Black & White Challenge

The week before Thanksgiving I did the Facebook/Instagram black and white challenge (7 days of black and white photos).  It fell during a week where I was in Dallas at Deloitte University for training and then in New York City for clients with a Saturday in between at home.   I thought it was an interesting representation of my year!

 

 

Picture 1 (Deloitte University):  trivia night at the Barn
Picture 2 (Deloitte University):  view from my room
Picture 3 (Deloitte University):  picking up my Starbucks at the Bistro
Picture 4 (Deloitte University):  checking emails on the warm back patio before my shuttle back to the airport
Picture 5 (Home):  Little green army men ready for battle
Picture 6 (O'Hare):  Decorated for the holidays as I headed for NY
Picture 7 (NYC):  Central Park on a beautiful fall day
Picture 8 (NYC):  Lunch of street meat on a bench in Central Park

Hallway Bathroom Redo

Our more than year long project to renovate the upstairs bathroom has finally come to an end.   It wasn't that the bathroom in total was super hard (though the shower tile surround was a beast. . . .), it's just that we started it without a good plan for what we wanted or when we were going to do it.   The other projects of the house took priority since we have another shower and two more toilets.  We did, however, prioritize at least the toilet and sink before our Christmas guests came in January, and just pulled the curtain over the incomplete shower!

 Before - May 2016

During - May 2016

Professionals tore out the old and reframed for the new

During - July 2016
John started the shower surround and ran into big issues with the heavy tile

During - January 2017
A shower curtain to cover the work in progress while the vanity, toilet
and tile floor are installed to make the bathroom Christmas guest worthy

After

The shower tile was a long, slow process but it does look beautiful!  The tile was just so heavy and hard to lay because of its size and bulk and the fact that the walls weren't square.   But John figured it out and has learned a lot of lessons for the master bath renovation that I'm sure will be coming sooner rather than later!  And happily this year all of our Christmas guests can shower in their own bathroom.

October/November Update

I've gotten far enough behind on my blogging that I'll resort to summarizing the months of October and November in a dozen pictures and a few captions:

Mystery Reader
My mom was here for almost two weeks in October while John traveled to Atlanta and then Las Vegas for work.  I had several late evening events for work, plus a trip to New York and Connecticut.  Luckily I didn't have to miss my slot as 3rd grade mystery reader!  And as a bonus grandma Joni got to come along!  William was really hamming it up, since I picked a book about the Tower of London and its murders.  He enjoyed adding to the commentary with detail from our trip.

NYC - Hello Dolly
I'm trying to get better about building in some personal time when I travel on my New York work trips.  I met up with Ryan to go to my first Broadway show:  Hello Dolly with Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce.  It was amazing!  For not being a musical fan (and this being about as traditional as you can get), I was sure impressed! And we totally lucked into seats in the 5th row! 
 

Halloween Party
Well, it's actually called the Fall Party since there are no costumes and some families don't celebrate Halloween.  But it's always on Halloween Day...... As room coordinator, I mostly ran around making sure all the games and crafts were going well.  But I did get my craft on by making these "ghost bowling pins" for a game.

Veteran's Day Assembly
The Cub Scouts did the color guard for the school assembly.   This was the first time William had worn his uniform to school; he loved it!  When I was in school, I remember the boys wearing them on meeting days.  Guess that's not the thing anymore.   The school also sent home stars to decorate for any vets a family knew.  We talked about my Grandpa John being in the Air Force Police during the Korean War, and he decorated a star for him.

 

 

 

Halloween Festivities

We managed to sneak in all of the fun Halloween stuff this year:  pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating!

Pumpkin Patch:
We had decent weather on Sunday - and a neighbor with an expiring Groupon that she gifted us.   This was only our second family outing to a pumpkin patch.  The first was when William was 18 months old.  Guess we've had busy Octobers the past 7 years!  The pumpkin selection was amazing!  They had acres of pumpkins - even fields of the white ghost pumpkins and various gourds.  We also had fun examining the rotten pumpkins and taking our wheelbarrow "off roading!"  The best part was a $12 maximum price for pumpkins, so John could pick out the biggest ones he could find! 

 

 

 

After buying our pumpkins, we had apple cider donuts and jumped into the corn maze!  We found all of the check points and made it out alive!  Then a little time at the kiddie games before heading home with the pumpkins rolling around in the trunk.

Pumpkin Carving:
What a difference a few years makes!  William was all in (and I literally mean ALL IN - he had pumpkin guts in his armpits!) on the carving this year.   John was gracious enough to clean out my pumpkin for me so I only had to draw/carve the face.  Each year we manage to pick the same type of pumpkins:  John gets the biggest one he can find and carves a scary face; William picks a round one and does a traditional jack-o-lantern; and I pick the long face and carve a woman's face.  

 

Halloween:
William was a Nerf Sniper (though he wouldn't give himself/his costume a name).  Basically this is how he dresses for a Nerf battle. . .with the addition of a pumpkin!  I assumed he was going to be Boba Fett again since he was so sick last Halloween and didn't get much use out of the costume.  But he told me on Friday that he planned to do this instead.  He took it to school (absent the gun) on Monday for his YMCA After School party, and then put it on again for trick-or-treating after school on Tuesday.  His school has a strict no costume rule.  On Halloween, there is a "Fall Party" in the classroom.

 

 

We had a fun night and still got home by 8!  (I was thrilled about that, since for the second year in a row, I had an early November 1 flight.) We got an early start while it was still light out (around 4:45) and ran into some of his friends.  Our street is one of the best Halloween party spots in the subdivision, so we have never gone further than 2 blocks in any direction from our house.  This year was no exception.  Trick-or-treating, drinking and eating with neighbors, and Jurassic Park laser tag.  I mean, what else do you need?!