whirlwind weekend

 

It feels like we have been on the go all the time lately! Sometimes I look at my friends and think, wow, they really go a lot of places and do a lot of really neat things; we should really make time to do more neat things with the boys. But I guess when I stop to think about it, we kind of already do. Part of that is because I have the itchy feet (as Mike likes to say) and really love to go places. It's one of the few areas that we have different philosophies on: He works at a "regular" job all week long, and would rather spend the weekend at home puttering around in the yard and just generally enjoying being here, while I work from home, so by the end of the week I am climbing the walls with the need to get out and DO something.

Luckily for us, we got to do both this weekend.

We needed to be in Chicagoland Saturday, so we took off a few hours early and went to check out the Lego exhibit at the Morton Arboretum. We saw a Lego ant hill, a Lego grandfather and granddaughter gardening, Lego bonsai, a Lego wheelbarrow, a Lego finch perched atop a Lego tortoise ... Legos everywhere. And of course, we visited the maze and the children's garden and the tree houses and the secret stream. We had a pretty good wet-to-dry ratio this time: Only two children fell in a pond/stream and were soaked from head to toe. Good thing I remembered to bring an extra outfit for everyone.

This is my favorite of all the pictures. Look how much they've grown!

My dear friend Heather had a milestone birthday this week, and her husband organized a surprise party for her on Saturday. They live in Wheaton, so Mike was able to spend some time with his friend Mark (both Mark and Heather were in our wedding) and his family, who live only a few miles away. Heather and I were roommates for the first few years that I lived in the city, and her sister, Jenny, was also our roommate until she got married. Our friend Zak was there too -- Heather, Zak, and I worked together at Borders, and he was Heather's roommate after I moved out. It was so nice to see them all and just hang out talking and laughing in their gorgeous backyard! It's always sort of nerve-racking for me to go and spend time with people I haven't seen for a number of years. I worry that we won't have anything to talk about, that we'll find that our lives have diverged so far as to leave us with nothing in common, or that we will just plain be awkward with each other. But I didn't need to worry this time. That level of comfort and happiness is kind of rare for a semi-socially awkward person like me, and I am so glad I could be there and spend time with them.

Once Mike and the boys were done visiting with Mark and family, they came to see everyone and spend a few minutes with us. They were so uncharacteristically well behaved! Henry and Sara, Heather and Joe's daughter, became fast friends and went off to explore the yard together, while Max and Liam managed to charm the adults. Jenny helped Henry and Sara collect specimens from the pond (water and algae and tiny rocks) so Henry could bring them home and analyze them. We spent Sunday morning making slides of his samples and examining them, which inspired Henry to go outside and collect grass and crab apple skin pieces and other assorted samples from our yard. Yay science!

We spent most of Sunday puttering around the house, getting some things accomplished but mostly just doing whatever struck our fancy. Video games were played. Books were read. Laundry was folded. In the afternoon, I stayed home and our cousin Jimmy came over to play with Max and Henry, but Mike and Liam got ambitious and went off to Potato Creek to test Mike's new bike on the mountain bike trails. Check them out!

And speaking of science, we did let the boys stay up late Sunday night to see the super blood moon eclipse. We even trekked over to the darkest nearby area (the field behind the school) and set up the camera, ready to capture some magnificence. Too bad for us -- the cloud cover was totally solid and stayed that way the whole time. Boo! Sorry, science, but at least we tried.

the best of midwest living

 

For our anniversary, Mike and I spent the weekend in Michigan with Charlie. We spent most of the afternoon in lovely Holland, where Mike got a new bike (because Liam outgrew his last kid-size bike and inherited Mike's bike earlier this year) and we spent some time wandering through the shops before a late lunch at the New Holland Pub. I got a sampler of six different beers, while Mike stuck with just one that he knew he would like. It's funny because I don't normally like beer all that much, but these were all very good (except for the bourbon stout, which I did not like at all). We ate outside, and the food was really good too. I had a pesto chicken pizza, and Mike had Italian sausage with a bacon onion jam and tomato bread pudding. He was really skeptical about his order but ended up loving every bite.

After lunch we headed back to our lodging for the evening, Barb and Kevin's lovely cottage, where a bottle of prosecco was chilling in the fridge for us. (Thanks, Barb and Kevin! Such a nice welcome!) Lest you think we are complete lushes, we opted to wait a while on drinking it and instead took Charlie back to the dog beach at Grand Mere State Park, where the waves were rolling in like the ocean on a very windy day. It is such a joy to watch him swimming and splashing around in the water -- seriously, it surprises me every time how much I love to watch it. We finished out our night at the Greenbush Brewery, where I again picked opted for the sample flight of beers, but reverted back to form and didn't really like any of them, leaving Mike to pick up my slack in the drinking department. We ate outside, and it was dark and quiet and peaceful (except when the train went by right next to us), and a perfect way to end a really great day. 

Meanwhile, back in Indiana, the boys had a wonderful weekend of their own. They got to go to the Apple Festival in Nappanee with Bethany and Avalon, and spend all kinds of time running through the woods between Bethany and Joe's house and my parents' house. Liam and Max even got to learn how to drive four-wheelers. Henry is a little young yet, and his feet don't reach the pedals anyway, but he got to go for a ride with Bethany where they found a cauliflower mushroom as big as his head. 

After we picked them up early this afternoon, we all came home and spent the afternoon just hanging out together. We ordered pizza for dinner and went to the park afterward. Things may have taken a turn for the cranky after that, as they often do on a Sunday night, but to me it didn't matter because the great weekend was already in the books.

a full dozen

We have a narrow closet with a sloping roof tucked under the stairs between the kitchen and the bathroom. It's a hard space to use, so we mostly store things there that we don't get out very often. This afternoon I asked Liam to wiggle his way to the very back and pull out something I haven't opened for a very long time: the leather-covered box that holds all of our wedding and honeymoon pictures. I spent a long time turning the pages, with memories rushing back to me. How all the bridesmaids and I got ready at my parents' house, and my mom made us lunch by stuffing every possible bite-size frozen food she could find (chicken nuggets, cheese sticks, anything) into the oven. How Aunt Rita went to the nursing home to help my great-grandmother dress for the event, and we brought the wedding to her since she, at age 101, couldn't come to us. What a beautiful crisp, clear, bright fall day it turned out to be. How my dad, ever bashful when a camera is near, ducked his head as he walked me down the aisle. That my uncle Kent was officiating his first (but far from last) wedding in his official capacity as judge. The oh-wow-we've-really-done-something-huge-here feeling as Mike and I turned to face all our loved ones after the vows. 

And now it's twelve years on, so fast I can hardly believe it. We've made a family we are so proud of. We've built a life that suits us pretty well. We've had adventures on both coasts and in more than a few places between. And there's still nobody I would rather spend time with than Mike, having rambling conversations about everything that crosses our minds, or sitting together and saying nothing at all. 

When we first got engaged, my beloved Gram smiled and had this to say to me: "I married a man named Mike who was just a few months older than me, and look at how that's worked out." That's a pretty tough act to follow, but I feel like we are well on our way. Happy anniversary, Mike, and here's to dozens more to come!

henry at six

In some ways our Henry is a typical six-year-old. He likes nothing better than to play soccer in the yard, master new and challenging sets of monkey bars, hit things with sticks (and just throw the sticks), and play video games. He is outgoing and charming and easy to engage in conversation. He is growing like a weed (he's in the 97th percentile for height for his age), loves to eat mac and cheese and hot dogs, and is a committed veggie dodger.

In other ways, he's in a class all by himself. His vocabulary is expansive, as are his negotiating "skills." He takes almost everything we say as a challenge to see if he can come out on top in some way. When he gets a punishment, he tries (usually in vain) to negotiate for a lighter sentence. When we use any kind of colloquialism, he demands an explanation. He was doing something the other day that reminded me so much of Mike, and I commented, "Well, you are your father's son." Henry's instant response was, "Mom, ALL boys are their fathers' sons. That is a ridiculous thing for you to say." So then I explained that it's a common phrase meaning that he does things that remind me of his father, and that prompted a looooong discussion about how everyone does things like that, and he didn't see why I had to single him out for it. Not much gets by Henry, which is, to use another generally accepted phrase, both a blessing and a curse. (HA! Take that, Adult Henry, when you read this at some unspecified point in the future.)

We love his expressiveness so much, and we adore the way his mind works, but feeling like he always has to react has led to some less friendly lessons this year. In particular, when Henry gets mad at one of us (so at least once a day) he usually expresses it by calling names and wishing he was never born, or that he had a different family, or that we would all go away and leave him alone except not at night because he is terrified to be upstairs by himself at bedtime. But when that's not enough, he turns to property damage in inconspicuous locations that we might not find for some time, at which point he will deny, deny, deny even though we can clearly see his signature style. (This is a familiar phase to us as Liam and Max both went through it, but we are hoping it comes to an end soon, while the house is still mostly intact.)

Henry's long-term goal remains becoming the president, though some of the shine wore off his dream this summer when he got to see the actual White House and found it both smaller and less accessible than he thought it would be. Only time will tell, but no matter what he ultimately chooses, we have no doubt whatsoever that he will settle for nothing less than top billing.

We're headed to his new love, the sub shop Penn Station, for dinner tonight with Bethany, J, and Loni, and later this week Henry gets his turn at the traditional birthday dinner and sleepover with my parents. After our visit with Johnny and Erin and the kids last weekend, he has gotten to see nearly everyone in our immediate families (he got to talk to Barb and Kevin, and we will make sure he sees them soon). Such a lucky kid.

Happy birthday, Henry!