Mobile blogging from Marmar's

I am out at my mom's right now and I just took this picture of her reading this blog. I am going to post it and show her the marvels of modern technology!

Why I Love Summer, reason #1

We had our first Birthday Club of the summer on Thursday. Sheila and Christy were the hostesses and we celebrated Sue and Kathy's birthdays. It was a beautiful evening after raining on and off all day. We had appetizers and drinks in Sheila's screened-in porch, which was completely cozy and relaxing. Sheila and her husband, Marty, have one of the coziest homes I have ever been in. Check this out:

This porch overlooks her new pool and gorgeous landscaping.There was even a robin's nest in the tree to the right in the picture, complete with baby birds! There were eleven of us (Jean couldn't come because she was working) and we sat there til it was dark, just visiting and laughing. For dinner, Sheila and Christy served a chicken and pasta dish (oh my gosh, it was light and refreshing, a little balsamic vinegar and basil, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella!) and a big salad. For dessert, we had an angel food cake with fresh berries. It was a quintessential summer night, one that I will remember with great fondness next winter when it is dark and snowy outside!

Stormy Weather

We had a fast and furious storm on Tuesday night. It was crazy! At 7:40, the sun was shining and I was thinking about going out to run some errands. For whatever reason, I decided not to and I am glad. Less than an hour later, a huge storm blew in with strong winds and lots of thunder and lightning. It lasted about 30 minutes, but its effects were felt for several days. We were without power at our house for about 12 hours, but many of our neighbors were out for three days. And we were fortunate that we did not have much damage, not even tree branches down. The north side of our block was hit hard, with huge limbs all over the place. There were giant trees down all over town. Here is a picture of one a few blocks away.

Downtown Sue's

We had our traditional Father's Day celebration at Downtown Sue's yesterday. Fun times with the family! Everyone was there except for Paul (in Fla) and Sally (in Wisconsin with Matt) and we also had Rick, Lauren's BF, there. Wayne makes fun of my picture taking ("Let's get a picture of...[insert yet another combination of people]"), but I love having the pictures to look back on. In case you hadn't noticed, I am pretty big on looking back! So here are some of the pictures of the fam :) I won't post them all. Thanks for hosting, Downtown Sue!

Fathers

I have been so blessed to have wonderful fathers in my life. My dad was one amazing father. That Celine Dion song, "Because You Loved Me" sums it all up. That sounds a bit trite, but it does. As I have said many times here in my blog, one of the greatest gifts my dad gave me was his good mood. I could always count on his great attitude. I loved his laugh, his love of life and his love of family. Such a wonderful legacy he left with all of us.

I have also been blessed to have a wonderful father-in-law. Bill has always been so supportive and encouraging, never judgmental or intrusive. He is a good man. And he is fun to be with, too! I don't hold it against him that he is a Cubs fan :).
Then of course, there is my husband, Jack. He is such a great father. I can sum it up by saying that he has never raised his voice at either of our kids. He hasn't needed to because Wayne and Sally respect him and his opinion of them so much. Some friends say the fact that Jack has never yelled at the kids isn't a big deal. Their logic is that who needs to yell at kids that are like Wayne and Sally? Well, to that I just ask, which came first?
What a big, important job it is to be a father. God bless all the dads out there. Happy Father's Day!

What a week!

Wow, it has been an interesting week. Here are some of the happenings-
- my mom fell on Monday but thank God no broken bones this time (remember almost a year ago when she fell and broke her hip and wrist? yeah, we do). Poor Marmar is not well. Trouble with the breathing and not feeling good at all
-my friend, Greg (husband of my college friend, Lynn), well, he has been hospitalized in a cardiac thoracic ICU with an aortic dissection since last Friday. I found out about it shortly after I arrived at my mom's Monday afternoon. Just been texting with her and not really being too helpful at all. Yet.
-my friend Mike had his knee replaced on Tuesday (and I have done nothing for him yet either)
It has been a stressful week, even with my shortened summer work schedule. I don't like when people are not well. I just don't.
Let's bring it up here. (that's what Jean and I say when we therapize on our walks and go into the Debbie Downer mode)
On a positive note, I have had a good start to my summer speech work. I love the kids I work with and the summer evaluations have been interesting. And we had a delightful time last night in the city with Mark, Cathy, Don and Susan. Jack, Cathy and I took the train downtown, met up with Mark at the train station and then cabbed it to North Rush Street to meet Don and Susan. It was a beautiful evening to be in the city with friends, enjoying the energy of being with good friends.

the girls

the guys

Just a couple of fun pictures (updated!)

Here are a couple of pictures from last weekend. I am updating this a few days later. I posted these with a different program. They are huge pictures, aren't they? I didn't let you know what these were. You were probably dying of curiousity!

The first picture is of Nina and Abbie at Susie and Marmar's with the Nabisco products. Oh, yeah, supporting the Waynester.

The next two pictures are from Caylen's shower on Sunday. Such a gorgeous afternoon outdoors. Beautiful bride and a fun day. There is a picture of Brittany, sister of the bride and Kay, grandmother of the bride. And one of Joe and Caylen (bride and groom, of course) and Sally. The last picture is Teri (MOB), Colleen (AuntOB) and the bride.

School's Out for Summer!

I officially finished with students last week, but had lots to do to close out the school year. So many little details and paperwork (always lots of paperwork in special education!). Just when I thought I was done, I would remember something else that needed to be turned in. That's okay because now I AM DONE with SY10-11!!! I even finished up my thank you notes yesterday (parents are so kind and generous). I actually started my summer work this week. I am doing speech and language evaluations for my special ed coop, like I do every summer. It is very different than what I do during the school year and I will be working about 15 days (plus report writing time at home), so it is all good. I also will be doing some private therapy.Glad to have the work and the structure helps me stay in a groove. I did three evaluations on Wednesday  and I am getting myself ready to start writing the reports. The first few evals of the summer are always a challenge for me as I switch gears. That's why I am blogging instead!
Sally finished up her school year yesterday and what a great first year of teaching she had! Early this week she found out she received honorable mention for her school's Make a Difference award. It is quite an accomplishment for a first year teacher. Make a Difference is an award that is given to five teachers or staff members each quarter, based on nominations by students, parents, and staff. It's a pretty big deal and Sally was so touched to have gotten one of the honorable mentions. One of her students told her that she nominated Sally which made it even more special. This summer Sally is starting to work on her master's degree. In August, Sally is going to be assistant girls swim team coach and will begin working on that over the summer, helping to run a five week clinic. She is soooo excited to be coaching with two of the guys who were her coaches when she swam in high school. They are tremendous coaches and men and were important influences in her life. How blessed is Sally, to have an awesome job...and she knows it.
Jack has been out of town this week and it has been one travel snafu after another for him. The issues have been weather related mostly (I think). He was supposed to come home last night, but missed the last flight out because of construction traffic jams. He got booked on another flight that was supposed to arrive at 11 this morning, but he just texted and that flight was also delayed. Now he is due in later today. Oh the joys of traveling!
Now I really am going to go work on a report.

Out of the Rut weekend...most definitely!

What a great weekend! Well, except for the Mavs loss to Miami just now (not a fan of the Heat). It was a fun and busy weekend, starting off with Sally's 23rd birthday on Friday and a very busy day at work. We have a birthday tradition of having birthday cake for breakfast, but the bakery didn't open til 7 and Sally had to meet a student at 7, so that didn't happen. We were flexible (kinda), though we like (a LOT) our traditions here at our house :) Work was busy, too, and was followed by an end of the year/going away party for another Sally. One of our Early Childhood administrators is leaving for a great new job in Naperville (lucky them to get her) and there was a party to help celebrate that. I have worked with Sally for the past 14 years. Kacey, another administrator, had a gathering at her house and it was so much fun. It was a beautiful afternoon. I rode to the party with my coworker Lisa and then Jack picked me up an hour later so we could go into the city to help celebrate Sally's (my Sally!) birthday. It was at Howl at the Moon, a very fun piano bar. Jack and I went for about two hours and it felt like a Mom's Day at Illinois! Sally had a nice turnout of her awesome friends and family. The only problem was my camera ran out of batteries ten minutes after I got there, so I only got two pictures, but they were good ones!

Loving on Sally on her 23rd birthday

Sally and her cousin Lauren..so cute

Wayne gave Sally tickets to the Saturday night Glee concert for her birthday. They were going to take the el from the city out to the Allstate Arena, so Jack and I offered to drive Sally into the city to meet Wayne, Julie and Josh (the Australian!), the other attendees.  Also in attendance was one of Julie's fellow architecture grad students, Lindy, who is reportedly a total Gleek. In case you are wondering why Matt wasn't in attendance, it is because he sacrificed his ticket so that true Glee fans could go to the concert. What a guy!

the Gleeks, Julie, Lindy, Wayne, Sally and Josh

While the youngsters were at the concert, Jack and I decided that we would grab dinner and see a movie. It was so serendipitous. We found the most amazing place to eat right across from the movie theater. It was called Fat Willy's Rib Shack and it was so great! After dinner, all we had to do was walk across the street to the theater (which had $2 parking, by the way!). We saw "Bridesmaids" and it was one of the very best movies we have seen in a long time. SO funny, but also a great message. Jack and I (it is not a chick flick) have not laughed that hard in a long time. I have to qualify this by saying that there is lots of bad language, so if you find that offensive, "Bridesmaids" wouldn't be for you. But my goodness, it was an entertaining movie! Afterward, we popped back in Fat Willy's for a bite of dessert (coconut cream pie that was out of this world) and a diet coke, then met up with the kids.
Today, we went to mass and Father Edgar was saying the mass..total win for us. Love his homilies and masses. Later in the afternoon, Jack, Sally and I went to watch Kjell (my nephew) play baseball at the Kane County Cougars stadium in Geneva. Wayne met us there as did Jenny, Jay, Arne, Beth, Abbie and Nina.The Scorpions (Kjell's team) lost, but it was a good game. Kjell plays first base and had a "play of the week" kind of play as well as an RBI. Abbie and Nina enjoyed dancing on the dugout between innings (just twice). So cute!

that's our Kjell! right in the middle there

Arne and Nina

 What a fun way to begin summer!