Happy Birthday to a Wonderful Mother-in-Law!

Happy birthday to Marie! I am so fortunate to have such a loving and supportive mother-in-law. Marie is an awesome listener and is always there for us. We love you, Grandma!

The Fair!

We had an awesome time at the Hillsdale County Fair yesterday. We made it a day trip this year so that Wayne and Sally could come  too. We really appreciated the kids taking a whole Sunday out of their schedules. It was Jack's 38th consecutive fair and my 26th (not consecutive; I have missed two fairs). So many memories wrapped up in this tradition.

We started out the morning by picking up Wayne at his place in the city. He rolled out of bed just as we pulled up. We got to the fair by about 1 pm and were ready for action. We usually start out with the photo button. We have a collection of all of our photo buttons since my first fair in 1982. But to our shock, the photo button booth that we have gone to all of these years was not there! It sounded like the woman (who was the granddaughter of the guy who took Jack's first Fair photo button back in 1973) might have passed away, but no one knew for sure. We didn't panic; we thought maybe we could just take our own picture, then get a photo button made back home. We went ahead and did our traditional corn dog and Fiske fries, then did a few games. Wayne won several "prizes" (I use that term loosely) and Sally did not, just like the old days. We had to find a "everyone wins a prize" game for Sally and thank goodness there was one. Jack and Wayne went in the fun house and that was the only ride we did this year. We looked at a few exhibits and then started to head back to the car and then we saw it.... a replacement photo button booth. We were so excited to have our Fair tradition continue. This new photo button vendor had not quite perfected her technique yet as she cut off the tops of Wayne and Jack's heads, even though she used a giant button :)
After the Fair, we stopped at the college, found our brick and then headed to Schuler's. Meatballs, barcheeze, and some peppermint ribbon pie. Doesn't get much better than that.

Oh, yeah, Wayne is the man.

Wayne is trying not to show off two of his prizes. Sally may be pouting.

Sally is trying to figure out which deluxe prize she will choose from the everyone wins game.

Corn dogs, a Fair delicacy

Isn't this just great? At the fair!

Schuler's!

Wayne and Jack with their half yards of ale

Meatballs! They were exceptionally good this year.

It is never a good angle when I lean in like this. I shoulda known better.

Photo Button 2010

Here is our photo button. I thought it deserved its own entry.

End of an Era

RIP Lily Meryl Streep 1999-2010
Lily went to be with her sister cat, Mandy, on Tuesday. She had not been eating well for about a week and did not eat at all on Tuesday. Around dinnertime she started breathing funny and then couldn't walk. I will spare you all the details but we took Lily to the emergency vet and had her euthanized. Sad. I will miss her. Lily was social and vocal, meowing since the first day we got her when she was a six week old kitten. Lily was a big help with my summer speech friends. She loved to be brushed and petted and was good with kids. And she was a tremendous cuddler. One of Wayne's famous quotes is "Lily is obsessed with me" and she was. On what was to be her last night, she slept on the foot of Wayne's bed-Wayne had slept at home Monday night. I am glad that it worked out that way.

Pawp's Moon Rock

Not many people know this, but there is a rock that came from the moon right here in Illinois. It's at my mom and sister's house. My dad, the infamous Pawpster, told his grandkids about how he harvested this rock from the moon way back when. Sally passed on the legend of the moon rock to Abbie and Nina two days ago. The girls are sitting on the moon rock in this picture and I believe that Abbie is even holding a chunk of it in her hand. Now we just need to show the girls the Coast Guard knife that Pawp used to cut his way out of the belly of a whale.

Out to Dinner...on a Tuesday

Sally and I were walking on the wild side last night when we went out to dinner on a school night. Imagine that! Christy asked us to go get a bite to eat and we actually had enough energy to do it. Jack was in Arizona and Steve was biking with friends so it was just the girls. We had fish at The Reel Club and then walked around the mall for awhile. It was a beautiful night. As we were walking, Sally spotted a purse just sitting on a bench, unattended. We waited, looking around for a possible owner. I thought maybe we were on one of those "what would you do" shows. We finally opened the purse and there was a phone. Sally figured out how to work it and Christy called the home number. No answer, so Sally suggested we call the last outgoing number. It
turns out that it was the son of the purse owner. The woman was at the mall shopping with her daughter, so the son called the daughter's cell phone and she met us and got the purse. The woman wasn't nearly as grateful as we woulda liked :)
All in all, a fun night and just what we needed...a nice change of pace.

Tapas

We had an international dining experience on Saturday, a tapas dinner at Cathy and Mark's. They vacationed in Spain last fall and enjoyed comparing notes with Matt and Sally about their experiences there. Cathy and Mark suggested we do a tapas dinner one night with Matt and Sally and the date finally worked out. Cathy, Sally and Matt consulted on the menu and Jack and Mark consulted on the wines and I...hmmmm... what was my contribution? I ate and drank! It was such a relaxing evening (uh, yeah, I didn't do any of the work!!). Cath made an awesome sangria and we had a tasting of several different Spanish wines. I may or may not have consumed all of the Spanish white wine myself. We ended up sitting outside all evening on the back porch and it was the perfect temperature. The evening flew by. Here are a couple of pictures:
This is how the evening began, with an array of Spanish products put together by Cath. We also had proscuitto, I mean jambon serrano (which sounds like "hambone serrano" to me) and chorizo. Other courses included tortilla espanol (a common dish Sally had while studying abroad in Spain; it is like an omlette with potatoes and onions), shrimp (Cathy made), swordfish, white asparagus salad (the last two made by Matt..he is quite the chef!).

Jack, Mark, Sally and Matt
A cute picture of two of the chefs
I promise that I will take my turn soon and have all of them over for some homemade pizza!

Happy Birthday, Susie!

It's my sister Sue's birthday today. It just seems like yesterday (is that trite? oh, who cares. it's true) that Sue and Pawp were celebrating her 40th at Soldier Field, watching a Bears game together. My folks surprised her and had a plane fly over the game with a banner wishing her a happy 40th. Last year, we celebrated her birthday at Ditka's (if you look back at one of my first posts on this blog, you can see some pictures of that fun day!). This year, Sue is celebrating by going to the Bears' season opener with her BFF (truly!) Karen. Yes, she is a Bears fan (do NOT ever ask her to wear green and yellow together...she does not care for the Packers!)
Sue is a wonderfully giving and caring daughter, sister, auntie (great aunt, too!), nurse...you name it. We love you, Suz! Have a great birthday!

Lily Update

An update on our cat, Lily...she is doing better! We are happy to report that she is eating and drinking and moving around pretty well these days. I would say that Lily is back to about 90% functioning. Again, can't believe how well those Greenie's Pill Pockets work. I have no idea how we would be able to get those meds in her otherwise.

Labor Day or Party Day?

Labor Day is not a holiday that one usually associates with partying. Not so for me, however. I have some serious partying history with this holiday weekend. There was a period for several years, back in the 80's, when my side of the family held "Labor Day Olympics", complete with various athletic challenges (although using the term "athletic" in relation to events such as dropping a clothespin in a bottle may be a bit of a stretch). We had medals and awards; it was a fun time. We missed a year or two and the next thing you know, that party fell by the wayside. Labor Day became just another long holiday weekend. Flash forward a few years, into the early 90's and Wayne starts grade school and becomes friends with twins named Adam and Jeff. Next thing you know, we become good friends with their parents, Mark and Cathy and lo and behold, they begin a whole 'nother Labor Day party tradition. They invite over several families and spoil us rotten with fantastic food, drink and best of all, friendship. It is hard to believe that they have been hosting this amazing party for somewhere around 15 years. When we first started going, the kids were little. Check out this picture:
In the back row: Adam, Jeff and Wayne; in the front row Sally, Jack and Mark
I think this is the year that the song "Nine Margaritas" started; that's what they were singing when this picture was taken. It is a song that Mark made up (and I don't recall that we ever had margaritas, though maybe we did one year) and boy, has it stuck!!!

Here are a few pictures from this year's festivities:
Cathy and Sally
Mark and Mason, Jeff and Andi's (almost) 3 month old adorable son
The "boys", Jeff, Adam and Wayne
We missed Chris and Krissy this year (Mark and Cathy's oldest son and his wife) as they were in Vegas, poor things. Also, Don and Susan were out of town and so were also missed.
As always, the evening ended with the singing of "9 Margaritas"... here, for your viewing pleasure, is this year's rendition:

I am getting old

It has been a long week and I am feeling my age! I don't know what it is exactly, but I am not feeling my usual chipper self (said half-seriously!). Labor Day weekend is just what I need, I think, especially because it includes the annual party at Mark and Cathy's. Something fun to look forward to at the very busy beginning of a new school year.

Sally has Meet the Teachers night at her school tonight; she left at 6:30 this morning and is not home yet. As parents, that used to be one of our favorite nights of the school year, to be able to go through the kids' schedules (10 mins a class) and see who they were spending their days with. And now Sally is one of the teachers! I went to Bunco last night and everyone was so excited about Sally. They realize what a coup it is for her to get that job.

Also, quickly, we have been trying to nurse our cat, Lily, back to health. She has been weak and not eating and limping and well, the bottom line is that she has some sort of liver problem. We are trying the medications for a week and we will see what happens. Do you know how hard it is to give cats meds? Well, we have become big fans of Greenie's Pill Pouches. Fantastic way to give a cat meds... there is a version for dogs as well.
that is it for now. Sweet dreams, everyone. Let's all have a great Friday.