Chicago Architecture Foundation Boat Tour

To celebrate the end of another tax busy season and thank my team for their hard work, we went on an afternoon Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour followed by a happy hour.  The weather was awesome!  As I always do on these tours, I learned lots of new things!

 A picture of our office building from the boat! 

 I think this building was called Gateway 4.

I loved how the buildings (including Willis) reflected in the glass.

When we got to the south end of the river, we turned around and got this view of Willis and the South Loop skyline.

A Lovely Time

The title is what our charismatic guest Hannah kept saying as she was making her rounds of good-byes.  She told me she had a lovely time and thanked me for having this party.  Yes, all of this from a four year old!  On Saturday evening we had three of the ladies from my office over along with their husbands and kids. We ended up with 8 adults and 8 children.  The girls were 6, 4, and 2 1/2 year old twins.  The boys were 4, almost 4, 1 1/2 and newborn.  Above are Hannah, Colin and Carter.  Below is Will with baby Tyson.  We had a great time!

 

Sunday was a perfect weekend day.  We were all worn out from the party, so we stayed in bed until Will woke up at 9.  Then we all laid in our bed and used the ipad to work on some details for our Disney trip.  When we got up Will requested waffles, and who am I to turn down that perfectly reasonable request?!  After our brunch, we went outside to keep working on the tree and shrub trimming.  That took most of the afternoon until I finally had to exchange my pruners for my tennis racquet and head to league play.  A beautiful day and wonderfully relaxing!

Swimming Lessons

I snapped this quick picture of Will and his two classmates floating during swimming lessons.  The whole area you see - roped off by the blue and white lane lines -  is their section.  The wall by us had steps that they sit on and they swim out to and back from the platform with white railing.  It's an interesting method.  Certainly different than the way I took and taught lessons, but I'm eager to see him learn swimming skills.

Six Flags Great America

Saturday was Deloitte Friends and Family Day at Six Flags Great America.  We were able to order super discounted tickets in advance; parking was free; and lines were short!

 

 We met Ryan there shortly after the park opened.  While we were waiting to get started, Will noticed this pay phone.  We don't have a home phone - much less a corded phone - so I was curious to see what he thought of this.  Instinctively he checked for change, which made me laugh.

Our first ride was Whizzer, which was a fun family coaster.   Will rode with Ryan and Jason and I rode together.  Other cool rides we rode as a family were Triple Play, Little Dipper (ok, this one does not belong in the cool category - especially considering the wait), Fiddlers Fling, and River Rocker. 

Behind Ryan and Will is the X-Flight that he and Jason rode while Will and I played in Kidzopolis.  Other fun adults only roller coasters that I rode with one of the guys were Demon; Superman (my favorite); Batman; American Eagle; Viper; and Rajing Bull. 

Will and I spent time in Kidzopolis riding the kiddie rides while the guys were on X-Flight.  Then when Ryan and I rode Superman and Batman, Jason played with Will at Camp Cartoon.  There was a kid coaster that Will insisted on riding himself there!  Jason showed me the video, and it was an actual coaster.  After that, Will insisted on being the one to buckle us into our seat and pull down the lap bar since he was a pro.

Will rode Fiddler's Fling three times in a row!  Once with me; once with Ryan while Jason and I rode together; and a third time just with Ryan.  We had to pull him away from there.  I was actually surprised how fast these little carts moved!

Will got scared on Triple Play, which reminded me of the Tony's Carnival "Spider" ride, but then wanted to ride it again.  The only ride he totally freaked out on was River Rocker which was a giant boat on a pendulum.  I wasn't sure why that one was too much for him. . . .That was supposed to be our last ride, but we couldn't end on a down note so we took on more ride on Whizzer on our way out.

The Superman track is the one in the background here on our way out.  We played from 10:30-5:30 and had an awesome time!  Can't wait to go back next year when he'll hopefully be 42 inches instead of 40 inches and we can ride a few more rides as a family!

Baking

On my time off I spent Tuesday sleeping; Wednesday playing; and Thursday baking.  While Will was at school on Thursday, I assembled/made the following:

• Crockpot chicken tortilla soup ingredients
• Crockpot honey lime chicken ingredients
• Cheese lasagna ingredients
• Split pea soup (actually cooked this one)
• Pumpkin bars (ate some, froze most)
• Chocolate chip cookies (baked some, froze the batter)

 

After dinner and bath time, Will helped we whip up one more batch of chocolate chip cookies that I couldn't finish earlier since I didn't set out enough butter to soften.  Baking with a child is greatly aided by a stand mixer! 

We baked up one dozen cookies (two each for dinner and two each for breakfast!) and froze the rest of the dough.  I use the recipe on the back of the Toll House Morsels except that I substitute half the butter with applesauce.  They're not as delicious - losing the thin, crispy-edged texture I love to a cakey, spongey texture - but I feel better about eating (and serving) them. 

Now I just have to remember to get these great meals out and throw them in the crockpot or oven in time to enjoy some evening.

A Few Days Off

After another long and tiring tax deadline, I was so excited to come home on Monday night to find my boys had been shopping for me:  beautiful flowers and margarita ingredients! 

 I enjoyed one of my favorite "15th" evenings while sipping a single margarita, coloring with Will, and going to bed at 10 p.m..   On Tuesday, I slept almost the entire day.  I got up and took Will to school, napped until lunch time, then napped until 3 p.m.  We both went to pick up Will from school and then made a family trip to The Container Store (our first visit!) for shoe organizers.  J. Alexander's was across the parking lot so we made our first visit there as well.  I know it's a favorite of several KC friends, so I was excited to go.  Mostly I just wanted a baked potato!  It didn't disappoint. 

 Today I let Will stay home from school.  He had been coughing throughout the night - waking us up, so I assumed waking himself us as well - so I let him sleep until he woke up at 8:30.  At that point I figured it wasn't worth taking him, so I told him he could stay home and rest.  That lasted about 10 minutes until he said he was feeling all better and ready to play!  He helped me assemble the shoe organizers and we ran errands and went to the park and the children's museum. 

 He played soccer while I had to join a conference call for a new program I am doing this fall at work.  I skipped the webcast, but figured I could listen in for half an hour.  I did have to put the phone down for a few minutes to bandage an elbow.  It wasn't unsupervised jungle gym play.  Nope, he fell off the bench when sat down to take off his shoes so he could get back in the sandbox! 

We had a fun day, and since I was home I got to go along to his swimming lesson tonight. 
This was his second lesson (the real second lesson got cancelled last week due to a "bathroom mishap), and he was a little uncooperative to start.  Luckily he warmed up and started participating after a few minutes.  The other two kids in his class are much better swimmers, so I hope some of their positive peer pressure helps.  

I'm looking forward to another day tomorrow of crossing things off my To Do List. 

Play Doh

Will's swimming lessons on Wednesday were cancelled after a "bathroom mishap" in an earlier class caused the pool to close for the remainder of the day.   The guys used their extra time after school/work to run to Target.  Will told Jason he would like to buy a "Frosting Fun Bakery playset."  He saw it demonstrated on the YouTube videos he likes to watch (blucollector is his favorite).  Well, sure enough, such a thing exists!  And Will's daddy was willing to buy it for him!

 

When Will woke me up on Thursday morning, he peeked his head over my bed and said, "Can I go downstairs and play with my bakery playset?"  Looks like Christmas came early at our house this year!

 

In this picture Will is modeling his new 5T pajamas from Aunt Amy and his cousins.   They sure do fit better than those old 3Ts!  Thanks guys!

Chicago Electric Boat Co.

For his birthday Ryan received a boat rental from Chicago Electric Boat Company for a party of 10.  He scheduled the cruise for last night and graciously invited Jason, Will and me along for the boat cruise and dinner on board. It was a beautiful evening, and not too hot as we were moving.  We were sticking to the vinyl boat seats though!  We boarded not too far from my office, so I just walked over to meet the group, including my two driving in from the suburbs. 

Our ride for the evening

 Our captain

 Our curious preschooler checking out debris in the North Branch of the river

 Ryan brought a delicious selection of gourmet sandwiches, wine, fruit and chocolates for dinner.  Will loved the chocolate covered almonds and the caramels.  He just picked at his pretty sandwich, of course.

 Shields family after Will's outfit change:  we brought his Puddle Jumper (a Coast Guard approved floation device!) in case the life jacket on board didn't fit.  It fit but he didn't like it.  He also borrowed Ryan's hat.

 Moving north to south on the North Branch

 We saw several instances of transportation overload.  In the same view we could see boat, bike, cars, subway train and commuter train!  Too bad a plane wasn't overhead!  In this picture an El train is crossing the bridge.  The tall black building in the back is the Willis (Sears) Tower.

 At the end of the night, Will asked if he could drive the boat. He took his responsibility very seriously.  Here he's helping Ryan's friend, Wade, captain the vessel.  Ryan and Emilie also took turns driving, but I just enjoyed sitting and watching!

Planes

We had our first family outing to the movie theatre on Saturday night to see Disney's Planes.  The movie was good, and Will did a pretty good job, too.  We made it the entire movie, although Will was pretty tired so asked to leave a few times.  Luckily he always used his quiet voice, and he got a second wind once we walked out to the snack bar for a giant bag of fruit snacks.    We had been swimming in the morning, and he had a bouncy house birthday party, so I'm not surprised that he was worn out!