Welcome to fall

Yea! Fall is trying to show it's face around here. Temperatures are down, especially at night. This is Julie and my favorite time of year. Cooler temps = happier us!

Things have been happening around here. If you saw the Bears game today, you know that they did change their quarterback, but the result wasn't much different. Like I've said before, it just might be the offensive coordinator. I knew it was either the QB or the guy telling the whole offense what to do. But a truly experienced QB would still help because they make decisions on the fly which also keeps the defense on their toes.

Anyway, this isn't a sports blog so I digress. I still don't have the picture from Grace on the waverunner from last weekend, maybe soon. For the Wisconsin Badger game that Julie and I are going to, I decided to go to the homecoming game on October 27. And we decided not to take Grace with us. We'll take her to a football game around here that isn't quite as expensive. It would be a really long day for her driving all the way to Madison and back plus the 3+ hour game. Plus the extra time I'm going to - ha, ha. Julie researched what songs they played at a concert in Toronto on this same tour recently. So I've been uploaded my CD's to my iPod and I'm creating a playlist that matches that so I'm all ready for the concert.

We've been busy planning the birthday festivities for Grace's birthday that's coming up next week. My Mom is flying in for the fun and we've got a lot planned but most of it is either free or not much because we don't want to spend too much on her birthday. We don't want to be on that MTV show where they are spending thousands on their kids parties. Plus she's only (going to be) five and probably won't even remember this when she's older.

Anyway we're going to the pumpkin farm with Grace's friend from across the street like we do every year. She really enjoys doing this! We go and take a hay ride out to the pumpkin fields and we each pick out a pumpkin and they have other fun things to do there like a petting zoo and pony rides. Plus they have a huge pig that usually gives birth around Grace's birthday each year. Baby pigs are popular with all the kids.

After that we'll have a family party and then for the kids party we're taking her friends to Build-a-bear in Vernon Hills. That'll actually be on the Saturday after her birthday. Grace is calling all of this her "3 parties" for her birthday. She was even lobbying for a fourth party for a while. She's also quite concerned that she won't get the things on her birthday list. We never actually made the list, but anytime we go to a store and she wants something we tell her we can just add it to her birthday list. She likes that idea but is now concerned she still won't get those things.

We have told people what some of those things are (the one's we remember at least) so we aren't just playing games with her. Today Julie and her were shopping at Kohls and she asked if they could get something we told her that we could add to the list. Julie told her she needed to wait until after her birthday to see if she gets it as a gift. She responds "but what if I don't get it?"

We finally scheduled Grace's eye surgery. She'll be having her crossed eye fixed on Halloween. I don't know how the hospital came up with that date. We were talking about doing this in November but they called Julie and said the 31st was the day. So now we'll have to begin in earnest to get her ready for this. She's afraid to have drops put in her eyes by the eye doctor, so I'm unfortunately feeling that this might be a traumatic experience for her. I sure hope not. The good thing is that she's young still and like I said a few paragraphs ago, she'll hopefully not remember any of this when she's older. But I have a feeling she's always going to be afraid of eye doctors. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

I don't know what time the surgery will be yet on the 31st, but this probably means she'll miss both dance class and gymnastics that day and school for the rest of that week. Plus we made a mistake for her kids birthday party and she'll need to miss her last soccer game. But as long as this corrects her eye none of that will matter. But in the short term these things are very important to Grace. She won't understand why she can't go to dance class, etc.

Speaking of Grace, she was whiny and difficult all day. Did I mention ALL DAY? Yea, she was just a bear all day long today. Everything was a struggle and nothing was fair. We're pretty sure it's because she's not feeling well, but she needs to learn to not take her frustrations out on us. It's getting really old.

I haven't mentioned HainesvilleFest yet. Julie set up a booth at the festival this year and we spent the whole day there. It was a great day to spend outside. She did pretty good and got a few new leads for her business. Grace had fun with all of her friends that were there and we just found out that she won a coloring contest that she entered while we were there. So we're going to go pick up her prizes this week. This was from the Dinner by Design tent that was right next to us. So Grace won a t-shirt and a dessert. She loves dessert that's for sure! She'd rather have a snack than a meal any day and dessert is better than a snack.

I was pretty successful at HainesvilleFest too. I entered the raffles for prizes that local businesses had donated, and I won several! One was to Panera Bread and that's my favorite place right now. Those strawberry smoothies are incredible. I've got to figure out the recipe for them so I can start saving some money instead of buying. I've been working on it and my smoothies are getting better, but not quite the same. But I'm not so sure our blender will last much longer. It's not working so well and it isn't going to get better. We'll see.