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Chicago Vacation – Flying through the sky!

21 Jul 2010 by Kristen

We will be slowly be writing blogs about our Chicago-Milwaukee Vacation. Keep checking back for more updates!

We began planning this vacation months ago. The reason for picking the dates we went was for my 10 year college reunion at Marquette. Our first order of business was finding a flight. We looked at all the airlines and started counting our bags. The most cost efficient ending up being Southwest since they don’t charge for your 1st two bags. We decided to buy Connor a seat as well even though he could have flown for free being a lap child, but buying him a seat enabled us to be able to put him down during the 3 hour flight and let him sleep easier.

Mike and I decided that we would sit in rows that were in back of each other. I took Connor while Mike took Caden. This was Connor’s first flight and Caden’s third (although if you ask him he had never been on a plane before). The flight to Chicago left at 5:45 pm and didn’t arrive until 11pm.

The staff on this flight was terrific. I always enjoy it when the flight attendants add a little bit of humor to their very boring safety instructions. He explained that if our floatation device did not work, then we should start swimming….fast! They offerred to carry Connor in his car seat to where ever we wanted to sit, so I didn’t have to hit everyone with the seat and all the carry on baggage all the way. The snacks were an assortment of Nabisco snacks and of course peanuts and pretzels. This was way more than I got on any other airlines in the last several years.  Mike even thought the leg room was bigger than other airlines.

Caden kept himself busy with games on his iTouch (formerly mom’s iPhone) and eventually fell asleep. Connor slept the entire way! We couldn’t have asked for a better flight!

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Happy 1st Birthday Jaxon!

17 Jul 2010 by Kristen

Our nephew, Jaxon turned 1 year old this month.  We celebrated with a Toy Story pool party at his house.Â
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We enjoyed lunch (hamburgers and hot dogs) and cake made by Grandma Karen. Yum!

Caden loved swimming in their pool and floating on their rafts. We ended the afternoon with opening gifts and Jaxon indulging in his own personal chocolate cake!

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Connor’s helmet

15 Jul 2010 by Kristen

Connor was diagnosed with plagiocephaly (flat head) which started while he was still in-utero. Despite all our efforts to keep pressure off of his head, the flatness persisted. So, we were referred for him to get a cranial band (aka helmet). He has to wear the helmet 23 hours per day for an undetermined amount of time. Typically, kids will spend between 8-12 weeks in their band. Only time will tell how long Connor will need his.

He adjusted pretty easily to having it on his head contantly. In fact, he barely even noticed it was on except when we took it on and off. We were a little worried that it would really make it difficult for him to sleep, but his sleep pattern never changed!

When we got his band, it was a boring plain white band. It’s customary that parents decorate their child’s helmet. So, Mike headed over to Michaels and found some great Disney stickers to decorate his with. Soon, with Mike’s creativity skills, his helmet was transformed into a fun, kid-like helmet!

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Organ Stop Pizza

12 Jul 2010 by Kristen

We were invited to go out to Organ Stop Pizza to visit with Mike’s step sister who was visiting from out of state. Organ Stop is a great restaurant for the young and old. The organist plays music that is classic and modern throughout the night. His range goes from “Somewhere My Love” to “Star Wars” to “Alley Cat”.

We have been to Organ Stop several times and Caden loves to go. He dances and loves pizza! The music tends to be loud so anytime we bring a baby to Organ Stop, their reaction usually goes one of 2 ways: screaming or fascination. I was so happy that Connor was in the fascination category. He loved watching the lights and listening to the music.

The food is only mediocre. Don’t expect great pizza! Also, leave your credit card and debit card at home. They’re still old school…cash and check only! But, we still love to go….so if you’re planning a night out with the kids, this is a great spot.

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Date Night!

11 Jul 2010 by Kristen

Mike and I had our first date night in a really long time.  My mother-in-law took the kids overnight.  We decided that we would go see Grownups and go out to dinner.

The cast of Grownups was almost all former Saturday Night Live castmembers (Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider) from the years that I actually watched SNL and enjoyed it.   The story was about 5 friends who are reunited and spend 4th of July weekend together.  While there wasn’t a lot of “story”, it was filled with one-liners that were pretty funny.  Mike and I agreed that this was the first movie that  we’ve seen that was really no stress involved and was just fun.  We would definitely recommend this movie, especially for those that enjoyed the 90s SNL.

We then went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. We had the worst service ever. We spent over 1 1/2 hours there and only got dinner. No appetizer (we ordered one, but it never came and was never mentioned). No Dessert. My Chicken Marsala was really good. Mike’s Chicken Parmesan was just ok. Too bad the service was so bad. I would have liked to go back for that Chicken Marsala again.

Not sure when our next date night will be, but we sure appreciated a night out. And I appreciated the opportunity to sleep all night long (I still woke up at the times that Connor usually wakes up).

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Trach Fair

11 Jul 2010 by Kristen

On July 10th, I hosted a Tracheostomy Education and Vendor Fair at . This is the 2nd year I organized this event. It’s a very non-stress event for families so come through and meet some vendors that provide their equipment and find out about new community services for their child. While I had some repeat vendors that came back (yay!), I did have several new vendors showing off their products and services. In total, there were 30 vendor booths!

Last year we had around 100 people come through, so I had hoped that I would at least have a little more visitors this year. I even had a dream that only 3 people came (the stress was speaking there I think). So after all my hard work and planning, the day came and within minutes of opening, I had more than 3 visitors (phew!). All in all, I would say between 150-200 people came through and many people told me on their way out that they had learned some new things.

I plan on doing this event again next July and hopefully every year I will get better and better at planning and the Fair will grow even more next year!

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Holding my own bottle!

06 Jul 2010 by Kristen

Connor mastered holding his own bottle over the weekend!  This is a huge milestone for him.  This also means that we have a few more minutes in a day to get stuff done!  Yay Connor!

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Shrek The Final Chapter

05 Jul 2010 by Kristen

Warning: Minor Spoilers Ahead

My mom treated us to a day at the movies while Mike was at a Diamondbacks game. We decided on Shrek The Final Chapter, the 4th installment in the Shrek series.

Caden had not shown interest in seeing the first 3 Shrek movies so when I asked him if he knew who the Shrek character was, I was surprised that he actually knew. He also was pretty excited about seeing the movie. This would also be Connor’s 1st trip to the movie theater, but I’m not sure if this counts since he had no idea where he was. I was a little nervous about being “that person” who brings their infant to the movie theater and makes everyone else’s experience miserable. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Connor watched almost the whole movie and only started fussing when it was time for a new bottle (which I was prepared for!).

The story of this movie was pretty much just like “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Shrek is a husband and father of 3 and is frustrated with the current status of his life. He makes a deal with Rumpilstilskin to change his life back to when people feared ogres. Of course he realizes this is not what he really wanted deep down.

It was a lot darker than previous Shrek movies and at parts could be a little scary for little kids who are sensitive. It also didn’t have the comedy of the 1st movie, but did have a few chuckles. I was thrilled that all of the actors stayed with their characters so no one’s voice changed.

Overall, it kept my attention (and Connor’s) for the whole movie. Caden got a little antsy at the slower parts, but what 4 year old doesn’t?? I would definitely recommend seeing this movie with your family, especially if you have been following the series.

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Happy 4th of July

04 Jul 2010 by Kristen

 We had a wonderful holiday.  We started off by having a big breakfast at my mom’s house. We try to always make a bigger breakfast for every holiday and this year was no exception.   Mike made some scrambled eggs and really great French Toast.  I made everything festive by adding strawberries (red) and blueberries (blue).  Yum!

The we spent our evening with our friends the Gapasins.  We had an old fashioned BBQ complete with hamburgers, sausage and chicken (Fresh and Easy has the BEST Grill Pack that goes on sale for $5.99 quite often.). The main dishes were complemented with chips, fruit salad, pasta salad and of course grilled corn on the cob!

After dinner was over, we headed over to Big League Dreams where Gilbert was having their fireworks this year. We picked a spot of the Polo Ground field and laid out our blankets and lawn chairs and waited for it to get dark.

After much waiting and Caden asking “Is it dark yet?”, the time came for Fireworks to start. Caden was so excited. The show was just like every other fireworks show that everyone else saw that night. They did shoot off fireworks that spelled out “USA” which was pretty cool. Then the finale started. At first we thought it was pretty weak, but as with the rest of the economy, figured everyone (including the city) had to make cuts somewhere. Just when we thought it was over, a huge bright stream of fireworks were set off from a much closer distance. It was amazing, but scared all of us a bit when it started! It was probably the best ending to a fireworks scene I have ever seen. However, once it was over, we realized that there was bright red ash falling into the crowd! Once the lights came on we found the remnants of the fireworks scattered throughout the field. A little scary, but no one was hurt (to our knowledge) and our family was safe.

We hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July. We can’t wait until next year!

Category: Family, Holidays  2 Comments

End of Another Softball Season

03 Jul 2010 by Mike

Last night was the end to another softball season. It was a pretty dismal season overall. We started off ok, but hit a stretch of 4-5 games where we just couldn’t hit the ball and our defense was very hot and cold. We had a stretch of games where we were missing some key players due to various family obligations and were forced to play with a lot of subs. While our subs were good players, it’s always hard to play with a team that doesn’t know each other well. For the last game we had most of our people back and we really had a decent game overall to end the season

Our last game was against the first place team. We were near the bottom in standings so we were playing for pride. The game was back and forth with no team ever going up by more than a couple runs. Personally, I had a good offensive game getting three hits, however I was playing right field and pretty much could have taken a nap out there and the game wouldn’t have changed. I didn’t get one ball hit to me. Sometimes there are tons of hits out there; other days nothing; it just depends on the opponent. We had a couple good plays as our left-center fielder threw out a guy at third base with a rocket throw that was right on target. Our left fielder Donnie had a game that would have got him in Sportcenter’s Top 10 plays at least three times. He made a great over the shoulder basket catch and some great diving catches.

We were the visiting team so we were in the field last. The score was tied going in to the bottom of the last inning. After a couple of hits and an out, they had runners on 1st and 2nd when their batter hit a lazy line drive to left field that was about to fall in for a base hit to end the game. The runner on second was running with all he had to score and end the game, except that Donnie, continuing his amazing night, ran in on the ball and layed out flat to catch the ball with a spectacular dive. The runner that was on second base was already crossing home plate and had no chance as Donnie threw the ball to second, ending the game in a hard fought tie.

Even though we tied, it was a great game that we should have won. We had a nice rally going in the top of the 7th which was cut short by a bad call from the umpire. I still felt good as our team showed some signs of life. We start our next season in two weeks on July 16th. I hope that this next season will produce some better results in the win-loss column. I have a feeling we may lose a couple players, but I already know we are gaining a couple of good players as well. With any luck we can get our consistancy in check and make a successful playoff run.

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