street and snapped a few pics.
Obviously, I'm not a professional, but these will have to do until I decide to use a professional!
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