When I took 4 kids to see ski jumping...

I am trying to catch up with some of the things that we have done in the past weeks, so some of these events are going to be out of order, but I still wanted to capture them here.

A few weeks ago, I watched my sister's 2 littlest kids for the day (and the night, but you'd have to ask my husband more about that because I got a muscle spasm in my back, and took a muscle relaxer, and was pretty much incoherent, and my nephew got sick, and my husband had to deal with lots of puke and other things that we won't mention here in my "absence")...

Anyway...I watched the kids for the day, and decided we would go to the ski jumping competition that was being held close to our house. We actually got there right at the end of the competition which ended up being just about the perfect amount of time for 4 kids who weren't really into being freezing cold for significant periods of time.

Here is a little taste of our afternoon...

Hot chocolate makes everything more fun!

I caught a jumper in the air!

A big hill to climb and slide down

Nick

Anna

Dylan

Aleah

Bedtime stories

Sleepover...

and a fun time was had by all...until the throwing up started, but that is another story!

Valentine's Day

Nothing says "love" like a romantic table for 8!

Seriously though...great evening with great friends. Thanks guys!

Chicago in c.p.p (cell phone photos)

I was in Chicago last week at a conference for work. I was there with over 10,000 of my best physical therapy friends. It was a great, overwhelming, exhausting week. I had wanted to do some fun, touristy things in Chicago like the museums, or the aquarium, or anything, but in reality, by the end of the day, I was too worn out to do anything other than find something to eat and crash in my hotel.

I also forgot to take a camera along, so as I went from place to place in Chicago for the week (which included gray days, sunny days, and snowy days--gotta love the Midwest in February) I snapped photos with my phone.

So in no particular order, here is my week in Chicago in cell phone photos



Metra train

  The "El"





 



The Renaissance Blackstone (my hotel)

a very lovely, old hotel...





 



The view from my window. Loved the fire escapes (seriously)

 "Eleven"--a great diner close to my hotel





 

and some random pictures of a sunny day in Chicago

and some nighttime shots

and my room service one evening

and a very snowy couple days...

and that, friends, was my week in Chicago

in cell phone photos

except I forgot to take any pictures of the conference center

or anything productive I did

like sit in courses all day

or go to meetings several evenings...

I am very glad I have now been home about a week.

I think my family is glad too!

(If you made it through to the end of this post, good for you!)



Keegan Thomas

I have been remiss in sharing one of the very exciting happenings in our family recently! We got a new nephew at the end of 2011! Mike's sister, Sarah and brother-in-law, Jesse had a precious baby boy. He was "supposed" to arrive early in January 2012, but decided that his birthday was going to be on December 29th, 2011.  He was 7lbs 5oz and 20.5 inches long--just perfect.

Proud Daddy!

New mom and dad

 Sarah did great through her labor and delivery (and so did Jesse)! Not that it is EVER an easy process, but it sounds like everything went about as well as it could.

Uncle Mike

Aunt Alissa

Proud cousin Dylan

and proud cousin Aleah

Precious boy!

I have many more pictures to share...he has already grown so much, but you will just have to wait a bit longer for those!  Congratulations Sarah and Jesse! We couldn't love our new nephew any more!

Processing...

I wrote this post back in December, and had planned to finish it after I "processed" some more...but I didn't come up with anything else. With the Grammy's coming up this weekend, this seemed the ideal time to finally publish this post...

My dear husband and I went to a concert tonight. It was great to get out without the kids. We had a quick dinner at a favorite restaurant and then walked across the footbridge to the "arena" at my alma mater...the university in our town. It was also the alma mater of the lead singer of the concert we went to. And this is his hometown. He was just nominated for 4 Grammy's (yes, the real Grammy's!) along with little names you might have heard of like Adele, Katy Perry, and Mumford and Sons. Yep, he is going head-to-head with those "giants" in the current music scene.

The concert tonight was great, in a very overwhelming, stimulating, can't quite take-it-all-in kind of way. Justin (the lead singer) must have a passion for sound, and combinations of sound, and crazy rolling combinations of sound, and...well, I don't know how to describe it really. I am processing...

The band included 9 people including the lead singer: 2 violinist/guitarists, 2 drummers with full drum sets, a guy who played clarinet/saxophone/and who knows what else, a couple brass players, and a big guy that I'm not sure exactly what all he did (keyboard, percussion, maybe brass too...).

The musical combinations were the result of genius. Truly...it wasn't something that is just written down and handed over to someone to play. It had to be "felt", and understood, and believed before it could be played by any of the musicians. And this "kid" from my hometown was the genius orchestrating the combined genius. Crazy!

There were moments where my body was literally vibrating with all the sound and it wasn't just because it was loud, it was because the sound was so BIG. So deep. So engulfing. Sometimes in perfect harmony, and sometimes in very well orchestrated discord.

I hadn't listened to more than a couple snippets of Bon Iver's music prior to the concert tonight, but now...I need to listen to more. Not because it was my favorite...it wasn't. But because I need to figure it out a bit more. I need to listen, and I need to process...