1st Day of School and Fun with Friends

1st day Sept 07 - Too cute!

What happened to my little boys??!!

Max - 1st grade

Blake - Kindergarten

Very full book bags!!

Best Buddies...sad that summer is over!

Max at his desk...it was a very crazy morning and didn't get a picture of Blake in his room.  Sorry B!

Great kids and so much fun!!

We are now in the middle of flag football for both the boys and soccer for Max.  He has been able to play in the soccer games, with bubble wrap and a sock covering the cast.  They have their first football game on Saturday and we are keeping him out of the games until the cast comes off...which is Wed.  Hopefully, he will be cleared to play.  Max has done awesome in his soccer games and we are looking forward to seeing Blake play his first football game on Sat.  Bring on the Fall!!

Last weekend of the Summer

We decided to squeeze in a little vacation the last weekend before school started.  Thanks to my best friend Alicia and her husband Jim, we were able to spend a couple nights at their place in Chicago and see some sites.

We arrived Friday night and had some great Lou Malnatti's pizza!  We got an early start on Sat morning and arrived at the Shedd Aquarium when they opened the doors at 8:00a.  It was a very busy weekend in the city as the Air and Water Show was taking place.   By the time we left, the line to get in was extremely long!

Loved the sea turtle!!

We were in the front row for the dolphin show and this little guy walked right in front of us.

Up next was the Field Museum.  We tried to pick and choose what we wanted to see and the dinosaurs were at the top of our list.

Here is Sue the T-Rex!

A little sunny...but a great view of the city!

Our final stop of the day was the Willis (Sears) Tower.  We had bought a City Pass online a few days before and were able to take the "Fast Pass" and move to the front of the line.  I can't tell you how much time this saved us!!  We were at the top of the tower as the Blue Angels were flying for the air show.  Unfortunately, we were standing at the wrong window to experience the fly by right by the tower, but it was still neat to see them.

Max and Blake standing on the Observation Deck.  Dan wouldn't come near it!

We met up with Jim and Alicia for dinner at an English pub with over 90 different types of Scotch.  Dan had a couple that he hadn't tried before and we had a great dinner.  We stopped by an ice cream shop on our walk home and Blake had Merlot Chocolate Chip.  I tried it and it did taste a bit like wine.  He didn't realize what it was until after he ate about half of it.  We were giving him a hard time about drinking wine and that he better behave on the walk back to Alicia's.  We told him he needed to walk in a straight line and make sure the cops didn't stop him and smell his breath.  He was really worried about it and ran upstairs to brush his teeth as soon as we got home!

We left Jim and Alicia's early on Sat, after a great breakfast!  We headed to Porter Beach at Indiana Dunes.  A couple of friends recommended this beach and it was perfect!  The boys played out in the waves on their body boards for hours and loved it!

Daddy helped Blake make an Indian Chief

We left the beach around 2:00 and headed to our hotel near Gurnee.  It felt good to get there at a decent time and relax a bit.  I took the boys to the pool for a little while and Dan had a little nap.  We were all hungry, but had no idea where to go for dinner.  We found this place called, The Shanty, which was excellent!  It was a casual steak/seafood place that has been featured on The Food Network.  We were told there would be about a 15 min wait, but it ended up being an hour.  That meant that we didn't get a table until about 8p.  We were so hungry!  The food was delicious.  Blake got a big salmon and devoured the whole thing in about 5 mins.  Unfortunately, that salmon came up all over the bed at about 2a!!  It was disgusting!  We got everything cleaned up and were able to get everyone back to sleep.  We didn't want to miss out on our last day of vacation.

Blake felt fine in the morning and was able to eat a little breakfast before we headed to Great America.  Luckily, we decided to go on a Monday and the lines were not too bad.  Max was just an inch too short to go on some of the bigger roller coasters.  We had a great time!  We all got soaked a couple times on the water rides and the boys loved it!

My cousin and his son, Quinn, were able to meet us for a bit and we went to the Hurricane Harbor water park inside Great America.  We didn't get to spend near enough time with them but it was nice to see their faces for a bit.

It was a great weekend and wish we could have several more.  It is hard to believe the summer is over and both of the boys are in school full-time.  Blake tells me everyday that it is really bad that he doesn't get to see me very much!  I agree!

Max's first (of many) injuries

Max broke his left pinky finger on Wed night.  Dan and the boys have been spending hours in the backyard getting ready for flag football evaluations this Tuesday.  Some of our neighbors were over for dinner and then a friendly game of 2 hand touch.  It was 3 kids against 2 dads.  Max was sprinting for the end zone with one of the dads running as fast as he could to catch him!  Max dove for the touchdown and landed right on his finger...he got the touchdown!!  He cried a bit and then decided he was ok to play a little more.  I could tell that he was in pain, but he was trying to be really tough.  The next play, Blake and Max crashed into each other and hurt the finger again!  We aren't sure exactly which collision caused the break because both of them looked bad!  The game ended and the neighbors went home.  We decided to put some ice on it and see what happened in the morning.  It was swelling a bit and turning black and blue.  Max had a horrible night sleep and when he woke up, his finger and hand were really swollen and colored.  We went to see the pediatrician at 9:45 and were sent for x-rays.  He confirmed that there was a break and sent us to the orthopaedic doctor.  They put on a splint and asked us to go to a different office and set up surgery for tomorrow.

The orthopaedic doctor said that there was a break as well as the finger being angled out.  He needed to push the finger back into place and the best way to do that at Max's age is to put him under, push the finger back and put on a cast.  This turned out to be a lot more serious than we thought!!  We were told to be at the office for surgery at 6:45a on Friday morning.  We finally got home from all these appts at 3:30p!

Prepped and ready to go!  We were told the surgery would happen at 7:30a.  Finally, at 8:00 they were ready.  After such a long wait, Max was starting to get a little anxious with various nurses coming in and out asking him the same questions.  When they asked him to come with them, he hopped right up and went.  I was so proud of him! He was asleep with the gas in just a couple mins.  The surgery lasted about 5 mins.  It took him a little while to wake up and grandpa and I were called back to see him.  He was a little tired and his finger hurt a bit, but did great.  Thank goodness that my mom and dad were here to help.  My mom came to the house to stay with Blake and take him to breakfast.  He would not have liked being there!

Max has to rest for at least 24hr and then we go back on Monday to get a waterproof cast.  He is really having a tough time not going out to play today.  It is beautiful outside!  Luckily, he had a surprise visitor come and spend the afternoon with him!  Thanks Layne, you made his day!!

Max is signed up for a soccer camp next week, soccer practice is starting, and flag football evaluations/practice are happening too.  Clyde is coming for a visit and we were hoping to do a lot of swimming also.  Luckily, I think he can at least do that, but will be in a cast for about 4 weeks. Then, we aren't sure how long it will be until he can start up with the sports.   We were all looking forward to the upcoming sports seasons, but know he will be back at it very soon!  I'm sure we will have many more of these accidents!