Dirty rain is a real thing.

And it came down all over every car in Chicagoland on Friday. No joke, it made the local news ahead of the nightly murder tally. Turns out that Nebraska and Iowa had a combination of high winds and freshly plowed fields which sucked an enormous amount of dirt into the clouds, and dumped it all over us during a passing rainstorm. Great news for the car wash industry. Not so great news for the windows I had professionally washed last week. Bleh. 

And the crowd goes wild!

Jacob’s traveling baseball team played this morning and in the bottom of the last inning with two outs, no base runners, and a tie score Jacob was up to the plate. Jacob is a notoriously weak hitter, but has a typically good eye so his strategy is to draw a walk. And after watching his longer than usual trip to the plate with my hands covering my face, Jacob walked. And then stole second and third on past balls. 

Side note: He had been thrown out stealing home earlier in the game because of hesistation, so I reminded him between innings to be confident and then commit if he is ever to be successful stealing. 

And then he raced for home on another past ball. Amazing heads up base running and a close call at the plate, but Jacob was safe for a walk off win! 

The team started chanting Jacob’s name and I could see my no-emotions ever kid overcome with pride.

What a great game for Jacob! 

Photo Cred: Mason. The kid who hi-jacked my phone for nearly the entire game to film an irrational number of selfie videos. 

Park Crawl

With a sunny and warm-ish day off of school, my mom and I decided to take all the cousins on an area park tour. We saw 5 parks in 5 hours and had a blast!

I don’t know which was more difficult: playing tag against a lightning-fast third grader, or getting all of the kids in a picture at each park. No time for photos when there are zip lines and seesaws and twisty, bendy, spinny things to ride! 

Not pictured in the bottom photo: Jacob’s head. But, oh my, Camryn’s face in that picture! 

Take Your Kid to Work Day

Jacob wanted to go, so Caleb took him. Unlucky for Jacob, Caleb only works until noon on Thursdays, so off to school he went for the second half of the day. But he was able to get into plenty of mischief before then, so no worries. 

From all accounts, the day went as expected. Jacob preferred to spin and slide on the rolling chairs and excessively play with all of the stretchy rehab bands and balls. Ah, well, maybe work would be more fun if we treat it the way Jacob did! 

In full swing.

Baseball season is underway, and between Jacob’s in-house and travel teams and Mason’s rec team, we have 9 games in the next week. And probably each week thereafter until July. Yikes! 

What our life looks like in pictures. 

Side story: This is Mason’s first year playing organized ball, and he had a solid hit on his first at bat. And then stopped running 3 feet before making it to first. He was out, but didn’t care. As he headed back to the dugout he said to Caleb in an excited voice, “I did NOT expect that to happen!” Neither did we Mase! 

What’s this?

There’s flowers everywhere. What’s this? Birds are chirping in the air. What’s this? (Sung to the tune of Nightmare Before Christmas. An original song by Camryn and me. Inspired by the not crappy weather of today.) 

Now this is something I could get used to! 

Lost. And found.

To the lady at the grocery store who turned my wallet in to police because she just didn’t trust the grocery store to get it back to me, thank you for making my Monday suck a little less. 

I left my wallet in the cart after I unloaded my groceries, and I realized it the second I got home. By the time Camryn and I hightailed it back to the store it was gone, and I didn’t expect to get it back. But thanks to the honesty of a good person and the open communication of Facebook, it took less than an hour for her to reach out to let me know that she had found it and returned it to the police station. I believe in karma, and after having returned two lost wallets within the last year, it was paid back to me. And with everything in life, I used this as a teaching moment to my kiddos: We always need to keep track of our things so they don’t get lost (and totally bum us out), and being a good and honest citizen will always make you feel good knowing you have helped others. And in an effort to never lose my wallet again, I think I should quit grocery shopping...

Mason. Of course.

The text string between a classmate’s mom and me regarding an RSVP for an upcoming birthday party. 

Glad Mason was able to tell his friend in English that he can only speak Hawaiian. Ten days in another US territory will do that to ya. Eyes in a permanent roll around this kid. 

Another last first.

Kindergarten registration officially complete. And looking very excited for the transition. Almost as excited as me! 

Barf.

My kids’ sickness of choice. Happy that this round was over by lunch, which gave this girl lots of warm outdoor play time and a free pass from school. 

Back to business as usual today. 

Spring? Is that you?

You look different than I remember...

Back to reality.

But not before the kids slept through the first half of their first day back. We are still struggling with the time difference, and aren’t exactly happy to have snow on the ground, but it’s good to be back home. And though the vacation may be over, all of the fun memories are living on in the kids’ school work! 

Mason can’t spell “went” correctly, but he nailed luau, Haleakalā, and Molokini. I don’t get it. 

Hawaii. Day 11.

The long haul home. But not before packing in as much fun as possible before boarding the plane.

One last dip in the pool...

One last beach walk. With creepy crawly sea creatures...

And one last Hawaiian shaved ice...

And then after exactly 15 hours and 12 seconds of travel (no joke, Caleb set his stopwatch), we were back where we started. And while I can’t speak for anyone else in the group, this one slept the entire time on both plane rides!

Happy to be home, but wishing the temperature difference was less of a shock!

Hawaii. Day 10.

We asked the kids which activity they would like to do on their last day on the island. Mason said breakfast at a restaurant, Camryn said play at the park, and Jacob said snorkel with the turtles. Check. Check. And check. 

We even squeezed in some other activities. 

Like dye Easter eggs. 

Check out the log that has been floating around the lava for the past day.

And go for a swim under the lights.

But, in my books, the most exciting part of the day was when Camryn decided to finally take the plunge and jump in to the water unassisted!

Check out that form! Toes pointed, knees bent, back arched. Perfect! And after roughly 1,000 jumps, this happened...

That much pool activity is enough to tucker out anyone!