We've had two busy, busy months. We've been renovating our kitchen and our powder room, a project which is still not complete. We've been submerged in baseball and T-ball season, which has taken up about 6 days per week of our life. The boys have also joined Cub Scouts, which is going to add another dimension to the chaos (again, the good kind).
In the midst of all of this, we took a family trip to Chicago. Fred had to go there for his company's annual National Sales Meeting, and I decided it would be a great opportunity for me to take the boys to Chicago to see some of the fabulous cultural attractions there. Since school was still in session for everyone else, the crowds were thin. If you'd like to see the photos from our trip, click on the photo below, and it will take you to my photo gallery from the trip:
On previous trips to Chicago, we have stayed with good friends and family members who were kind enough to open their homes to us. We opted for a hotel this time, first because we didn't want to inconvenience our friends, but also so that the kids would feel more "settled." I realized after our last visit that it was just too difficult for the boys to settle down in a different house every night.
I also resigned myself to the fact that it would be impossible to see everyone we WANTED to see, given that we only had a week and REALLY wanted the boys to experience Chicago's offerings, such as the Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry. (And we had Fred's meeting which we had to work around, as well.) People who live in or around a big city might have trouble understanding it, but after living in rural Pennsylvania for four years and not having access to these things (especially when you're homeschooling), I wanted the kids to have those experiences while we were there and had the opportunity.
So, I opted to simply leave posts on Facebook, letting people know where we were going to be on any given day, and leaving it open for anyone who wished to join us to do so. I'm feel really bad because I think a couple of people were really offended by this; but after driving 13 hours just to get to Chicago, I honestly couldn't see making the boys spend an extra 2-3 hours a day in the car to "make the rounds" to everyone's houses. That kind of frantic pace, along with that amount of time in the car, makes the boys cranky to the point where they completely fall apart every 10 minutes...no fun for any of us!
If you live in the Chicago area, and were one of those who I may have offended, please consider this my formal, public apology to you. And please believe me that no slight was intended.
If you are one of those who joined us in our adventures, thank you for making the trek to meet up with us...it was so much fun to see you again!
Our kitchen project is moving right along. It isn't at the stage where I want to post a final "after" photo, yet, but here is a "before" image:
Actually, this is as they were ripping out the Pergo flooring. The black and white tile would have actually looked fine with the countertops we chose, but a large number of the tiles were cracked because they had been installed over plywood, rather than cement backer board. If you are considering tiling your floor, remember that! If you tile over plywood, it WILL crack!
We had two weeks of living with our kitchen island (which includes our stove) in the family room, unusable. The refrigerator and kitchen table was also in our family room. The contents of our island and another cabinet, as well as our kitchen chairs were all over the dining room. My usually chaotic house reached brand-new heights of chaos!
We have the new tile and countertops in, but I'm waiting until all the trim is up and everything is painted to show an "after" photo. I'd also like to wait until the drywall is repaired (that's leftover from our replumbing project). Hopefully, I'll be able to post some "after" photos soon!
Well, that's all for now (but it's really quite enough, isn't it?)!
I was glad we brought the boys' scooters along with us. It gave them a way to burn off energy right in Grandma's driveway. And anyone who knows my boys knows they have energy to burn!
We celebrated MY Grandma's 85th birthday. Colin was quite upset that I didn't get a pinata for my Grandma's birthday party, because, doesn't EVERYONE love a pinata? (Sigh. Maybe I should have gone ahead and got one.)
