Countdowns and Chi-town

We are one week away from wrapping up the 3rd quarter of the LONGEST SCHOOL YEAR EVER.

That means just 10 weeks left of the 7th grade.  Praise God!

Plus, the weather is so crazy in Nashville.  It's warm.  It's cold.  It rains.  It's sunny.  It rains.  And rains.  And rains again.    I'm completely over it.

Today I learned that the house I grew up in is for sale.  I quickly logged on to Realtor.com to take an inside look.  The folks that purchased it from my parents did quite a bit of work on it, taking out several walls for bigger bedroom and living spaces. It was so nice seeing the old place, even though a lot of it looked really, really different.   And I'm not just talking about the fact that the dining room is now PURPLE!   The whole thing reminded me that a trip back up to Chicago is long overdue.  There are favorite places to see, favorite people visit and favorite restaurants to eat at.

We're busy crunching the summer calendar trying to figure out timing for camps, vacation, drivers ed, and band.  A weekend up in Chicago may have to go on that list!

Playing catch up . . .

A lot has happened in the last 3 days.

First. . . .

Y'all, I can't even.   I'm only a casual baseball fan and I literally watched most of game 7 holding my breath. I can't imagine how the hard-core fans watched without pulling out all their hair.    We were up.  We were tied.  There was a rain delay.  We came back. We scored again.

We won.

WE WON!  I can't believe it.  Except I can because it really happened. So wish I was in Illinois and could go downtown to take in all the festivities today.  And for a person like me who doesn't love crowds, that is saying a lot.

Since Halloween, the kids and I have been collecting candy at both schools for Treats for Troops.   We collected over 100 large boxes of candy between the schools which is roughly 2500 pounds of candy.   I.  Can't.  Even.    Think of all the cavities we prevented in 3 short days!   And it's good candy, too.  None of those horrible peanut butter kisses or Necco wafers.   Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Twizzlers, Snickers . . . the good stuff.  "Gnash" from the Predators even came out to help us collect on Wednesday!

And speaking of candy, I just remembered, I never shared any Halloween pictures.   I'm not going to lie, I was completely bummed that Matthew didn't want to go out this year.  Seriously?   I practically begged him to pick out a costume.  I was sure he'd change his mind at the last minute and I'd find myself at Party City at the last minute.  I'd complain . . .but would have been secretly happy.

Instead, he stayed home, ate our candy and watched Monday Night Football.  I'm fairly certain he would have called it the perfect night.

Gracie, of course, was happy to dress up and trick or treat.  She went as a butterfly and her wings lit up (which you can't tell from this picture), which was totally awesome, as well as a nifty safety feature!

I should mention it was 85 degrees on Halloween.  85 degrees, y'all.  That's not Halloween.  That's Labor Day!

And in completely unrelated news, I had Matthew clean out his backpack after school (read: make sure he had everything he needed for the weekend) and discovered he had 5 half-drunk water bottles.  FIVE!   I'm pretty sure he is buying them at lunch and then only drinking half so he can engage in the wildly popular, but completely annoying past time of water bottle flipping.   I made him finish them all after school.  He was irritated, but well-hydrated.  

So those are the highlights of the last few days. . . baseball, butterflies and bottles of water!

On to Game 7 . . .

"It might be! It is! Holy cow!"

Y'all . . . the Cubs.  

I don't love baseball, but as a girl who grew up in the outskirts (read: suburbia) of Chicago, my loyalty lies with Cubs.  So many fun memories of going to Wrigley Field, both as a kid (we even went as a 5th grade field trip!) and as an adult.  Bassam and I had just started dating the last year before Harry Caray retired and I took him to his first Cubs game.   Nothing beat Harry leading "Take me out to the ball game."

25 years ago . . . he predicted this.