Weekend of Socializing

I had such busy weekend...and pretty social for me!! It started out with a get together after school on Friday. We were celebrating Ruthanne's adoption. She leaves for Ethiopia on February 6 (this coming Saturday!!!!) to pick up her new son, Daniel aka "Bear". So exciting. Daniel is 17 months old and his big brother, Andrew, just turned 3. Here is a picture of Andrew and Ruthanne at our celebration:


Here are a few of my Friday friends. From left to right, Kellie, hiding next to her is Julie, Jane, Nancy, Andrew, Ruthanne and in the back, Jess.



On Saturday morning, I left for Grand Beach for the annual girls sleep over at Carol's lakehouse.
Carol has been inviting a group of us up to her place in Grand Beach for over 15 years and we always have a great time. Our routine is to start out the trip with lunch in New Buffalo, usually Casey's, though last year it was the Stray Dog. This year we went back to Casey's and they gave us a private room. We were only missing Sheila this year. Here is the rest of the group: top row, Mary B, Sue, Christy, Trish, Pam, Carol, bottom row, Mary K, Kathy, Teri, me, Jean.

After lunch, we usually shop around New Buffalo for awhile. This year, Christy suggested we go to a casino that had just opened a few minutes away and so we did!! We stayed for an hour. I lost $5. That was all I played. It was fun. We were back at the house by 5 pm. This is the beautiful view of Lake Michigan from Carol's front yard.


Some of us took a walk. It was a beautiful evening and not so cold. As soon as we got back, we cracked open some bubbly...thanks to Steve for sending two bottles of Dom for us!!! what a treat! Then we proceeded to do what we do best...sit around and talk and eat...for 6 or 7 hours.



We also read all kinds of magazines and solved the world's problems. It was fun to catch up on what is going on in everyone's lives.
In the morning, we took another walk and a few of us stragglers got a bit lost on the twisting roads of Grand Beach. Luckily I had my phone with GPS on it and we found our way back. Pretty handy.





My socializing continued when Jack and I had his brother, Mike and his wife, Sue over for some chili. We had not seen Mike for ages, since before his big surgery in early December. It was good to spend some time with them. Mike is looking pretty darn good, don't you think? Sue, too, of course!


Time to get ready for another week. I am glad that tomorrow is February as that means spring is just that much closer.

Wednesday night

Winter is back. Not that it was truly gone, but we have had a few above-freezing days and there were several days when the streets were clean and dry. Today, however, we have an inch or two of new snow and it is blowing and cold, with wind chills below 0. Tiring and not at all cozy. But the week is going by quickly and we are in for the night, getting ready to watch President Obama's State of the Union speech. Should be interesting.

Yesterday was Nina's first birthday. My goodness, this year has gone by fast. It doesn't seem that long ago that Jack and I went to see Nina on the night she was born. She is a doll! It is amazing how much love babies generate.

It was also a year ago that Sally was just beginning her study abroad experience in Granada, Spain. I am so proud of all that she accomplished in her semester in Spain, but I have to say that I am so glad to have her home in the good old U S of A. This time last year, I was always listening for the ding of the IM indicating that Sally was online in Spain, or for the sound of the video Skype call (and then Jack saying "Calypso, Calypso" ). I feel a little less distracted this January, knowing I can text or call my girl whenever I want.

Keep warm, everyone!

Yaaay! We had some kid time this weekend

It was so awesome to start the weekend out with Wayne being home. He worked from here on Friday. I came home from work Friday afternoon and he had set up camp at the dining room table. Jack was also still working and so I felt like a bit of a slacker like gosh, maybe I should start working on my materials for a meeting first thing Monday morning. Of course I didn't, but I did have to be quiet while Wayne finished up his phone calls so I took a little nap. I had no choice :).

We got a spur of the moment invitation to dinner from Mark and Cathy. We checked with Wayne and he was heading downtown anyway (he was meeting up with some friends, including Mark and Cathy's son Jeff and daughter-in-law Andi!) so we accepted the invite. We met Mark and Cathy and Steve and Christy at Dolce and had such a nice time. Mark and Cathy have a busy summer coming up. Their son Adam is marrying a sweetheart of a girl named Kristin (who happens to be a very talented young speech-language pathologist, great career choice) on July 17 (same anniversary as their son Chris and his wife Krissy, who were married in 2004). And Mark and Cathy are going to be grandparents for the first time in June; Andi and Jeff are expecting! What exciting times for their whole family! And fun times for us as they have VERY fun weddings!
Here is a picture of Steve, Christy, me, ?, Cathy and Mark with Jack in the foreground, after dinner. Sorry it is a little fuzzy, but I forgot to change the settings on my new camera before we asked a guy to take our picture.



On Saturday, Jack, Wayne and I went to lunch at Portillo's, one of Wayne's very favorite fast food restaurants. There aren't any Portillo's in Cincinnati, so he has to get his fix when he is home. Here is a picture of Wayne and Jack at lunch:



Sally arrived home just as we were pulling in the drive. She decided to make a quick trip home because she needed to get a suit for a job fair that is coming up in two weeks. It was great to have all four of us under roof. At least for about 1 hour, then Wayne took off for downtown again (Australian Independence party) and Sally went to a friend's birthday party with Matt.

Today we celebrated Jenny's birthday with a quick lunch at Egg Harbor. We called ahead and were able to get a table without much waiting. We had a lot of laughs. I did not get a picture of Marmar or Jack...sorry, guys.


After lunch, Wayne packed up and headed home (or back, as I prefer to say) to Cincy. Jack, Sally and I headed over to Oak Brook and found Sally a beautiful charcoal gray suit. Sally does not have classes on Mondays, so she is going to head back in the morning. I just finished up my work for my meeting tomorrow morning and now I am going to go hang out with Jack and Sally. Great way to end the weekend!

Short work weeks are nice

This has been a good week so far, starting off with the day off on Monday. It's always a good thing when January is more than half over.

Last night was Bunko. My bunko group has been together for over 14 years and we play the third Wednesday of the month, except for July and December. There are 16 members, so you only have to host once every 18 months. It is fun and not too much of a time commitment. We start rolling around 8 pm and are finished around 10. There was a period of time when I kept meaning to drop out, but I am glad I didn't. It is the only time I see some of the women and it is interesting to catch up with everyone. When our group started, our kids were grade school or younger (and some were not even born yet!) and so we have gone through some major milestones together.

I did not walk this morning because we had freezing rain last night and I knew it would not be worth it to get up and slide around on the ice. I enjoyed the extra hour and a half of sleep. And work was so good today. It was one of those days when everyone was hitting on all cylinders and it was so productive. The kids were in great moods and everything just was clicking. Also, our supervisor, Eileen, provided us with the most delightful lunch today. She brought us soup, bread, vegetables and dip, a fruit tray AND her awesome homemade brownies. It put us all in a great mood. Eileen is so good to us.

Tomorrow is Fun Friday and I am already planned out and packed up and ready to roll. I think.

Yelling

I read something very profound the other day and I keep thinking about it. It was on the blog 31 Day Challenge which is a month long study of Proverbs, one chapter per day. There are commentaries on each chapter and the one on Chapter 14 on Jan 14 was about anger and yelling and destructive interactions. The basic premise is that there is never a justification for yelling in anger...ever. It does no good and actually does harm. It is so true and I wish I had realized that in my younger years, especially as a young mother. I need to apologize to my kids for the times I screamed at them so LOUDLY that I felt like my head was going to burst! (I really did. do that) So many times when I blew like that, it was only because I was frustrated and angry at myself. I am sooo sorry, Wayne and Sally! Luckily, my kids have a dad who has never once, not ever, yelled at them. Amazing. Jack has never raised his voice at me either. Life is so much more pleasant when people speak to each other with love and respect. Interestingly enough, my own father never yelled either. I have seen firsthand how productive it is to communicate with each other, even if there are differences or issues, in an even tempered manner without letting emotion rule.



I thank Crosspoint Church in Nashville for their challenge and their blog.

A day off

It has been a wonderful day off so far. It started with a walk with Jean (Lynn was in Florida for the long weekend) and it was perfect winter walking weather, not too cold and not too slippery. After that, I went out to breakfast at Egg Harbor with my good friend, Cathy, and it was great to catch up with her. She is one of my blog readers :). Thanks, Cath!

I started in on the housework as soon as I got home from breakfast. I got so much done today which is a good thing because I needed to! Sally and I worked on our rooms last week and we are getting better at throwing things out and simplifying. It feels sooooo good.

Right now Jack and I are watching "The Bachelor". I enjoy this show so much!! I think it is an interesting glimpse into relationships and so darn entertaining! I have been texting back and forth with Sally (she went back to school yesterday for six weeks and then she is coming home for the rest of the semester for student teaching). This is the best season ever for The Bachelor. So many twists and turns and drama. I am so intellectual.

And to end the three day weekend on a high note... Wayne is on his way home! He has a three day conference in Chicago and is going to spend the night here tonight. Can't wait to see him.

I did have some deep philosophical thoughts today that I was going to share in this post, but I have to go watch for my boy. And watch the end of The Bachelor.

P.S. Wayne just got home safely!!

Nina's first birthday!

We celebrated Nina's first birthday yesterday at a family party at Lou Malnati's in Naperville. Nice way to spend a few hours on a Saturday, just enjoying a sweet little girl who is turning one on the 26th. Nina was walking all over the place and talking like crazy. She was adorable! Her big sister, Abbie, was very helpful with opening presents and blowing out the candles and those kind of birthday girl responsibilities. I think the pictures best tell the story of the day. I apologize to Nina that I didn't get more pictures of her. That's how it is when you are the youngest. I should know :)
Opening presents


Marmar and Abbie

Jenny and Jay with Abbie


Jack and I had a great time.


Sally, Abbie and Matt. Abbie has been a bit shy of Matt in the past, but she is definitely warming up to him. Matt even got a high five.



Arne and Susie and the balloon. Arne gave us a science lesson on air pressure and cold air. He is so smart.


Fun party!


Happy birthday, Nina! I love you!

Some of the reasons I love my job

Ahhhh it is Friday, late afternoon, and it is the beginning of a long weekend. Such a great feeling! On Fridays, I do speech and language support for 3 self-contained special education classrooms. It is a challenging piece of my job, but I have learned so much from my Friday friends, students and staff alike.

The rest of the work week, Monday through Thursday, I have my own classroom, working with children 3-6 years old who have highly unintelligible speech. It is essentially group speech therapy and looks like a preschool classroom. It is really the best job in speech as the kids make a ton of progress and are so adorable and innocent. And to make it even better, I work with awesome people. In addition to our in-house Mrs. Fix-it (see the previous post), I work with a woman who has this incredible sixth (sick???) sense when a child is going to vomit! We have had some stomach flu going around and twice in the last week, Ellyn has accurately predicted, to almost the second, when a child was going to get sick and was able to catch it. I am not sure where she acquired these skills, but we are so thankful that she did! It is traumatic enough for kids to get sick at school and it is even worse when it gets all over and you have everyone saying "Ewwww! Gross!" Plus Ellyn is so calm and reassuring with kids. Well, unless there is a mouse involved :) Here is one of the tricks/tools of her trade.

Our next door neighbors on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are Lisa and Jean. We eat lunch together in my classroom on those days (and on Thursdays, Sally is there for lunch, too) and always have fun. Lisa had a small lunch yesterday...


And here is Jean, working hard.
We often say how lucky we are to work with people we genuinely like and respect. It would be miserable to have to spend that much time with people that were difficult to get along with. We don't really socialize outside of the workday, except for our annual summer get-together at Lisa's. Here is a picture of us from last summer.

I am also lucky to work with and for very supportive administrators, Eileen and Deb. I will post about them and my "Fun Friday" (as we like to call it) friends another time. For now, let's get this weekend started!

Wednesday night quick post

Tonight is one of those nights when I start on a little project and then get sidetracked by another project...again and again! Thought I would take a break and blog.


I have a poster in my classroom that my students just LOVE. It is actually a map of Disneyworld that Marie, my mother-in-law, gave Wayne and Sally when they were little. It is probably from the mid-90's. It is hard to describe so I will show you what it looks like:


As you can see, there are drawings of the different regions/parks at DisneyWorld as well as pictures of many of the characters. It is one of the most popular things in the classroom. The kids love to point to the pictures and talk about them. Many of them have been to Disney and they love to see the Epcot ball and the monorail and Cinderella's castle and ... That poster has provided so many hours of entertainment and language stimulation! Thank goodness I had it laminated after the first year we had it up because it is very well loved by little hands. That was such a great gift all those years ago.

We also have many of my kids' old toys in our classroom. We also have many new ones, of course, but they just don't make toys like they used to. The old Fisher-Price garage, schoolhouse, circus train, cash register, the little people are still favorites and still work. Well, they work for the most part. The kids love to put things in the cash register besides the play coins and it is always getting jammed. Luckily, I work with an OT (occupational therapist) who is a total MacGyver. Sally (OT, not daughter!) can fix anything!!!! I am not kidding. She even fixed the small laminator that I jammed and broke because I didn't follow directions. Here's Sally working on the cash register. Glad to have her around...for many reasons.

This weekend flew by

Sunday night already. Wow. This weekend went by so quickly. I guess that's what happens when you go to bed at 8:30 on Friday night. I am wrapping up the weekend by watching, with Jack and Sally, episodes from Season One of "Glee" DVD set, one of Sally's presents from Matt.

Last night Jack, Sally and I went downtown to have dinner at the Club with Matt, his mom and dad, and his brother, Tim. We had a wonderful time.The travel time on both ends was incredibly fast. It took less than 1/2 hour each way. We took some pictures in the Presidential Lounge while we were waiting (since we were early).
Jack and me...I like how my jacket matches the flag. I am so patriotic.



Me and Sallygirl


We started off the evening with drinks in the Rendezvous. We sat at Bucky's favorite table and we especially enjoyed the lazysusan in the middle of the table.


Matt's parents, Bob and Mary (Bob was a sport and let me take his picture)


We had dinner in the Wigwam and it was delicious. After dinner, we gave Matt, Mary, Bob and Tim a tour of the Club. Some great events took place there.

There were some gangstas at the Club. They were pretty darn handsome. And they had a good looking girl with them.




Today I did a big Super Target run and then Sally and I went out to Marmar and Susie's. Sally installed the new mouse on their computer and we looked at Sue's new facebook page.




It has been very cold these past few days, with windchills below zero. It can't last much longer, can it????
Hope everyone stays safe and warm. Have a good week!

Friday night

Winter is a tough season. It gets tougher every year! It's cold (uh, yeah) and dark and slippery and messy. It is so annoying!!!! I find it almost impossible to go anywhere after work this time of year. I often tell people that I am like a horse going back to the barn. Once I get in my car after work, it is as if the car is on autopilot and can only head home.

I love Friday nights especially after a full week of work. Tonight Jack and I watched "Check Please" and "Diners, Drive Ins and Dives" and will head to bed early. Lovely. Doesn't get much better.

Dane

Today would have been Dane's 28th birthday. Just look back at my Danefest post and you will get an idea of how much he is missed. By so many people. Everyday.

I found an awesome picture of my dad, Dane and Tom when I was at Jenny's on New's Years Day. This picture made Marmar, Sue, Jenny, and I all smile/cry. I decided to post it on the sidebar of my blog for everyone to enjoy.

I guess the holidays are officially over

It had to happen. I knew that January 3rd would come faster than expected and it did. It was such a good break from the routine. I loved having Wayne around for almost two weeks. Even if he wasn't home that entire time (and I would not expect him to be), he was in and out and we had time to just relax and visit and watch some tv and hang out. It was heavenly. Wayne left to go back to Cincinnati around 1:30 this afternoon. He and Julie had a little caravan heading back, since they both had their cars. It was sunny and dry here when they left, so I hope they have safe and easy travels back to Ohio. Sally is around for another 10 days or so. She'll be in Champaign for about 6 weeks and then back home to student teach, right up until graduation in May. Hard to believe.

On New Year's Day, we went to Jenny and Jay's for a short visit with fam. It was just a couple of hours (we had to get back by 6:45 because Sally had a babysitting job next door) but it was fun to see everyone again. Jenny made some crockpot chili that was delicious and easy. I can't wait to make it.

This is a cute picture of my mom and her grandchildren and her great-granddaughters.
From left to right, Abbie, Arne, Nina, Beth (Arne's wife), Sally, Wayne, Kjell and Marmar. As always, we miss Dane. I know that goes without saying, but I need to say it anyway.

Julie, Marmar and Wayne


Beth and Sally had the exact same color of nail polish.

Jenny and Jay with Nina

Yesterday, Wayne and Julie went into the city. Wayne was going to the Illinois-Gonzaga game at the United Center with one of his fraternity brothers, Corey and some other friends. (Arne and Kjell were going, too, with their dad, Bruce.) Sally was around most of the day and then went to Matt's house for dinner. I had to run an errand in the Evergreen Park area late in the afternoon, so Jack came with me. We finished around 4:45. I had a brilliant suggestion that we go to Mass while we were out in that area of the city. Jack consulted his iphone app with mass locations and times. We found a 5 pm mass at Christ the King and it was delightful. Afterward we went to dinner at Franconello's. We had been there a few times with Jack's folks and really liked it. It was such a pleasant evening.

Today we spent the morning taking down the Christmas tree and other decorations. Jack and I have an agreement that we don't take down the outside lights for another week. It helps in the transition :) Getting ready to head back to work tomorrow. I am thankful that I have a job and it's a job that I love, working with people I love to be with.

Happy New Year!

We ended up having a very fun New Year's Eve last night. After the kids were gone, Jack needed to finish up some work and so I ran some errands. We split part of a frozen pizza for dinner and then went to the movies! We went to see "It's Complicated" and really enjoyed it. It was the perfect movie to see on NYE. There were so many funny lines and beautiful scenery and great acting. We got home from the movie around 10:00 and just got ready for bed. We didn't even have one glass of wine or champagne. Surprising, I know. We weren't in the mood for much food or drink (could it have anything to do with all that we have consumed these past two holiday weeks???) and it was such a nice, mellow evening, just enjoying being together. As I headed to bed, I called Ann (Tom's wife) who I had not talked to since right before Christmas. We had fun reliving some of the old NYEs and Christmases. I always love talking to Ann. She has a quick wit and always has the best lines. I wished she lived closer.

I started the morning out by sleeping in a bit. Jean and I walked around 8. It was really cold (single digits) but not slippery and so it was a great walk. Love the fresh air, even if it is arctic.

Happy New Year! I know that each year will have some good times and some bad times in it and I pray that this year holds more good than bad for us all.