Wordless Wednesday

I see so many blogs doing Worldess Wednesday posts and thought I'd join in. So, no words this time, just a peaceful picture. :)

Conquering the summer bucket list

So, at the start of the summer I made a list of activities I wanted to do with the kids. Not an all-inclusive list. There are things not on this list that we did. Some were planned. Some were spur of the moment. There were things on this list we did more than once. I just made the list to record some places I wanted to visit that we may not have visited before and I thought it would help me get them done to check them off the list. Today, I re-evaluated the list, which originally had 50+ items. My goal was to do at least half. When I looked at it today, I eliminated a few things. For instance, I had three splash pads listed, but I realized that my kids are really getting too old to enjoy splash pads. We may still visit the closest one if we have an idle day that's warm. I also deleted Wihala Beach because we've visited three other beaches. So, after today, the list has 44 places. We've visited 26. That's more than half! Goal met. And there's still a couple more weeks before school starts, so we may cross off a couple more. I still would really like to camp overnight and hit the county fair. Here's what the list looks like as of today and here's some pictures of some of our summer activities:

X                      Pool visit (maybe get passes)

X                      Sand Ridge Nature Center

X                      Zig E’s Funland

Albanese Candy Co.

Deep River Water Park

          XXXXX               Library visit

Chelberg Farm

Wicker Park Splash Pad

X                     Indiana Dunes

X                     Frozen Yogurt Express in Munster

X                     Free Movie at Lansing 8

                       Zoo (Broofield or Washington Park)

X                     Picnic at a local Park

XXX                Kite flying

XX                  Berry Picking (strawberries and blueberries)

                       Downtown day via Metra train

                       Roller Skating (free passes from school)

X                    Tyler’s Tender (free kid meal from birthday club)

                       Mini Golf

X                     49-er Drive In

X                     Berry Picking (blueberries)

X                     Green Lake Aquatic Center

                        Hollywood Park

XXXX              Cubs game

X                      Tyler’s Tender (take report cards – 5 tokens for each A)

X X                  Out for a family breakfast/lunch

X                      Boat ride      

X                      Find a new park to visit

                        Fishing

                        County fair

                        Minor league baseball game

 X                    Chinatown

                        Try Dairy Belle in Hammond

                        Hoosier Theatre

X                      Try a new restaurant

                        Movie in the Park

XX                   Attend a parade

                        Overnight at a campground

X                      Farmer’s Market

X                      Summer Concert

XXX                 Dairyville

                        Vintage Base Ball Game

                        Navy Pier

X                     Cruise Night

This guy was our pet for the week. Until we couldn't find anymore live crickets or grasshoppers to feed it and we let it go in the garden.

Archery at Bristol Renaissance Faire

Ice cream at Taste of Wisconsin

Chillin' by the Pierhead Lighthouse in Kenosha

Taking a tour at Jelly Belly Center

Kenosha Public Museum

Riding the streetcar along the lake in Kenosha

In the water at Eichelman Park in Kenosha

Dinosaur Discovery Museum

Russell Military Museum

Pizza at Beggar's Pizza on Tuesday night for the organ player

Preschool reunion at Centennial Park

Wine tasting with Svengoolie in Munster

LCPL Philip J. Martini Memorial Foundation Fundraiser

Grilling!

Going for a bike ride

Indiana Dunes

Munster July 4th Parade

Lan Oak Park for the Grand Ole Fourth

4th of July Fireworks in Lansing

Farmer's Market

Russell Military Museum

Blue Nothing

Last month was a busy one and I didn't post a lot on here. But, it's now August. Things are slowing down a bit. School registration is this week. I'm starting to gather the school supplies and getting things organized for the kids return to school in just two weeks. So, it's time to fill you in on some of what I've been doing this summer. Last week we took a brief trip up over the border to Kenosha, Wisconsin. We spent three days there, visiting some museums, the Bristol Renaissance Faire, the Jelly Belly Center and I spent as much time by the water as I could. All three days we spent some time by the Lake Michigan. 

The first day, we visited the Taste of Wisconsin and walked along the lake. On the third day before heading out of town we stopped at Eichelman Park for a picnic and some swimming. These pictures are from our second day. We visited Jelly Belly in the morning and took a drive through the historic district, where, at the conclusion of our drive, we stumbled upon Eichelman Park and stopped to eat the lunch we planned on eating at the beach that afternoon. Then we went to the Kenosha Public Museum and took a ride on the electric streetcar. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon here...at a public beach on Simmon's Island. 

It's so relaxing to sit on the beach and look at out and see nothing but blue. Blue sky and blue water and that's it. Well, maybe a boat or a gull or a straggling beach-goer here or there, but for the most part...it's nothing but blue water and blue sky. I even catnapped for a short time and that was soooo nice! Is there anything better than a nap on the beach?

I love the playground equipment at the beach.

And yeah, the only thing more peaceful than being out on a beach and looking at nothing is looking out at a lighthouse.

 And I'm not a big fan of sand (moms know what I'm talking about...it gets EVERYWHERE!), but this sure is lovely isn't it?

And the boys are definitely fans of sand!

  

An evening of music under the stars

I love music and try to expose my kids to all kinds of music. I love attending concerts with my kids and with my father, who always had classical music on the car radio or the home record player when we were kids. Last weekend, I took my youngest son and my dad to a concert in Crown Point that was part of the free concert series by the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra. What a wonderful evening. Wish I would have thought of it and planned ahead -- some people had some big spreads set up with tables with tableclothes and candles and lots of good food. I bought a couple candy bars at intermission and we sat in our lawn chairs and listened to the music as it got dark.

My little guy had brought his Nintendo DS for the half hour ride and played on it for part of the performance. It was cute to see him perk up, though, when he recognized some of the music - like the music from Star Wars!

We sat pretty far back - there was a BIG crowd, but it sounded wonderful from where we were sitting.

And my son loved these dogs! He kept going over to pet them.:)

It was a nice night. Reminds me that I need to play a little more Mozart and Bach around the house!

I've been nominated for the Liebster Award

A comment was left for me on my blog this week, telling me I was nominated for the Liebster Award! How nice! The Award is bestowed on bloggers by other bloggers. It is for up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers and when you're nominated, you do the same for others...setting off a chain reaction of introducing less visible blogs to others who read blogs. I was nominated by http://jessanicole421.blogspot.com/. Thanks, Jessika!

"Liebster" is German and means sweetest, kindest, dearest, beloved. 


Here is how the Liebster Award works: 


1. Each nominee must post 11 things about themselves.


2. Answer the questions that the tagger set for you and create 11 questions for bloggers you've tagged.


3. Choose up to 11 bloggers and link them in your post.


4. Go to their page and tell them. 


5. No tag backs. 




Eleven Things About Me
1.  I am a mom of five boys.
2.  I also write a food blog (with my sister, Becky) called Chicago Foodie Sisters.
3.  I love to travel and also do a lot of travel writing.
4.  I have a dog.
5.  I am an author of four books.
6.  I am one of six kids.
7.  I work as a newborn baby photographer in a hospital.
8.  I make yummy soups!
9.  I'm not big on chic flicks - I like comedies. Anything with Rowan Atkinson, Dana Carvey, Kevin James, Adam Sandler.
10. I saw Paul McCartney live last year - best concert ever.
11. I am a gleek.




And the for the 11 questions from Jessika...




1. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? England


2. What is your go-to, when all else fails comfort food? anything chocolate


3.  What do you do to pay the bills? Freelance writer, photographer and hubby's salary. :)


4. What is your favorite food? cheese


5. What is your favorite quote/saying? "We've got both kinds of music - country and western."

6. What is the best piece of advice someone has given you, and did you follow it? If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all - from my mom. I try to follow it.


7. What is the craziest thing you ever did growing up? I guess I wasn't a crazy kid because I can't think of anything crazy enough to list.


8) What is one thing that makes you smile no matter what? My kids


9) Who do you miss more than anything? My brother-in-law who died of cancer at age 42


10) Do you have a favorite hobby? cooking and blogging


11) Why do you blog? I do three blogs - Adventures in Motherhood (www.carriemotherhood.blogspot.com) to vent on parenting issues and share the moments of motherhood, Chicago Foodie Sisters (www.chicagofoodiesisters.blogspot.com) to share my love of everything food and Midwest Family Traveler (to share the fun fun things to do in the Midwest that I enjoy.)



And now for the people I am nominating for the Liebster award!!!


1. One Chic Mom - http://fabmom12.blogspot.ca/
2. Building on Joy - http://buildingonjoy.blogspot.com/
3. Homesteadin' in the Burbs - http://homesteadinintheburbs.blogspot.com/
4. World Class Cookin' - Worldclasscooking.blogspot.com
5. My Bizarre Family - http://mybizarrefamily.com/


And here are my questions for you:


1. What's your favorite food?
2. What's your favorite holiday?
3. Your biggest regret in life?
4. How many kids do you have?
5. If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?
6. Who is your favorite celebrity?
7. Favorite song of all time?
8. Chocolate or vanilla?
9. Best bit of advice you've gotten?
10. Most recent book you've read?
11. Who's the most famous person you've met?

My five favorite blogs

Adventures in Babywearing (adventuresinbabywearing.com)

Steph has this gift of taking the most mundane little things in a standard day and turning them into something beautiful. Almost all of her blog posts have breathtaking photography - usually of her kids - and sometimes very few words. Sometimes the picture just says it all. I was lucky enough to read in a production she directed this past May called Listen to Your Mother. She’s a mom of many talents. When you follow her blog you just sometimes feel like you’re sitting right there in her living room experiencing it all along with her.

Five Kids is a Lot of Kids (putdowntheurinalcake.com)

Ok, look at that URL. Anyone who would choose that one has to have a sense of humor. I was initially drawn to her blog by the title alone. She has five kids. I have five kids. I wanted to see how she was faring. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s pretty normal to feel like you’re losing your mind on a daily basis when there are five kids at your heels all the time. She is funny. No, she is downright hilarious. But when she’s not, she expresses these tender and heartfelt moments that make your eyes misty.

Two Moms, a Little Time and a Keyboard (twomomsalittletimeandakeyboard.blogspot.com)

Ok, that’s a mouthful. It didn’t even fit on one line. I love that this blog covers lots of areas. It is mostly about things to do and see with your kids in the Chicago-area…right up my alley. I’ve been doing travel writing for a dozen years and a lot of it involves local attractions. I’m always looking for new material and ideas on new places to visit and I like to get the little tips that moms want to know before they go. But they also cover travels outside the area. And recipes. And crafts. And restaurants. And product reviews. So, it’s kind of a one-stop shop. And it’s always something I enjoy reading.

Nameberry (nameberry.com)

I’m a total name nerd. Writing about baby names is one of my favorite topics. Each year I check out the list of top names put out by the Social Security Administration. I’m proud of the consideration that went into choosing the names of our five boys. I love meeting new parents in my job taking pictures of babies in the hospital…and I love finding out their new names and meeting all the new Masons and Logans and Avas and Isabellas of the world. I also get regular e-mails from Nameberry.com and I love to read their take on popular names, suggestions of new trends and news on the latest celebrity baby names.

Live Your Love Out Loud (liveyourloveoutloud.blogspot.com)

I think I love this blog so much because I met the person before I read the blog. I know Heather personally and she just has this natural exuberance about her that makes you fall in love with her. I enjoy reading her ramblings about life with her two little girls and all her motherly adventures. I also subscribe by e-mail so that I don’t miss posts and smile every time one shows up in my inbox. Oh, and she and I were in that Listen to Your Mother show together. In fact her reading came after mine, so we were seated next to each other. :) What a great person to sit with. She whispered words of encouragement before I went on stage and when I returned. She rocks!

Live like there's a power outage

Have you head the Tim McGraw song where he talks about living like you know you're dying ? Where he asks what you would do. Go skydiving? Rocky Mountain climbing? Go 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu?

I'm not going to pose a question quite so philosophical.But I am going to give a bit of advice on how to live life a little better. And it's not by looking at the Xray of doom. It's by living as if you're Amish. By that, I mean ditching the electricity. Not all the time. Just for a little while. When things are hairy and you're feeling out of sorts and not so grounded. That's when it's time to pull the plug. Why this epiphany? Well...

This morning I was awakened by a loud burst of wind of raindrops banging against the air conditioning unit over my head. I rolled around a little and couldn't fall back asleep. I knew it was morning by the bits of dampened sunlight peeking through the corners of the shade. But I new it was early morning. I didn't feel rested enough to start the day. I glanced over at the alarm clock. 7:05. I rolled around a little more and dozed shortly. When I rolled over again, I heard my husband ask what time it was. I looked over again. The clock was dark. No power. After a few minutes, I was curious. I went downstairs and got my phone. It was 7:45.

It really was time to get up and start the day, but I was still drowsy. After lying wide-eyed, I finally fell back asleep. When I woke again, still a dark alarm clock, but my phone said 9:45. 9:45!!!! I can't remember the last time I slept that late. It felt good. Maybe it was the fact that it was quiet. No noise from air conditioners or fans and the windows were still closed, not letting in the sounds of birds or kids or passing cars. It was silent. Maybe that's what did it.

I felt a little lost when I woke up. My usual routine this summer has been to make my way to the bathroom, take note of who is awake and who is still sleeping, find out if they've eaten breakfast and then sit down in front of the computer to check my e-mail, check Facebook, poke around online to see what's in the news. If I don't see much of interest, I go get the newspaper off the porch, take a look and then get back to the computer for a bit.

First thing I did was grab my iPad thinking I could check e-mail on there. Duh! No power means that the wireless router is down, so no Internet access on the iPad. Oh, well. So, I did some things I probably wouldn't have done on a normal day. Hubby and some of the boys were outside assessing the damage, so I went out as well. As they went to work picking up sticks and branches and picking up the recycling that had scattered all over the street, I picked up some recycling items as well and looked at the garden. The storm wasn't kind to it. It also took the roof off of the kids' playhouse. I spent a little time outside with the kids. That's not something I do first thing in the morning.

Next, I reached for my purse and realized how overstuffed it was. I took time to dump all the contents out on the table and clean it out. OMG...it's funny what you find in the bottom. A toothpick. Sunblock. Three tubes of lipstick. Stray change and receipts. Expired coupons. I counted 18 pens. And 2 pencils. And 3 Sharpies. A mini first aid kit. And lots of other junk. Feels good to know what's in there now.

Then as I went to put my pens in my little caddy, I looked at how disorganized it had gotten during the school year. There are six compartments that hold pens, markers, pencils, erasers, scissors and crayons.  I emptied it all out and got it in order.

As I looked at all the pens, I decided to write some letters, something I haven't done in a long time. I got out some stationery and wrote to my aunts and my husband's grandmother. I used to write often to all nearly all my aunts. When I first got married there was Aunt Ramona and Aunt Marilyn, my dad's sisters (I don't really know my other aunt - his brother's wife, who lives in Florida and I have never met) and my great aunt Harriett. Then on Mom's side was Aunt Nila, Aunt Carolyn, Aunt Ellen and Aunt Lora. Nila, Carolyn and Ellen are no longer with us. There's not as many letters to write these days, but I've always enjoyed that handwritten correspondence. I've always loved getting back handwritten letters from them and have saved a good number of them.

It was also my son's birthday (son #4) and he turned 9. With no air conditioning and high humidity, I wasn't too keen on the idea of baking and thought perhaps I'd take the easy way out and run to the grocery store for a cake. But then he started throwing out ideas of all the cakes he was thinking he'd like. I showed him one in a cookbook I had borrowed from the library. It was a Texas sheet cake. The picture along side the text was a decadent piece of chocolate Heaven. He was sold. So we got to work on the cake. As I got out the ingredients, I straightened out the pantry a bit.

As I walked around the house, the boys were putting together Legos and playing with Matchbox cars rather than watching television or playing video games, which they very likely would have been doing had we not had a power outage. If they weren't playing inside, they were outside, doing more cleaning up in the yard.

I kind of felt like I was the mouse in that book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" But my story was something like, "If you give a bored lady who is fidgety because of lack of Internet access an overflowing purse, she'll clean out the pens and pencils. When she sees the pens and pencils, she'll decide to put them away. When she puts them away, they will remind her of writing with them on paper. She'll pull out some paper to write a letter. Then she'll start to write. When she starts writing, she'll realize she needs an envelope. When she looks for an envelope, she'll find her box of greeting cards. She'll decide to organize it. She remembers it is her friend's birthday and writes out a card..." and so on. One thing led to another, but it was all little stuff that isn't all that major or time consuming, but just stuff that I don't take the time to do on a regular basis.

Within four hours of getting out of bed, the power was restored. But I felt like I'd accomplished a bit. I had:

Gone outside and collected some stray recycling
Cleaned out my purse
Organized my school supply caddy
Written three letters
Written out a birthday card
Baked a cake
Straightened out the pantry
Washed some dishes by hand
Cleaned the stove
cleaned off the kitchen counters
Put away two baskets of laundry
Made some phone calls I'd been procrastinating about to the insurance company, doctor's offices, etc.

Compare that to yesterday morning where in my first four hours awake I'd checked e-mails, written a blog posting, checked Facebook, left to do a photo shoot, returned home and checked more e-mails and Facebook. Today felt much more productive.

I really need to have more mornings like today. Once school is in session again and there is more of a set routine, I'll become a bit more productive. But for now, I think I need to wake up and live each day like there's a power outage. Think Tim McGraw could make a country song out of that? :)