Addy's Big Week

The first week in August was a VERY big week for Adalyn as she achieved a several notable accomplishments that we MUST document.  This  week was her second full week of swimming lessons.  Addy missed two days of the first week due to having a cold and fever, so she was ready to get back into the pool during the second week.  Addy absolutely loved going to lessons and gained so much more confidence in the water.  Miss Logan was a fabulous instructor and I was amazed at the things she got Addy to do in the water.  I must admit I was very nervous when she had Addy hanging on the side of the pool on her own on the first day of lessons.  Yes, I may have been that mother hovering at the side of the pool wincing every time Addy dunked her head underwater.  I know, I know...talk about a paranoid mom!  Eventually I did manage to move over to the lounge chairs to watch from a more acceptable distance.  Throughout the two weeks of lessons Addy learned how to bob her head under water multiple times in a row, push of the wall with her feet, blow bubbles, float on her front and back with support, and float and move in the water using a noodle.  She was promoted to level 2, which we were all excited about!

Our little water bug

Not digging having water in the face after ten head bobs

Addy loved having Miss Logan as a teacher!

We love noodles!

Learning to push off the wall

Addy's biggest feat in the pool happened on Wednesday when she jumped off the diving board.  Yes, it's true--my little girl JUMPED off the diving board.  I hadn't read the posted schedule to know that it was diving board day, so the fact they were indeed jumping off the diving board was a shock to both Addy and myself.  I'm not going to lie; when I heard that my little girl was going to get the chance to do a dive, I got a little nervous!  Addy was the first in her group of three to dive and she didn't hesitate.  I wish she would have hesitated just a bit, because I was trying hold Carter to keep him from diving in the pool and managed only one picture of her standing on the board and no video.  I was disappointed that I wasn't more prepared, but I'm sure there will be more dives off the diving board in our future and you can bet that I'll be ready!  We are so proud of our little girl for conquering her fears of the water and for giving swimming lessons her best effort.  We are already looking forward to the winter session of lessons!

The BIG DIVE

The next big feat for Addy this week happened on the track.  For several weeks Addy has been obsessed with trophies.  She kept mentioning that she wanted to play another sport so she could win a trophy.  We had no idea where this obsession came from.  We hadn't talked about trophies and were surprised that she even understood what they were and why people have them.  We tried to emphasized to her that you play sports for the experience and fun, not for the trophies.  Needless to say her obsession with them continued. 

Closing in on the finish line

Well, it just so happened that Friday night was the final Run for Fun at Bloomington High School.  We had done several of the runs this summer and Addy received a ribbon at each of them.  At the last Fun Run of the season every runner gets their very own trophy.  So, Carter and Addy both ran (well Carter was mostly carried) in their age division and earned their very own trophy.  I ran with Carter and it was Derek's night to run with Adalyn.  I must say that Derek and Addy beat set a new personal best time for Addy of 3 minutes.  Addy ran the entire lap without asking to stop and even had enough left for a strong kick at the end.  She improved so much from her very first race and we are proud of her for her efforts and helping her Dad achieve his personal best in the 400 meter dash!



Receiving her first trophy



Carter clearly values his sippy more than his trophy!

Raising her trophy in victory

Needless to say, this was a very big week for Addy. She had a great time, accomplished a few goals, conquered a few fears, and has a trophy and many great memories to show for it. A summer week can't get any sweeter than that:)

On the Road Again...

During the third week in July the kids hit the road again and headed home on a Sunday to spend time with family and friends for a few days before we headed to French Lick to meet up with Derek for his annual consultant's meeting.  We took off in the morning and headed straight through to Derek's mom's house in Evansville.  The kids were great in the car and we didn't even have to stop once.  Thank goodness for the portable DVD player and morning nap time that enabled us to make awesome time--4 hours and 15 minutes!  Sunday evening we headed to the mall to do a little shopping.  Addy and her grandma also rode the train.  On Monday we headed to the inflatable play place, Pump it Up.  Addy loves this place and I was so amazed at her ability to climb on and scale the things on her own.  We last visited the place over Christmas and what a difference seven months makes.  Since she was so independent and didn't need my help I was able to take Carter on a few of the slides, which he loved. 

Playing with the big kids.  Seconds after taking this picture the kids started pummeling me with balls!

On Tuesday morning we headed to Ferdinand to see my Grandma and spend the day with her.  We took her lunch for her recent birthday and had fun catching up with her.  The kids love going to see great-grandma and Addy always has a ton of stories to tell her.  Wednesday morning we headed to my cousin's house to take pictures of her new little guy and his two siblings.  I have been wanting to practice my photography skills on other kids.  My kiddos get a little tired of me asking to their pictures all of the time.  So, when Gwen had her third baby about a month ago I asked if I could take her kids' pictures.  We headed over in the morning and I set up my backdrop in her basement near her patio doors.  Gwen's sister, Emily, also brought her kids over, so I had a ton of new guinea pics to photograph.  The kids were all really cooperative, all except for my son.  Carter has become a bit of a Mommy's boy lately and wouldn't allow me to put him down at all.  I took pictures holding him the entire time, which didn't allow me to be as mobile as I would have liked.  I got a few good shots, but I promised Emily and Gwen that if I take their kids' pictures again I will have plans for Carter.  Addy had a great time playing with her second cousins and didn't want to leave.  We don't get to see each other very often, so it was great catching up with them!

On Thursday morning the kids and I headed to French Lick to meet Derek for his consultant's meeting.  We got away pretty early in the morning and met Derek for breakfast in the hotel's restaurant.     After eating  the kids and I headed to the indoor water park at the water park resort  in town.  Even though we weren't staying at their hotel, they offer a daily rate for non-guests.  I had heard good things about the water park and was eager to check it out.  I must say that it exceeded my expectations.  Addy and Carter loved it!  We took many trips around the lazy river.  They had awesome inner tubes that were solid in the middle, so Addy and Carter could each sit on their own without falling through.  Carter was so relaxed that he actually took about a twenty minute nap in his tube as we went round and round.  He drew many looks and "ahhs" from onlookers and a few people whipped out their Iphones to snap a picture.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to snap any pictures of our water park adventure.  Believe it or not, taking two young kiddos to an indoor water park can be quite the adventure.  I didn't have the extra hands to keep track of a camera.  We stayed at the water park for about 4 hours and then headed back to the hotel to nap.  Needless to say, after such a fun day, all three of us took a good nap! 

While we were enjoying the controlled climate of the indoor water park, Derek was baking in record temperature on the golf course.  It just so happens that Derek's firm had booked a gold outing on the day in which the temperatures of the heat wave peaked.  Derek doesn't usually mind playing the occasional golf game, but with the heat index at 110, he was a bit grumpy about the thought of baking on the course.  Of course tee time was scheduled during the hottest part of the day, which made all the more enjoyable.  They did make it through all 18 holes--slowly but surely and by drinking lots and lots of fluids!  That evening we ate dinner with the firm at the French Lick Winery, which was very nice.  The kids were very well behaved which made it much more enjoyable.

On Friday morning Derek headed to his all day meeting while the kids and I headed to the stables so the kids could ride ponies.  At first Carter wasn't so sure about being on a pony, but slowly warmed up to her.  Once he felt more comfortable, he sat up straight and kept saying "woof, woof" which is what he says when he sees any furry animal.  Addy loved the pony ride and kept calling herself a cowgirl.  After the ride, the kids got to feed the goats.  At first Addy was cautious of the starving goats, while Carter went right up to them and wanted to pet them.  Then we headed back to the hotel for lunch and nap time.  After a great nap my parents came to pick up the kids and take them back to their house to stay overnight.  The firm had scheduled a nice dinner at the 1875 Steakhouse and I wasn't brave enough to take Addy and Carter to the 5 course dinner.  It also gave us the opportunity to check out the casino, which I was super excited about in the beginning, but not as excited about at the end when I had lost money. 

Giddy up!

Ride em' cowgirl!

One cute cowboy!

On Saturday morning Derek wrapped up his meeting while I hit spa for a pedicure courtesy of the firm.  It was great to get some "me time" and enjoyed the morning on my own.  After Derek's meeting we headed to a restaurant uptown called 33 Brick Street, which has tons of Larry Bird and other sports memorabilia.  My favorite thing there was the Larry Bird Sycamores jersey.  The food was also very tasty!



Proud to be a TREE!

Saturday afternoon we headed back to Ferdinand to pick up the kids and headed to the Fireman's Ball with my family.  We were so happy that we got to see many of our extended family members there and talking to them for a bit.  Addy loved climbing on the fire trucks and playing the kids' games.  It was a great way to wrap up a week long visit to southern Indiana.  We headed home Sunday morning and even though it's always bittersweet saying goodbye to our loved ones, we were all ready to go home and sleep in our own beds and return to our "normal" routines.

Finally!

SOLD!

Yes, it is true!  We finally sold and closed on our house this past Friday (7/22).  After almost eleven months and lots of headaches we can finally say that own only one home!  Although it is a little sad to close the chapter on our house in Atlanta, we are so relieved that we can focus only on our current house.  We have been putting off some home improvements and purchases because we always had the other house looming over us.  Now we can move forward with our plans and continue the process of making our current house our home.  While writing this post I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of our new home.  As we complete projects around the house, I'll be sure to post pictures!

The next part of the post is something I've been wanting to post for a very long time, but was afraid that I might jinx the sale of the house if I posted it.  I am so glad to finally be able to post it!!

The Top Ten Things We Miss about Atlanta, Illinois...

10. The Hot Dog Man--this quirky statue is something we often joked about but it was always something we showed off to our visitors from out of town.  I think we secretly loved him and were proud of him:)

9. Chubby's Bar and Grill--while Atlanta has more bars than it does stoplights (not a single one), Chubby's was one of our favorite place to grab something to eat and drink.

8.  The Smiley Face Water Tower--this is yet another quirky part of the town.  You can see the water tower from the interstate coming from the south and was the sign for me each evening when driving home from Rochester that I was home.  How can you not smile when you look at it?

7. The Dollar General--while living in Atlanta we didn't always have the DG.  It came during the last several years that we lived there and it was a much appreciated addition to the town.  It was a great place to run to get something you needed without having to run 20+ minutes north or south on the interstate.

6.  Casey's Pizza--this is more of something Derek will miss.  For some reason he loved the greasy stuff and often ordered it when the kids and I were out of town.

5. The Slide--Last summer Addy fell in love with the town's park, especially the huge slide.  One day she had the gumption to climb up it and she was in love after that.  We visited the park often just to take a few trips down the slide!

4.  Lincoln Walmart--Even though the Wal-Mart isn't located in Atlanta, we miss it dearly.  It was about a 17 minute drive from our old house, was always neat, never crowded, and had the shortest check-out lines of any Wal-Mart we've ever shopped.  Unfortunately we can't say the same nice things about the Wal-Marts in Bloomington/Normal and is why I miss the Lincoln Wal-Mart so dearly!

3.  Friends and Neighbors--We were very fortunate to have met many wonderful people during our five years of living in Atlanta.  We got to know the Cross family very well and miss seeing them.  Kalee watched Addy several days a week for her first two years and we were so lucky to have such a wonderful friend watching our little girl. Lynn and Derek worked together at State Farm and became good friends.  They often shared rides to Bloomington when one of them was down a car.   The Cross family has done so much for us over the years and we truly cherish their friendship!

We are also so thankful for our wonderful Atlanta neighbors, especially Moe and Theresa.  They have been a great help in keeping an eye on the house after we moved out and were always there to lend a hand when we lived in the neighborhood.

2. Our yard--We miss our Atlanta yard because it was low maintenance and we had planted several trees when we moved in that are now quite large and pretty.  We don't have trees in our current yard that we love and wish it would have been possible to move our Atlanta trees with us.  ONe thing we won't miss about the yard are the golf balls continuously entering our backyard as a result of bad shots form golfers.  I no longer feel like my children need to wear a helmet to play in the backyard.

1. Our First Home--Even though our current home was an upgrade from the last and we love our new space, the Atlanta house will always have a place in hearts.  It was the first home we purchased together and was the place in which we brought our babies home for the first time.  Many great memories took place for us un that house and it will always be remembered fondly.

Fourth of July at Lake Michigan

On July 4th weekend we headed to Long Beach, Indiana (near Michigan City) to meet my family for a holiday getaway.  We left at about 10:30 Friday morning and headed north.  As we neared Chicago we quickly realized that we weren't the only ones with the idea to take an extended weekend and ended up sitting in traffic around Chicago for over an hour.  A trip that was supposed to only be about 3 hours actually ended up taking around five. 

 Since there were seven of us and there are a limited number of hotels close to the lake, we decided to rent a cottage.  It had a lot of room for us to spread out in and allowed us to eat a lot of our meals at the house. 

Our home for the weekend

We didn't have many events planned, which is very unsual for me. We were mostly looking forward to relaxing and enjoying the lake and beautiful weather.  The temps were mostly in the low eighties, except for Saturday when it reached ninety.  We were about a block from the private beach and the house had a lot of outdoor living space of which we took full advantage. One evening we had a fire in the small firepit on the deck and Addy got to roast her very first marshmallow.  We also took advange of the grill on the back patio and Addy enjoyed relaxing in the backyard hammock.  In the mornings we headed to the beach for sand and water play.  Although the lake water was a bit chilly, most of us did manage to get at least out feet in.  Addy enjoyed collecting rocks on the beach and called it looking for "treasure."

Roasting Marshmallows

Mmm..S'mores!!

Papaw and his little buddy

Chillin' in the hammock

We headed to the outlet mall on Saturday, but didn't last long with the kids because of the ninety degree temps.  Ashley and I returned to the mall later in the evening on our own and were able to cover a lot more ground:) In the evenings we walked down to the beach to watch the fireworks shows over the lake.  The last evening of our stay we went down to the lake for the sunset and we were so glad we did.  It was beautiful and a great way to end our weekend.  We headed back to Illinois on Monday and Mom, Dad, Ashley also came over for a short visit before heading back to  southern Indiana. ''

Carter loves the beach!

Spotting sailboats

 Monday evening we headed to our small town 4th of July celebration.  Since this was our first 4th of July in the new house we weren't sure what type of celebration it would be.  We were surprised at how large of a celebration it was.  The whole town showed up to celebrate and the fireworks were great!  Addy and Carter really enjoyed them and also enjoyed spending the evening outside playing. We had a wonderful Independence Day weekend with family and enjoyed our time together relaxing!

Happy 4th of July

 

And he's off...

 

During the last week or so we have managed to coax Carter to finally take a few steps on his own. He had even mastered going from a sitting to a standing position on his own, which is a skill I always think of as coming after walking.  However, he remained very hesitant and cautious about the whole walking thing.  For several months he has been zipping around the house with his walker with little effort.  Each morning when we would bring him downstairs the first thing he would crawl to was his walker.  We started to call him an "old man" because he was so glued and seemingly dependant on using the walker around the house.  We joked that we needed to put tennis balls on it, so it would be so noisy or scratch the wood floors.  This morning we decided to hide the walker to see if its absence would inspire Carter to take more steps on his own.  Throughout the day he found substitutes for his walker--a giant ball, his riding toy, a kitchen chair, etc., but this evening he started taking steps on his own and by bedtime was become quite confident in his walking abilities.  So, I think we can finally say that we have a walker on our hands.

White Sox Father/Daughter Game

On Sunday, June 12th we headed to the southside of Chicago to Cellular Field for the Annual Father/Daughter White Sox game.  This is an annual event for the White Sox and is held around Father's Day each year.  Derek loves to attend this day and always looks for the date when the MLB schedules come out in the winter.  This was our third Father/Daughter game.  Last year we missed the event because our little guy was just a few weeks old anad wasn't quite ready for his first White Sox game.

 We left early Sunday morning and stopped for a quick breakfast at a small cafe along the interstate.  It was a fifties themed cafe and had a statue of the Blues Brothers, which Addy took an interest to and asked tot ake a picture with.  Addy isn't the most cooperative with pictures, so when she asks for one to be taken of her I always oblige.

We got to the ballpark a bit early so we decided to tailgate in the parking lot with the other die hard tailgaters.  Our version of tailgating wasn't as serious and thought out as others.  We sat in the back of our opened SUV munching on PB& J sandwiches, Cheetos, and Chips Ahoy.  We were envious of the grills and tailgate gear around us and decided that would would come up for a game and tailgate for real sometime.

Tailgating in the parking lot

Before the game the White Sox always have activites planned outside the gate for the Father/Daughter Day participants.  There were outdoor games set up, face painting, a balloon guy, etc.  This was the first year in which Addy actually cared about all of the activites.  She had a great time playing the games with her Dad and was so excited to get her face painted with fireworks.  Carter also got his face painted and even though he didn't seemed as enthused about it, he sat remarkably still while the lady was painting the Sox logo on his cheek. 

The highlight of the Father/Daughter Day festivities is the pregame parade in which all of the attendees get to participate in a parade that travels the perimeter of the ballfield.  It is really a fun experience and it something Derek loves doing with his kids.  It's so much fun to watch the smile on his face as he get so walk Carter and Addy around U.S. Cellular Field.  Each year we do this we are always on the lookout for any players or coaches that are lingering around the field.  This year we hit the jackpot.  While walking down the left field line Juan Pierre waved to Addy and a group of kids and Gavin Floyd walked right by us on his way to the bull pen.  As we rounded the area near home plate we noticed Tommy Lasorda was on the field for a pregame ceremony.  He was standing around chatting with another guy who looked to be pretty important.  As we got closer we approached them to say hello and the man with Tommy L. pointed to Addy's painted face and asked if we did this to you.  That is when Derek and I figured out that the other guy was actually Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the White Sox and Bulls.  Tommy Lasorda was very nice and was so gracious when I asked him if we could take a picture with him.  He even lifted Addy up to make sure she was in the picture.  Unfortunatley others had swamed in and were unable to get a picture with Mr. Reinsdorf, but it was really neat to just get to talk with him!  After that we finished our walk around the field and then headed to our seats.
Derek and Carter were also on the JumboTron during the parade around the field.  Fortunatly I looked up at just the right time and took a picture of the big screen. 

Making a catch in the outfield

Posing with Tommy Lasorda

Derek and Carter on the Jumbotron

Posing in front of the dugout



Addy and Carter love their Daddy!


We had upper level seats and when we located them we decided to move up several rows because it wasn't a sell out and we were able to take advantage of an empty row.  The weather was gorgeous and the temperature in the high seventies; it was great baseball weather!  We actually got to stay for the entire game, which we weren't expecting at ALL!  We cheered the Sox on to a 5-4 victory over Oakland.  We were so happy that we were able to stay the whole game and see the White Sox win.  Addy enjoyed the fireworks at the end of the game to celebrate the win.  She talks about Father/Daughter Day pretty frequently and has officially declared the White Sox as one of her teams.  The game was a great way to celebrate Father's Day a little early and is somethings we won't soon forget! 

Baseball Buddies

Face Painted+balloon doggie+ White Sox win= Perfect Day!