Thanksgiving Break 09

It was such a great Thanksgiving break. Some of the highlights included:

having all four of us, Jack , Wayne, Sally and I, all under one roof for 5 nights in a row!

the impromptu visit from Jenny, Kjell, Abbie and Nina on Wednesday (see pictures from the previous post)

hosting Thanksgiving dinner for Jack's mom and dad, sister Sue, and brother Paul and my mom, Sue, Jenny, Jay and Kjell and the four of us; also, Matt joined us for a couple of hours and it was fun to introduce him to the rest family (also some pictures from this are on the last post)

the delicious pulled pork sandwiches that Sally made for us for dinner on Tuesday. She got the recipe from her roommate Sarah and her mom and boy, those sandwiches were good!


Jack's burst of energy on the day after Thanksgiving. He put up the outside decorations and then insisted we go get our Christmas tree. The best part was listening to him trying to get the tree to stand up straight while I was napping in the other room :)


Jordan's Christmas party! Jordan knows how to throw a party, let me tell you. Fun people (there were lots of JD and Eliot's friends and also he includes MY kids and Matt!), tremendous food, fantastic drinks and beautiful music. It was an absolute blast. I might have to do an entire post just on the party, that's how good it was. Here are just a couple of pictures from the night:

Mark, Sally and Matt

Tej, Cathy, Don and Susan



Our host, Jordan and his cousin, Bobby


Wayne and Jack
Jean, me and Christy

another highlight was attending Mass as a family on Sunday.

For sure the part of Thanksgiving break that I liked the least was watching the kids pull out of the driveway on Sunday evening. Thank God they both got home safely and we have Christmas break just a few weeks away.

A picture post

Above is a follow up picture from a previous post..Sally and Matt at the Bears game, courtesy of Susie. Thanks, Susie!!!
Happy day after Thanksgiving! I will write a proper post soon, but in the meantime, here are a few pictures from the day before Thanksgiving and also from Thanksgiving itself.
Abbie, Nina, Jenny and Kjell came to our house for a little while on Wednesday since the girls were spending Thanksgiving with Beth's side of the family this year. They are growing up so fast. Our favorite line of the day was Abbie saying "I love you, kitties...sooo much!" It was so sweet.




Thanksgiving Day:

Heavy thoughts

I love this week of the year. It's a short week and it's all about family and food, which are two of my favorite things. And since the kids are older and living away from home, I especially love this time of year because it means Wayne and Sally will be home. As I mentioned in my last post, Sally got home last Thursday. Totally loving having her home. Wayne's plans were to head home yesterday afternoon (it's about a 5 hour drive). Wayne was in the area by dinnertime but had a meeting in the city and met some friends for dinner. He said he was probably just going to stay downtown overnight so we went to bed after DWTS (and boy, Donny really stepped up last night, didn't he?). At 11:30, the doorbell woke us up and it was Wayne! I can't even tell you how it felt to see his face in the window. Oh my goodness. And to wake up this morning, knowing that all 4 of us were under one roof... what a great feeling. And it made me think of my sister Jenny and how much she must miss Dane's face, his hug, his voice, his presence. I know, you probably weren't thinking I was going to go there, but I never forget her loss, our loss. And as long as we are going down the grieving path, let's just go ahead and talk about how much I (we, my whole family) miss Tom. This time three years ago we were so grateful that Tom and Ann had just moved to this area from Houston. Tom was in the thick of his battle with a GBM (brain tumor) and we were so thankful to have them home so we could be some support to them. I will never forget his last Thanksgiving with us. Jenny picked up Tom and Ann to bring them to our house and Tom insisted on stopping at SavWay, as was his tradition, and picking up some champagne...two magnums of Taittinger. And even though his communication skills were impaired, his sense of humor was not. God, I miss Dane and Tom and Pawp (my dad). They would be the first to say to not be sad, have fun and appreciate the good times. And I do enjoy life, but try to never forget what really matters.

Thanks for allowing me this time to grieve. It isn't pretty or easy but it is important.

Sally is coming home!

I am so excited! Sally is on her way home as we speak or as I type, I should say! U of I has the whole week of Thanksgiving off and she only has one class tomorrow and it was cancelled. I can't wait to see her!!! Sally is stopping off at Marmar and Susie's to have dinner and to pick up tickets for the Bears game on Sunday. Susie is very generously giving the tickets to Sally and Matt....soooo generous. I will make sure to ask them to take pictures so I can post some on Monday. Wayne is coming home early next week...yaaaay!
In the meantime, I am heading out pretty soon to a birthday dinner for two of my friends. This will be my second night out in a row. Impressive, I know. (I went to Bunko last night. Didn't win anything, but had a good time.)

Dancing with the Stars

Big night for me. Tonight we find out who is in the finals for DWTS. So far we know that Donny & Kym and Mya & Dimitri are in the finals. Who will be eliminated? Kelly & Louis or Joanna & Derek??? I am predicting Kelly and Louis. I knew it wouldn't be Donny. He has too many fans (Sue:"Donnnnnnnny" as he flew over the audience during "Joseph") and he is a good guy. I wish he wouldn't take this whole thing so seriously. It makes me nervous to see Donny look so stressed. It isn't like there's lots of money on the line or anything.

It was also a big night for me because I went out after dark! I actually went back out to run some errands after dinner. That is a huge deal for me this time of year. :)

ok, we are just about to find out which couple is eliminated...hold on. It is Joanna and Derek. Awww that is too bad. Hate to see them go.
Anybody else out there have any thoughts on this?

I am so productive. Not.

I had such high hopes for today. I was going to get so much accomplished. I did get one thing done. I got the chocolate turkeys from Fannie May for Thanksgiving. (One is already gone with a second one soon to follow.) I was just getting on a roll with decluttering and was putting something away in a closet downstairs when I discovered a box full of old pictures that I had not seen in a long time. Of course I had to pull them out and take a stroll down memory lane and three hours later, wow, there were some great pictures. This first picture was taken by my dad when he and my nephew Arne picked Jack and me up at O'Hare when we came back from our honeymoon! Arne was 3. He is now a high school chemistry teacher!

This picture was taken in our condo. I think Wayne was about a year old. It just seems like yesterday! I loved that condo and those days were sweet.

I also found a ton of pictures from 98 and 99 that had been MIA. Such fun, such great memories. I am so glad that I am a picture-taking fool and have so many great photos to help me remember times and places and people. I will get back at the decluttering tomorrow. Or whenever.

Commit to Courage

The Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest military award for bravery that can be given to any individual in the United States of America. The medal was conceived in the early 1860's and first presented in 1863 to represent the valiant efforts of the armed services. Over the years the medal has become an historic symbol of the bravest of the brave, in honor of all who have earned it.

In honor of Veterans Day...
On Monday, September 14th, Jack and I had the honor of attending a reception honoring 58 Congressional Medal of Honor winners. This event was held at the Union League of Chicago. Jack had read about this event in the club magazine and had suggested we attend, again as part of our "out of the rut" campaign. At first, I was not too enthusiastic about the idea. Really, coming home from work and then heading directly downtown...on a Monday?? I had to get myself up for it. And boy, was I glad I did! It was such a moving evening and so energizing. The evening began with the arrival of the honorees and their families. There is a video of a portion of this at the bottom of this post. The main entry of the Club was lined with active members of every branch of the military and the lobby erupted in applause when the honorees entered. Everyone then went upstairs to the Main Lounge where, throughout the room, there were special chairs designated for the Medal winners. We were encouraged to spend time visiting with these men and their families. We met so many interesting people. The man in this picture with Jack is Jim Pritzker. He founded the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago and has a real heart for the veterans, having served in the military himself. He was there to honor the Medal winners also.

One highlight of the evening was visiting with John Finn. Finn was the oldest veteran there and just turned 100! He received his Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery on December 7, 1941... Pearl Harbor! He manned a machine gun under heavy enemy fire for several hours, despite being wounded. I love this picture of Jack and John Finn.

It was fascinating to watch the interactions between the various younger military folks who were present at this event. The two gentlemen in the picture below, Medal winners from the Vietnam war, were surrounded by a throng of young guys most of the night.

I got to visit with a fellow named Sammy Davis (no, not that Sammy Davis, as he pointed out). He won the Medal of Honor because on Nov 18, 1967, while under heavy enemy attack, Sammy ignored "repeated warnings and disregarding his inability to swim, he picked up an air mattress and struck out across a deep river to rescue three wounded comrades".

One of the conversations that had the most impact on me that night was with John Borling, a retired Air Force Major General, who was part of the Chicago Host Committee. He talked in awe about all of the heroes present in the room. John talked about how every Medal winner had been honored for courage displayed in a defining moment in combat and then compared it to the courage everyone needs in every day life decisions and interactions. That is the message of their group this year, to have the courage to commit to doing the right thing on a daily basis. That is quite a charge. Just think about it, if we were all able to do that consistently. Wow.
The next day when I was skimming through the booklet we had received at the reception, I read something that made me admire John Borling even more. He was not a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, but he had served our country for 37 years and almost 7 of them as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. And he never mentioned that once in our ten minute conversation, never talked about himself.

I couldn't end this post without talking about the courage my parents demonstrated during World War II. My dad was a radioman in the Coast Guard on a submarine chaser in the Pacific Ocean. I love the story of their wartime wedding, my mother taking a train all the way across the country to California at the age of 19 to marry my father. No wonder it's called the Greatest Generation.

And thanks to all those people, past and present, who have worked so hard to defend our freedoms and our great country. That includes you, JD:)!

Sunday

Yesterday we had a wonderful worship experience. Father Charles Gallagher, pastor at St. Cletus for 19 years and retired for a few years, came back to celebrate mass and his 90th birthday. It was such an awesome mass. Fr. Gallagher was famous at St. Cletus for his concise homilies and masses that truly were all about God and the Eucharist...not about him as a priest. In his homily yesterday, Fr. Gallagher said he never liked to be put on a pedestal, as folks often do (did) with priests. He called himself "a working stiff", just like every one else, and said he was most proud of three things during his time at St. Cletus....1) He never bothered people for money. Fr. Gallagher said they always had enough money to pay the bills without having to berate people. 2) He delivered short homilies. When the congregation applauded loudly, he quipped, "What?! Some priests aren't brief?" 3) He wrote the bulletin every week. Fr. Gallagher received two standing ovations during the mass. I think I cried three times. Jack had his iphone and took this video of Fr. Gallagher during the recessional. God bless Fr. Gallagher and please send us more priests like him!
PS. Thanks to Karen for taking Marmar to church yesterday :) You are so thoughtful.

Out of the Rut for November

First of all, a shout out to my sister-in-law, Sue, who had an emergency appendectomy last Monday night. God bless her, she has such a strong work ethic and worked all weekend and all day Monday with a hot appendix...got the job done and then had surgery late Monday night. I talked to Sue tonight and she is recuperating at home and is on the mend. Her surgery was performed by Sally's friend, Liz's dad and from what Sue said, he did a great job. Glad Sue is feeling better.

Being empty nesters, Jack and I are always engaged in activities that keep us active and involved. One of our favorites is shining the laser pointer around the living room and watching the cats chase it. Making an impact on the world, two cats at a time. You can't really see the red dot from the laser pointer in this picture, but it is there. Really it is.

So when Christy called Saturday afternoon to see if we wanted to get a little dinner with her (Steve and Matt were going to the Fire game), you can imagine what a tough decision it was for us. Could we pull ourselves away from the cats and the laser pointer for an hour or two? We sacrificed and went with her to The Depot Diner. Christy is a big fan of the Food Network show, "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and this diner had been featured on it early this year. Christy and Steve had taken Christy's mom here this summer and said it was great. They were right! It was not what I expected, but I loved it. It was such a small place, only five booths and counter service for about 8. The menu was mostly sandwiches, including the open face turkey sandwich pictured below. Jack had a club sandwich and it was made with real turkey as well. Real homemade from scratch food. Delicious. Drinks were soft drinks, including orange and grape crush, and ice tea. I asked our waitress, "No alcohol?" to which she replied, "We have hand sanitizer". :)


I would say we were out of the rut this weekend, wouldn't you?

Halloween!

I love our Halloween traditions. We began celebrating Halloween with Teri and Chuck and their kids 22 years ago. The picture above is from 1992. From left to right is Wayne, Sally, Chas, Brittany, Caylen, and Keegan with Grace sitting in front. For many years, Halloween was all about rushing home from the school party/parade and meeting up with them. Teri and I would get the kids started with the trick or treating and when the guys got home from work, they would join us. We would all end up back at Chuck and Teri's house, with the kids emptying out their bags and making trades. Over the years we found the best houses to hit, like our friends Mark and Cathy who give king sized candy bars AND a little liquid refreshment for the adults ...and if you are a kid and happen to kinda fall off the stairs, Mark gives you double candy (just ask Keegan). As the kids grew, our numbers dwindled and before we knew it, Teri and I only had Grace left. Poor Grace. Teri and I followed Grace and her friends around til...well, until they were too old to trick or treat. Teri and I now do our own version of trick or treating, with the husbands usually holding down the fort at home (or working!) and then meeting up with us later...or not!
Here are a few pictures from this year. We usually start off the night by stopping by Christy and Steve's, but they were getting ready to go out to dinner so we missed that stop. Our first stop this year was at Mark and Cathy's. We had fun catching up with them and their son and daughter-in-law, Chris and Krissy and their granddog, Wrigley. We enjoyed hearing about their recent trip to Spain and Paris.




Next, we popped into Mike and Jean's house for a quick drink. They were heading over to their neighbors' house, but we always have to stop in for a visit. Tradition. We headed back to Teri and Chuck's for dinner and along the way we met up with Brad. He was working to make sure our streets were safe for us on Halloween.
And here is Grace with her mom and dad. Time flies. That was her sitting in the front in the little puppy costume in the first picture above and just look at her now. Another tremendous Halloween spent with good friends.

One more thing.... I didn't get to see Abbie and Nina in person this year, but I swiped a picture of them off of Arne's facebook (I think that is why I can't get the picture to be any bigger?!) Aren't they such a cute family?

Looking forward to next year already!

Busy weekend!

For my dedicated blog readers (and I know there are soooo many of you), I just wanted to let you know that I am going to put together a post about Halloween tomorrow night while I watch Dancing with the Stars. I had some work to do for an early morning meeting tomorrow (Monday), so I didn't get a chance to blog today...even with the extra hour.
I am so excited it is November. It is one of my favorite months with one of my favorite holidays.