A music-filled Weekend

Friday night Justin and I went out to eat at a nice Italian restaurant then heading into the big city to the Uptown Theater to see Jewel.  She is touring with her dad and brothers.  They opened for her and also joined her later for a song.  She sang some holiday songs, played with her band, then did some acoustic stuff from my high school days.

If you've seen the movie Sing, the theater looked a lot like that one.  Very pretty with lots of details.

 Waiting for the show to start!  I enjoyed watching people take selfies, as it always makes me chuckle!

 Then Saturday night we picked up Papa Murphy's pizza and went over to the Cotovsky's for pizza night.  Then we all headed to the Lewis and Clark Center on post to listen to the 312th Army band's Christmas concert.  The music was good (not professionals for sure) but since the admission was free it was all good!!  We sit really close, because why not, and enjoyed ourselves.

They played several selections of Christmas/Holiday music.  And also played Fanfare for the Common Man, Star Wars, You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch, and the requisite Armed Forces on Parade.

A tree lighting and bike throwing

The first Friday in December we went to the tree lighting on post.  This year we stood in line for the horse drawn carriage ride.  Everyone sees many people they know, so we chat and catch up while the kids run and play.   All the trees in the park light up so it's really pretty.  We we leaving so turned around and saw it light up as we were leaving.

 We then ate a quick dinner at Subway before heading to the local bike shop.  Their annual Christmas party/chili cook off was the same night as the tree lighting festivities.  The highlights of the bike shop party was the flaming car jump (pictured below) and the Huffy toss.
What you can't see in the picture below is the toy dump truck that's on fire!

 Then it was time to toss an old Huffy bike.  There was an adult size bike and then a kid-size, barbie huffy for the 13 and unders to throw.  Anyone that wanted a chance to throw the bike could.  The winners got a prize (bike socks!!).  Below is the measurement taking of Will's throw.  It was an age group winning toss of 14'10"!!  (see Justin and Eric standing in the background?)

 And next was Caroline's turn to, "TOSS THAT HUFFY!"

 She also had an excellent toss, coming up one inch short of Will's throw!

I didn't get a picture of Eric or Justin taking their turn, but Eric also won his age group!!  It was fun to watch the parts come flying off the tossed bikes, handle bars get broken, and the crazy bounces it would take.
It was a fun evening and definitely got us in the Christmas spirit!

Pieces and Parts

So Lili has really enjoyed having the Christmas tree up.  Caroline was super excited to get the decorations out the day after Thanksgiving.  But the tree sat without ornaments for over a week!  The cat enjoyed it.  More than once we caught her climbing in the tree.  The kids thought (and still think) it was hilarious.

Do you see the orange blob in the middle?

 A few sprays with the water bottle and she now mostly stays out of it and just sleeps under it.

 So when this kid looks up at me and says, "take my picture and send it to Grandaddy!"  You do it!!

 Sometimes at the end of the day a snuggle under the tree with a fuzzy cat is all you need!

 The sunrises have been spectacular lately.

Thanksgiving

We got up relatively early on Thanksgiving morning to drive into downtown KC so the boys could run a 5k turkey trot.  We took Miles with us as he really enjoys a race area.  There are always many that want to pet him and he never gets enough attention so it's a win win!  

Eric requested to run a 5k again for Thanksgiving so Justin gladly signed the boys up!  It was a beautiful morning, a little chilly, but was perfect.  It was a much bigger crowd than I anticipated and there were lots of kids running.  

There were so many people that we missed them come by at the start!

 Caroline and I decided to walk around the block while they were out running so we could look at the pretty houses.  I loved the details of the house below!

 The race was called the Pilgrim run and the start was right near this old chapel.  Caroline and I also walked in there to check it out.  Very pretty with lots of wood work.

 Then we went back close tot the finish line to wait for the boys.  Miles sat down right beside her without being prompted.

 And there comes Eric!!

 See him up on his toes?  He apparently decided that he could run faster like that but paid a price the next couple of days with super sore calfs!

 And then came Justin and Will.

 The football conditioning really helped Will be able to run almost the entire 5k for the first time!!  So proud of that kid!

 Then it was home for the boys to shower and change so we could go down the street to the Cotovsky's house.  We spent the rest of the day there,eating, talking, eating, playing, eating, watching football, and even more eating, then had a movie night and watched Inside Out. It was a fantastic day with fantastic friends!!

Eric was a little disappointed that he didn't place in the 5k.  He actually was in 23rd place if you can believe it.  There were LOTS of kids running, and maybe next year he will train for it.

More Science City

 The day before Thanksgiving Justin had to work.  But the kids and I had a day off!  I needed to go to Costco and pick up packets for the boys' turkey trot run, which were all in KC, so we stopped to play at Science City.  I also took the Cotovsky girls.  We were going to have Thanksgiving at their house so I wanted to give Catherine some kid-free time to prep.  Plus, her 3 girls are just easy to have around.  I picked them up at 10am and I took 5 kids to Costco and had lunch there.  I got some strange looks with all the blonde children I had following me around!
Then it was on to play at Science City for a few hours.
They all really enjoyed it!

 Grace,4, loved the air blower.  She didn't want to let the ball float in the air stream.  She thought it was much more enjoyable to cover the air flow and make the ball fall!  The older kids did not think this was fun.

 Goofy kids

 They really enjoyed the zip line. Grace is below.

 Caroline C below.  With the 2 oldest in the family both named Caroline it makes for a lot of my Caroline clarifications.

 climbing to the top of the pringle chip looking like thing.

 These chair were lots of fun too!  As is everything there.  They were all moving so fast I didn't get too many picots.  Nevermind the fact that I was trying to keep up with 5 kids by myself!  Mad props to my cousin Laura!!!

 I could always find my group!  All those blondes.  And you can see why people think they are all related.

 And after all the excitement of the day, Grace was out within 5 mins of getting in the car!  I dropped them off around 4:30pm.

It was a full fun day!!

Rock the Track

The weekend after Eric's birthday we were back in Lawrence.  We like hanging out in that town but as Justin says it's too liberal to live there! Ha!  But we went to sell some bicycles at a place called the Recyclery, had lunch at Chick-fil-a, went into PetSmart (bad idea), and then headed to the indoor training facility for some fun.

Chick-fil-a is always a favorite, but Will fake pouted when he couldn't trade in his kid's meal toy for an ice cream cone.  Then the kids enjoyed dipping their fries in the ice cream reminding me of my Papa and how he would always do that with a Wendy's frosty!  Good memories!

 The KU track team runs this free event and it was better than last year.  They had fewer stations so each group got the opportunity to try them all out.  Just like last year Caroline was too old to participate.  But the boys had a blast again.  Will loved the pole vault the best.  I think Eric liked the hurdles best.
Below Eric was stretching with the leader of his group, a guy also named Eric!

 Look at that crazy hurdle!

 Goofy, happy, grinning boy!

 Eric on the pole vault!  I want to try it.

 Later that afternoon Justin and I headed to downtown KC to go to a famous BBQ place.  We got there at 5:30pm and there was already an 1.5 hour wait for 2 people!  So we walked to the back and ordered it to go and sat in the van to eat.  Perfect solution!  Then we went to Union Station to the big screen movie theater to watch Forrest Gump!  It was fun to see it on the big screen.  It's is Justin's favorite movie and it was a fun date night!

5th Grade Musical

Tuesday night the whole 5th grade had a musical performance.  Will told me he had a speaking part and that his teacher had his costume already.  But I wasn't so sure as all the notes and reminders that came home said if your child has a speaking part that the parents are responsible for making their costume.  But, I reluctantly trusted that he had this.  Will is on the top row second from the left.

 And this was his costume!  He was a shark!!  Should have known he would be a shark.

We really enjoyed the performance!!

Eric's birthday

 After Will's game we drove another hour back to Lawrence to spend the night.  We got tucked in around 10.  Thankfully the kids all fell asleep in the car!  Plus it was the end of daylight savings so we were able to sleep an extra hour (ha!).  Just kidding we had to get up, eat, and get Justin to the starting line for his race!!
We dropped Justin off and then went to park.  The race wasn't a huge event so it was easy to find a spot.  Then we walked to the start to watch him get going.

 And off he goes!!

 The race route was set up where we could see him come by at mile 6 and 10, really close to the finish line.  Very nice!  Looking good and staying with the pacer at mile 6.

 And here at mile 10.  Just to the left about 300 yards is the finish line area.

 And then Justin's in blue running down to the finish.  Having the finish line come down a slight incline made it easy to spot him way out there so I could get the camera ready!

 And he had his best time ever!  Beat his previous best by 10 minutes!  Incredible!

We didn't stay around too long after he finished.  He got chilled.  Then it was back to the hotel to get packed up and head home.  One the drive home the boys had to go!  My van has lane changing camera so when I put my blinker on to pull over they got caught!!

 Then we celebrated Eric's birthday!!  He opened presents.

And snuggles with Dad while watching football!

Happy birthday sweet boy!  We love you dearly!