9 pics on 09/09/09

Just saying that makes me feeling lucky...09.09.09 :)

1. We went to the Brookfield Zoo on Saturday. The Dinosaur's Alive exhibit is leaving soon and instead of waiting too long, missing it and then whining about it, we decided to go. This is quite an accomplishment in our books. :)

2. & 3. The exhibit wasn't much but these signs just cracked me up. I need that last sign for my house for sure...boys are stinky :)



4. The Primate House was a big hit for us. Perhaps you might notice a family resemblance?

5. The boys - "Mom! He HIT me! He's looking at me! Stop touching me!"

6. Me - "Oh good lord, how did I get into this!?"

7. And of course, Daddy - "If only I had my comfy brown chair, this'd be PERFECT!" :)


8. & 9. September is a big month for birthdays in our family. On Monday, I decided to be daring and took the boys to Color Me Mine to make a little something special for a special someone. These kinds of trips can either be disasterous or fantastic fun....thankfully, the boys left their alter-ego gorilla brothers at the zoo and this one was fantastic fun :)



I hope you have a happy 09/09/09. Make it memorable. :)

Because

photos cause me to fall in love with them over and over again.

Because photos capture them right now in a way that will always help me remember - I am "bottling their youth" so I can open it up and enjoy it's fragrance even after these days are long gone.



Because they remind me to be present and make me grateful when I can see that I am.




Because there is SO VERY much goodness in our lives and having visual reminders always helps me, especially on challenging days.


Because I've been taking pictures in my head all of my life - it's just that now I have a sweet camera instead of my deteriorating brain :)

My incredible husband gave me my first "real" camera all those years ago. Little did he know what a gift it would be. :)

All these photos were taken yesterday on our visit to Starved Rock State Park. We hiked, fished (more correctly, we played with worms), ate a yummy picnic lunch, had an impromptu "team building session" on a log across a creek, melted in the heat but above all else, we spent some fun time together as a family. :)

Just so it's documented, this is just one set of the MULTIPLE sets of stairs we climbed to get to the top of Starved Rock. It was 93 degrees with 89% humidity. Everyone was allowed to complain just once about the heat - we all did.....

I'll take more of this :)

It was a GOOD day. For the first time, in as long as I can remember, we both vowed NOT to work. We went to Willow and heard an inspiring message from Andy Stanley on Phillipians 2:3-5. We surprised the boys with lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe at Woodfield. Caleb SQUEALED and set off running when he realized where we were going. Lunch was just ok, although expensive, but sitting next to the fish tank made it all worthwhile. A new snow globe for Caleb and Sponge Bob legos for the boys from the Lego store (I know, I'm weak). A nap and some downtime. And all good days need an adventure so we headed out to find the park in Yorkville with a Zip Line. We found it and found ourselves at the park nearly alone. The zip line was such fun. Daddy gave us a spinning fast start and we whipped down the line to bounced back from the other end. Caleb and I rode together and giggled ourselves silly. Nathan rode until Daddy was exhausted. We tried to play tag but Nathan cheats :) Chinese Take Out for dinner. What a good day. We definitely need more of these....

Boys...

...on the 4th.


It is probably the one thing I miss about Missouri. Legal firework fun. I can't believe I just said that - me, the mom who's worked for 2 Plastic Surgeons and can run down the list of all the bad things that can happen thanks to firework play. (that is actually a joke in our house - my hyper concern about that stuff). But, in Missouri, fireworks are legal and we developed a tradition of giving ourselves a budget of about $200 (alot of money for us), making the trip to the Firework Store and each of us picking out our favorites. Scott and Zach always wanted the BIG, LOUD stuff;Carah usually went for the BIG, PRETTY stuff; Nathan was so little he was afraid of it all and I just liked the Pooping Turtles. Then on the 4th, we'd gather in the front on the cul de sac and the fun began. We were able to put on fire work displays which rivaled some of the small shows around here and tt was dangerous, good, safe (thanks to Daddy) fun.

Flip forward to Chicago and we find that not only are fireworks not legal but the Oswego Police are on a mission to ding you for illegal fireworks (not a bad thing according to that hyper concerned mom in me). Well, mix that with a superbly raining 4th and what we ended up with were a few smoke bombs, party poppers, snaps and some sparklers. No matter though, in true boy fashion, my boys made the best of it. We had enough smoke to kill a man in our backyard and party popper/snaps mess all over the place. It's all about the male bonding :) so it was well worth it.

Luckily, the rain did let up so that we could watch fireworks from a couple of different places (including a neighbor, who managed to dodge the Police) from our front yard and everyone, except Gracie (but that's a story for another day) not only, had a good day but managed to stay out of the E/R.