Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

Busy, busy, busy end of the week. Thursday we woke up early and picked Jo up to take her downtown to jury duty. About the only thing open that early is Target so we went there to waste some time until other things opened. The advantage to hitting an inner city Target - they still have summer clearance and I was able to find a metal sprinkler (aka - not a crappy plastic one). We went to the Chicago History Museum - bonus, it was Illinois free day! The kids have never been and I think I was in 4th grade when I was last there. Nick loved the trains, Ellie liked seeing some of the things that she studied about in 3rd grade. We all liked the magic exhibit and the magician who entertained us with card tricks. The rain stopped and we were able to walk over to the zoo after we finished up lunch at the museum. We had just walked into the barn at the zoo when Jo called to tell us she was finished. We were able to sneak a peek at the piglets (only 2 months old) and some very loud cows. We also got to watch some of the planes practice for the air show. We picked Jo up and dropped her at Mom's and then we hit the road. We caught a matinee of Diary of a Wimpy Kid - cute movie.

Friday was a run around day. We hit Costco and Meijer in preparation of school lunches. We returned some things to Kohl's. We garage sale treasure hunted - found some clothes for Nick for next summer. We came home and the kids played until Rob came home. We had Culvers for dinner and then did a bit of shopping. We went to Menards and finally ordered our new screen door. We are changing things up and ordered it in black. We also got an estimate on the front door replacement - decisions to make still. We came home and decided to make s'mores outside and build a fire in the pit. It was a gorgeous night...I think we kept the pesky mosquitoes away with all the fire and smoke.

Saturday was another non-stop day. We headed downtown early in the morning. Ellie had her second fMRI at Northwestern. She did great and was an old pro this time around. We had lunch at the cafe before we left. We were all able to find something there and it was much more affordable than Water Tower. We walked to Water Tower and Ellie browsed through American Girl and Nick at the Lego store. We ran into a friend at the Lego store - funny, we were both away from home and it was just so random. We walked to the lake for the air show. We have passed it many times coming home from Michigan but have never attended up close. It was pretty cool. We walked and sat in a number of places but the best thing was having the Blue Angels fly right over us while we were at Navy Pier. We stopped into the Children's Museum for a little break before walking back. The kids enjoyed an ice cream treat while we finished watching the show. We stopped back at the Lego Store and picked up a small set for each of the kids. We had the best day but we were seriously exhausted by the evening.

Today we started the morning at church. We came home and got cleaning. The basement had every box out and open and in various stages of play. The dining room table was a mountain of things to be gone through. I still had boxes full of things to be gone through to put on the shelves in the back room. Motivation = last minute change and Millertime is here tomorrow. While I cleaned the table, Ellie cleaned her room, Nick and Rob worked on the upstairs bathroom. We discovered, by accident, that the hot whip was leaking. Rob had gone under the sink to de-gunk the pipe because drain cleaner wasn't working and low and behold - the towels under the sink were wet. Anyhow, Rob replaced the bad parts and installed a new faucet because that had some bad parts. He also installed a new spout int he tub because that was sticking. Flash forward 5 hours and the living room, dining room, back room and kitchen are clean. I got all the boxes put away on the shelves - looks great and I still have room. I do have one more box of crap - I got tried of putting things away and just emptied the table off into an empty box.

Ellie and I made some treats for the week - back to school bites (aka - zucchini bites) and blueberry muffins. We got many of the lunch packs put together - cookies, pretzels, gold fish packs for the week. We had a nice dinner together and then got the kids ready for bed. Ellie got her backpack ready for tomorrow and then we were off to bed. I'm excited for the kids to both be in school. Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree