My parents took us to out to eat at Shannon's Landing at the airport. They thought it would be fun for Ethan to see the planes and eat. Well, the weather was sort of overcast and we only saw 1 land. It was still a nice time and good food. Ethan loved riding the elevator up. Don't all kids love pushing those buttons!
Our waitress was really sweet with E, so Trent kind of mentioned to him to give her the shooter. This is something T taught Ethan probably when he was like 2.5. Back then he would 'shoot' with his fingers and say "click click". Now he does it just right.
That lady thought it was so funny & too cute. I really need to take video of it.
It is almost time for the fair!! Countdown has begun! I'm taking Friday & Monday off, then some more next week.
E had never been mini-golfing/putt-putt so we decided to try out a new place in town. T's parents gave us like $40 of giftcards they had won. It was really nice. They have 2 courses, batting cages, video games w/ tickets, and an awesome go-kart track.
E had a tough time remembering how to hold the club, much to his dad's dismay. HE really loved playing though. T won, of course, and even got 2 hole-in-ones.
The boys then went on the go-karts. T loved those. E had to ride with T because he was still too little, luckily!
We played some games that were like chucky-cheese style.
Friday night was the John Mayer concert. It was so great, really enjoyable. Our seats were awesome. T counted it as 15th row! Definitely the best seats we have ever had at Tinley Park and they were FREE!
We missed the 1st opener Brent Dennan, just heard him as we were walking in.
I just had 1 Mike's Lemonade and some half of t's 2nd beer. I was afraid I was going to have to leave to use the bathroom if I drank too much. Not wise to do at a concert and especially at a venue this size with 20,000 + people. I noticed the girl's line was super long before Colbie Caillat took the stage.
Colbie was great! I'm happy I downloaded her album prior so I would recognize her other songs.
My fav right now is Realize. I recorded some of it.
I loved that we could take our cameras in without a 2nd glance. Sure we had to empty our pockets and spin around, but I didn't get patted down.
After Colbie we walked around some and came back to our seats. I decided I may need to use the bathroom before John so booked it out and was so worried I was going to miss the opening. I made it back in time. Then T thought he should take a break, too. He started to get up then the lights went down and the screaming started.
He opened with a Sweet Home Chicago mix into Bigger Than My Body. So cool! The acoustics are pretty crappy there. It is pointless to even talk in between the songs because you can barely understand what they are saying. I love to hear cool stories or funny things in between the songs at concerts, too. But it was really hard to grasp it all at that venue.
I loved that I was able to take video and photos! Our camera isn't the greatest at video, plus zooming in close but the audio is decent enough. I have thought our zoom really didn't produce anything decent in the past. Well, I kept the flash on some and zoomed and it did ok this time. Sure they are not crisp & sharp, but not really blurry. This is close to our actual view from our seats... Trent's favorite was the 1st encore of Panama, a Van Halen song. He has seen VH and loves them. He had to point out John was playing a guitar like Eddie's. I had read the next day that the Chicago show was the first time he played it with that guitar. I loved the light show. We were close enough that the big screens weren't a big deal. We had to look away from the stage to see them. I would just check them out when I would notice they were zoomed in on his guitar playing. He ended with "Say", I recorded a bit of it. Ethan recognizes this song and loves watching what I videotaped.
I had forgotten what a pain it is to leave from a huge venue like this. It took close to an hour to get out of parking lot! The concert ended at 11pm and we got home right at 1am.
Ethan spent the night at T's parents.
Saturday-Trent had a golf outing that was partly in the rain then hot & humid. He didn't have a lot of fun. Ethan and I did a little shopping, then hung out at home. Played computer, then did some reading. I bought him a workbook on letter sounds. HE was a little offended that I was getting a workbook that said kindergarten, I selected one for pre-k. When we were checking out he had a convo with the cashier:
Cashier lady: "Oh, this looks like a good workbook"
E: "We are getting that because I need to work on my L sound."
Cashier lady: "Well, that is ok. ...my 3 year old says the craziest things, too."
When we were doing some exercises in the book he said something funny. He had to simple circle things that started with the letter 'm'. He was saying each picture word out loud. There was a picture of a sandwich and he says:
E: "p p p peanut butter and jelly sandwich"
Me: "Well, what is this generally called? See, it has lettuce on it"
E:"Peanut butter and lettuce sandwich" (still not getting it)
Me: (giggling) "What do you call this generally, not specificly? just say sandwich"
E: (finally smiles knowingly)
Sunday-breakfast buffet at Northwoods. So yummy! Ethan said this place is his new fav, more than the other buffets. We then went to Alsips to look at the puppies. We didn't get one out to play with this time though. E kept asking, too.
I went with my mom to Garden's on the Prairie to see their art show, loved their gardens.
I was back home around 2:30 so I went swimming with E. We had fun and he jumped in off the top step of the ladder by himself! He didn't jump into my arms. HE held his breath , shut his eyes and jumped. He had on his floaties but he did go under for a couple of seconds. He didn't freak out. He has made such progress from a month ago, truly unbelieveable. He has had 3 lessons from Molly, a high school girl that comes to our house.
Hopefully, this week will be ok and not too stressful. Or at least somewhat back to normal, right H?
I received a mysterious envelope last Friday in the mail. It was from Columbia Records. Inside were 2 tickets to John Mayer for July 18 at Tinley Park. I was so shocked and wondered if T did something and ordered them. He knew nothing. I finally remembered that I may have entered a contest on a local radio station's website. I didn't get a congrats email though. I found an email I had sent out to thenest.com which was my contest entry.
I guess I was the winner for Chicago! So, so excited!! T immediately checked out where our seats were and they are pretty decent! OH, and Colbie Caillat is opening up. I really like her stuff, too! I downloaded some of her stuff and John's latest cd. T has his first 3 cds. We can't wait until Friday!!
This week is going too slow! And just unnecessarily stressful.
T really helped today with a project I needed to get done for his dad. He had taken a bunch of pics and then cropped out the backgrounds out of all of them for me. I was able to a brochure layout much faster tonight with the pics basically done. It is just a quick first draft.
Ethan took a big 4 hr nap today. I woke him up at 8:30, it is 11:30pm now and he is still up. I'm ready to go to bed soon, he is just watching tv.
We went to Abbie's openhouse on Sat. It was nice to see that side of the family which we don't see that often. His cousin from Conn. was there with her 3 kids that are around E's age. It was a nice party. So happy she is going to Purdue, too!
Ethan and Abbie
E with Olivia
We went to the Steam show on Sunday. Basically just to walk around and eat fair food. I love my fairgrounds! Ethan was so excited to ride on the little train. It was his first time on it. When he was younger I would try to take him on it and he was always too scared to try it.
We had such a fun 4th of July. It is my favorite time of the year.
I took Thurs. off to get the house ready & food prepared for the 4th.
Sherry and Johnny showed up around 12:45 and then we got ready for the parade.
T saw Mr. L on one of his trips to the grocery and asked it was ok if we sat in his yard again this year. He said we could bring down our chairs and stake our area, so T drove them over there ahead of time.
The Swans showed up and we all walked down to Main St. We took the shortcut, too.
We weren't under their big trees this year. We usually are right by their driveway in the shade. It was cloudy enough that it wasn't bad. It really was perfect weather, not humid and not too hot. The kids got so much candy, they got picky and didn't get everything. I like Sherry's rule with L, "Don't pickup what you won't eat"
Lindsey was ready for the parade to start. They were so excited.
Strayers showed up after the parade started, but they found us.
Our local grocery store, Stracks, passed out these popsicles. Then a bit later someone else was passing out these awesome blowpops!
Baby David's first 4th of July parade
He fell asleep and was calm as can be even when this float went by with a loud band playing. Too funny, huh?
After the parade, we had a cookout at our house. Here is the spread...I forgot to take a pic before it was half gone, though. Kiddies eating all together...soon after this they were all running around playing in the backyard.
Break from playing to have a cupcake
Then we moved to the front yard to play bean bags, which I think everyone got to play at least once. We set up ladder ball, but just the kids played it a little.
T is happy with his cool drink holders... It got comical how he was so excited over them. Kids heard a bunch of fireworks and ran out to front. They thought it was the big display at the fairgrounds. If you notice it is not yet dark. It was just our neighbors quite pricy display of fireworks. It got a little cool that night and we needed sweatshirts. So odd for 4th of July! Found these 2 sitting inside watching ICarly. Then sparkler time. Ethan looks amazed by it. I think this was the first year he really held one and wasn't scared. Well, until he held it by his feet and a piece fell on his foot! He cried and it T helped him. Ethan and Lindsey with their sparklers
We had such a nice & fun time with our friends. I was surprised it went by so fast!
Trent was excited to use his bean bag game he made from scratch. I helped with the paint pattern. He knew I would want them to be red, white & blue.
He had an idea for drink holders to use when playing bean bags. You don't have to bend down to pick up your drink from the ground at our house. Oh no! I must say I am proud of him with the construction of these holders. He made them totally out of scrap wood, too!
They are pretty cool & they don't tip over in the grass! Great job, Trenty!
E had to ride with T because he was still too little, luckily! 
Then a bit later someone else was passing out these awesome blowpops! 
After the parade, we had a cookout at our house. Here is the spread...I forgot to take a pic before it was half gone, though.
Kiddies eating all together...soon after this they were all running around playing in the backyard.
