Halloween at the Elementary

I have always loved how the staff at Kristen's school dress up and coordinate their outfits.  Last year the theme was "Where's Waldo?"  This year, it was Captain Hook and pirates.  The red and white striped shirts were re-purposed in a great way.  Mr. Liddle, the principal, is always at the forefront of the costume parade.

And there's Kristen doing her parade wave.

Kristen and Mrs. Petersen.  "Aarrghhh, me matey!"

That Darn Tooth

One of my least favorite Mom jobs is pulling teeth. Kristen's teeth are especially challenging. She and I tried all morning to get her latest tooth pulled out with no luck, though I succeeded in breaking some roots to make it wigglier. It was hurting her so much that she just wanted it out. I finally sent her out the door to school with the tooth still intact. She didn't get past the edge of our property when she looked back at me, "Mom, I'm just not ready to do this," as she had tears streaming down her cheeks. The empathetic-mom side of me kicked in and I told her to come home. I opened up the garage door and had her hop in the car. At least I could try to help her be calm by the time she arrived at school. One last shot, "Do you want me to try and pull it one more time before we get to school?" She said yes.  We pulled over on the main street into the school and I had her sit on the console by the driver's seat and pulled. On the second pull, that darn tooth let loose. "Is it out?!?!" "Yes." And I quickly stuffed kleenex into her mouth. We sat in the drop-off lane a bit to let the bleeding stop as we inched forward . Crazy. I sent her in to school with a wad of kleenex clenched between her teeth. At least the tooth was out.

Chicago - Sunday

Chris and I slept in a little on Sunday morning.  We had coupons for breakfast at the Weber Grill and headed down around 10 am.  Too much food.  I ordered scrambled egg whites cooked with spray butter, to be specific, to go along with my oatmeal.  In case you wanted to know.

Chris had researched the location of a church that wasn't too far from downtown.  Sunday was an amazingly beautiful day; we enjoyed the lovely sunshine as we emerged from the subway and walked a couple of blocks to the Immanuel Elementary school where church was held.  We were so lucky to be able to attend a Young Singles Award.  So glad I am past that stage.  But we had a young lady lead the music with the voice of an angel (she reminded me of Snow White), and a young man behind us with a lovely voice.  I enjoyed the music the most.

We had a late check-out at the hotel and returned after Sacrament Meeting to eat a quick lunch and to pack up our stuff. We hopped back on the subway (we had purchased a subway day pass at Jewell-Osco Saturday evening).  We dropped our suitcases off with the bellman at the Palmer Hotel closer to the waterfront.  Who knew you could do that?  Traveling with Chris is a learning experience for sure.

We spent a couple of hours checking out "The Bean" at Millenium Park a.k.a. Cloud Gate, Lake Michigan, the harbor, and Navy Pier.  As we were returning to pick up our luggage, Chris said to me, "You sure do walk fast."  I do, but usually we have no problem keeping up with each other.  I responded, "Do you want me to slow down?"  He joked, "No......that would be humiliating."

We returned to the Palmer Hotel, retrieved our luggage and walked a short distance to the El train to take the orange line back to Midway Airport.  We ended being delayed by 45 minutes (boooo) because our flight crew was late arriving from another flight.

As we returned to Denver, we crossed paths with Grandma/pa Ball as they were waiting for their flight home.  They left Chris' car in the parking garage and again, so slick, we just picked it up and headed home.

Chicago - BYU vs Notre Dame game

It all started with London, but after a whirlwind month of travel, I am happy to be grounded for awhile.  Chris and I left Friday afternoon once Amy arrived home from school.  Misha was staying at a friend's for a birthday party, and Kristen would get home shortly after Amy.  Grandma and Grandpa Ball had agreed to come and watch the girls while Chris and I took off for a BYU Notre Dame football game in South Bend, Indiana.

The plan was to fly in to Chicago Friday evening, meet up Jeff Love and his son, drive to Indiana for the football game on Saturday morning, and return to Chicago for a flight home on Sunday afternoon.  It all worked pretty slick-like too.  We arrived at the airport in plenty of time and Grandma/pa Ball's flight arrived a little early.  They were able to say "hi" to us at our gate for a couple of minutes before we boarded.  (They found our car in the lot and drove it home).

We arrived in Chicago on time.  We skipped eating dinner at the airport in hopes of finding something a little more palatable.  We took the El train (elevated subway) which I thought was pretty cool since I had seen it lots on tv shows.  Jeff Love was kind enough to pick us up with his rental car from the subway and drove us back to the Hyatt, which he just happened to be staying at as well.  Like I said, slick.

We found dinner at the hotel restaurant 15 minutes before it closed and both ordered tilapia.   It was a bit late, but tasty just the same.

Pictures outside our hotel window at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place--a huge convention center:

Lake Michigan

Saturday morning we planned to meet in the hotel lobby at 8 am.  As we stepped in to the elevator, Jeff and Colin were on their way down as well.  We grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonald's and were on our way.  It was recommended to us to leave by 8 am because game-day traffic got pretty crazy getting to South Bend otherwise.  It was smooth sailing.

I marveled at the beautiful trees along the way.  It was the color that I had been hoping to see in Boston the week before.  I tried snapping pictures as we zoomed by, but they didn't turn out especially well.

That's okay, the University of Notre Dame campus didn't disappoint either.  We arrived shortly before 11 am local (one hour ahead of Chicago, two hours ahead of Colorado) and took a short shuttle ride to campus.  That meant we had hours to kill before the 3:30 pm kick off.  Our first stop was Touchdown Jesus.  Yep, that's what they call it.

I loved the reflecting pool in front of the building and the trees...oh, the trees.  Loved 'em.  It was a little cool, but we came dressed warmly.  It had originally been forecast for rain, but we lucked out to have an on again, off again sunshine day.

We tried to see the Bagpipe Band as it walked to the front of the steps of the Golden Dome.  The crowd was mostly too many people deep for me to get a really good view.  I found myself checking out people's iphone/pod cameras as they held them up to record the procession.  Kind of funny to see so many cameras hoisted.

We headed on over to the BYU alumni area.  We opted not to purchase the $30 lunch, but Chris encouraged me to buy a BYU hoodie.  Apparently, a blue sweater just didn't exhibit enough BYU school spirit!  I figured I had one more layer to keep me warm if I needed, though I might have looked like the Pillsbury dough boy with all of them on.

It was recommend that we find lunch on campus with the student associations and groups that had kiosks all over campus.  We stopped at the Korean club for....hamburgers and hotdogs.  Let me just add that I have not had a full-fat hamburger in a long time.  It was quite tasty, though it probably clogged at least two arteries in the process of eating.

We heard part of the Glee Club concert as we waited in line for lunch, but that was soon drowned out by the passing of the Irish Guard--ten kilt-clad soldiers who are 6'2" tall.  They shouted loudly as they walked along the sidewalk and some person happened to be in their way, "EXCUSE US, PLEASE!"

We checked out the Basilica, the Grotto, the Marching Band concert at 2 pm, and the team walk. Again, I couldn't see very well without the aid of many iPods held aloft.

The trees of Notre Dame.

I saw this sign on campus, and Chris joked, "They were going to change the name, but they were too afraid."  I had to go back and get a picture.

Game time.  Finally.  There were a lot of BYU fans in attendance.  This game was so much more enjoyable than some of the frigid ones that I have sat through.

I sat right next to a very enthusiastic fan from Santa Fe, New Mexico.  He would jump up and try to get the crowd cheering and on their feet.  During a commercial break, he tried to get the crowd going, but hey, it was a commercial.  This guy didn't give up though, he resorted to, "This isn't sacrament meeting!  Get up and cheer!"  I found as he continued to be enthusiastic throughout the game, that if I would just stand up beside him, then Chris would, and soon the entire section was on its feet.

We were sad to not have the win for this game.  There were a few mistakes, but it was so much fun nonetheless.  As we converged on the campus again once the game was over, we made our way quickly back to the library to catch a shuttle bus back to the parking lot.  The campus was pretty well organized in their parking and transportation as well as in their activities throughout the afternoon.

We ended up driving all the way back to Chicago for dinner at Franco's.  A whole-in-the-wall kind of place that was quite good.  Jeff dropped us off at our hotel for the evening as we changed from the Hyatt.  We were now at the Hilton Garden Inn in the heart of downtown Chicago.  We ventured out to explore the area, stopping for frozen yogurt at Froyo along the way.

You Made Us Like Them

I was super astounded last week when I was roasting peppers in the oven for dinner.  Amy and Misha actually asked if they could have some.  Amy mentioned that we had made her eat them so much that she now liked them.  Wow.  "But that's not going to happen with that nasty zucchini you eat.  Or the cauliflower."

Happy Birthday Christopher

Another year.  You know you're getting old when your breakfast candles adorn your bran muffins!

Happy Birthday to the best-looking guy I know!

Boston - Day Five

We warned the girls the night before that we were going to get them up early on Monday morning.  We had to be back at the airport between 12:30 and 1 pm.  We planned to visit Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth.  The site opened at 9 am and we wanted to have as much time to check things out before needing to leave.

We started with an orientation movie about Wampanoag (pronounced Wam-pan-og) people and the people of the 17th Century English Village.  There were outdoor living exhibits to visit.  The Wampanoag people were not "in character" since they would have then spoken in their native tongue and we wouldn't have been able to converse with them, but they talked about the life of the family living here long ago.  While visiting, they cooked over their fires, wove handbags, and prepared to burn out a tree to make a canoe.

We proceeded on to the English Village where actors were in character.  Chris was asked at one point where he lived, and the person responded, "I know not of this Colorado that you speak of." 

 
There was also a Craft Center that we visited where we learned more about how skilled craftspeople recreate the world of the 17th century.  Sadly, we were unable to visit the Mayflower II, a recreation of the original ship.

We stopped at a Burger King for lunch, and the service was so slow, we missed out on even being able to drive past the Mayflower II.  Misha was pretty disappointed.  Our weekend came to a close as we headed back to the airport.  A fun and informative trip this time.

Boston - Day Four

Sunday and rain.  We were up around 8 am to get ready, have breakfast, and arrive at the church by 9:30 am.  Let's just say, we felt the bishop of the West Bridgewater Ward was ready to extend us callings by the end of Sacrament Meeting.  They were excited to see a new family in their ward, yet equally disappointed that we were only visiting.  The rain had stopped by the time we left.  Yay.

We returned the short distance to the hotel after church to change clothes.  We packed up a lunch and headed to Cape Cod, about 45 minutes away.  We found the Sea Street Beach on the Hyannis Harbor.  The wind was out of control so we sat in the van and ate our turkey and cheese sandwiches.  Kristen ventured out after eating, with her ziploc bag in hand.  She stopped for a bit at the playground equipment and then got down to the business of collecting more shells.

Our Sunday was full of lovely drives through stately neighborhoods, visits to beaches, and lighthouses explorations.  We stopped at the Nauset Lighthouse as well as the Three Sisters Lighthouses nearby.  The climb to the top of Nauset was nothing compared to our previous day's hike to the top of the Bunker Hill monument. 

I was a little disappointed that the trees were not more fabulously colored.  Some trees had already turned and their leaves were long gone, but most of the trees were still laden with green leaves.

Our final stop for the day was at Howes Street Beach.

Chris lucked out and found a starfish.  We were all impressed.  Amy asked, "If I pick it up, can I drive the car in the parking lot?"  Chris agreed. Misha got in on it as well, "Can I drive the car too if I pick it up?"  Again Chris agreed.

Amy picking up the starfish.  She made it a couple inches off the beach.  She was rather tentative.

Misha picked up the starfish as well.  By this time, the starfish was tiring of the game.

So we let the girls drive the van.  Amy had a little practice in Canada and was a little more confident.  Misha had her first taste of driving.  I think she enjoyed the experience.  Fortunately, there was only one other vehicle in the parking lot.

Lovely day.