Category: Kids

Black Friday

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Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

So how did everyone who braved the stores today make out? Get any good deals?

I ordered $228 worth of merchandise right from my computer chair. Amazon.com had/has some great deals today and I’m happy to report I got all my shopping done for hubby in one fell swoop. I also got about half the boy’s gifts and a quarter of the girl’s because, like always, she didn’t give us a lot of ideas. She is definitely the most difficult person I’ve ever have to shop for because she’s not as materialistic as the rest of us. I want her to have a lot of cool presents to open, but she is not being very cooperative!

Today is going to be a lazy day of playing games and not doing much else, save for some laundry. Tomorrow I’ll be cooking our own little Thanksgiving dinner. After all the food from my parents’ last night, we need a breather today.

Here’s what the menu will look like tomorrow: Butterball turkey breast, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, and crescent rolls. Can’t wait!

Fall Weekend Activities

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We took the kids to the pumpkin farm yesterday. Unlike last year, it actually felt like a Fall day. The weather was quite beautiful – sunny and cool, but not too cold. The kids are getting too old to go on most of the rides offered, although the boy did go on the Fun Slide and another ride. No one was interested in the haunted houses, so we all went on a short wagon ride “through the woods”. It was cute, albeit not very thrilling. And of course we had food. I think we spent just about the same time and money as last year. The girl and I got a walking taco just like last time too.

Cat eyes and mummy

Later in the evening, we all drove around St. Charles Illinois to check out the Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour courtesy of the park district. There are far too many homes to see them all, but we spent extra time at our favorites. Before heading home we stopped at Baskin-Robbins for ice cream.

The Fall foliage hasn't quite peaked yet

This morning after dropping off the kids, Joe and I enjoyed breakfast at IKEA. You can’t beat their prices – $2 for scrambled eggs, bacon, potatos, and french toast sticks. We needed to kill time before heading over to Greene Valley Hill in Naperville. I had read about theold landfill that was open to the public as a scenic overlook. Scenic, it was, but it’s terribly windy today and up on that hill it was brutal, so I took a few quick shots and we left.

Sonny Acres photos @ Flickr
Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour photos @ Flickr

KR @ WD

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Sleeping Tiger Cub

That tiger cub photo is the highlight of our two-night stay in Wisconsin Dells. I’m by no means a water park fan, in fact I’ve never really been to one, and I’m still not a fan after our little trip. It wasn’t horrible, but I would have been happy with one day at the Kalahari Resort instead of two.

After checking in on Wednesday afternoon, we headed to the outdoor water area where I managed to injure my back halfway down the first water slide I went on. When I got to the bottom I went under because I had a hard time standing up due to the pain. I will admit, it freaked me out a little since I had just watched one of those Primetime Medical Mystery shows about Surfer’s Myelopathy recently. Luckily the pain has subsided since then!

After spending an hour or so outside, we spent a couple of hours in the indoor water park. It was better because there was no sun beating down on us. Plus it has a hot tub which I love (even though it wasn’t as warm as most hot tubs since kids are allowed in it). The indoor park also has some nice water slides you go down on in rafts instead of a body mat like the slide where I hurt my back. Their lazy river is fun, yet annoying because of the waterfall areas where you get drenched. Due to that, you spend more time worrying about getting soaked than enjoying the ride. The pool where the lazy river ends is pretty cool since it generates waves every so often.

Wednesday night we had dinner at Buffalo Phil’s Grille and then went to the arcade for a bit. Since we got the cheapest (which is all relative since it was not cheap at all) room available, we all went to bed at the same time. Or I should say tried to go to sleep since ignorant people (adults as well as children) were running through the halls and yelling after 10 pm.

Thursday morning we had breakfast at Paul Bunyan’s. I only recommend it for the atmosphere because as far as buffets go, it was ridiculous. $40 for breakfast for four people? That is insane! In fact, all the food in Wisconsin is terrible; it doesn’t taste good and it’s ridiculously overpriced. We ended up having lunch at Wendy’s on Thursday just to save some money. Then we spent four hours at the indoor water park and had pizza for dinner. The pizza was reasonably priced but wasn’t really good.

This morning we stopped at a place called Denny’s Diner (not to be confused with Denny’s) which was inexpensive and good. They have homemade bread which is super yummy. Better yet the bill was under $20!

In all, I’d say Wisconsin Dells ranks right up there with Branson, Missouri. You have to go once just for the hell out of it but you should never go back. Not unless you enjoy bending over in the name of “entertainment”. Even the miniature golf is over priced!

Next year we’ll be taking the kids to one of the local water parks for the day. It would even be cheaper to pay Great America’s outrageous prices.

Some photos from our stay. I didn’t get any of the water park since I didn’t want to leave my camera unattended.

Exercise & Nature

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Mallard Lake @ Dusk

Friday evening after a healthy dinner of grilled chicken, potatoes, and veggies, we took the kids to Mallard Lake forest preserve to get some exercise. To make it fun, I gave them each one of our old Nikon digital cameras so they could take photos along the way, which they enjoyed. The only one who didn’t entirely enjoy the walk was Joe since the mosquitoes love to dine on him.

Saturday morning we bought the boy a tennis racket and played Pictionary Jr. and Disney Scene It while waiting for the rain to pass. We managed to fit 45 minutes of tennis between rain showers but ultimately had to head home when the lightning siren went off. The rain finally went away in the evening so we took a walk around the neighborhood after dinner.

After dropping off the kids this morning, Joe and I headed to Willowbrook Wildlife Center to check out the new sandhill crane exhibit. You can’t get good photos of them, or any of the wildlife they have on site, as a matter of fact, due to the way the cages are designed. We mostly got flower photos instead. They do have a butterfly garden but it was more like a bee garden today. Not that I mind – I love the bees. Oh, and we saw a baby raccoon as well.

Bee

We stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home because I wanted one of their pizzas. $47 later we have pecans, almonds, dark chocolate covered raisins, tapenade, orange chicken, garlic chicken, chicken fried rice, bananas, sea salt, and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. We usually don’t buy that much stuff there but it all looked so tasty, probably because we hadn’t eaten breakfast!

After dropping the cameras and food off at home, we went to the mall where I finally found a bathing suit. It’s a lot more colorful than I usually go for, but it will do. Joe bought more stuff than I did which was a bit annoying. I couldn’t find any clothes I liked at New York & Company or Kohl’s, except for the bathing suit. I did get a cute Nike tote bag, though. I’m all about the bags, much to Joe’s chagrin.

I even got a new bag for my work laptop at Target. I hate the Dell one that comes with it, as do all of my colleagues who have laptops. It has sections to hold other stuff as well so I’m not dragging around several bags and feeling like a pack mule.

After dinner we’re going to go play tennis again. I forgot how fun it was until recently. We used to play regularly when we lived in the apartment but stopped for some reason after we moved.

The Gray Race and some other stuff

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For the past few months I’ve been bemoaning the fact that my library, or none of the libraries it trades with, has Bad Religion’s album The Gray Race. I even told Joe today, “that’s it, I’m just going to order it from Amazon.com” and then a little later it occurred to me that I made a copy of it before I moved out when my ex and I broke up eight years ago. Can you say duh? I got home from work, ripped the copy, and added it to my iPod. Now I can enjoy the best Bad Religion album ever at work tomorrow.

I’ve been using the Wii Fit almost daily for two weeks now and I like it. I only get about 15 minutes of exercise during each use, but I’m also using the elliptical machine for 20 minutes while watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so for now that’s enough. I enjoy teasing Joe because when it measures him, this cute voice says, “that’s overweight”. It’s funny because he’s really not overweight as far as I’m concerned. But I guess he’s just over the normal BMI for his weight and height. I’m in the normal range but I definitely have some excess pudge to tone. We had the kids weigh themselves too and let’s just say the Wii was not kind. Unfortunately that’s typical for kids today and it’s rather sad.

We’re trying to be better role models when the kids are here with us, as small of a percentage of their time that may be. Saturday after we went garage sale hunting, we went to the park and the boys played catch while I helped the girl practice tennis. She wants to try out at school but I don’t think they are going to take her unless she takes real lessons. Most of the time she just stood there expecting the ball to come to her. Granted, I was aiming for her to allow her to practice returning the ball, but I explained to her she needs to run for the ball and move back if it’s too high or forward if it’s coming short. She was doing better by the time we were done but she has a long way to go. I do give Joe’s kids credit – they are way more into extra-curricular activities than I ever was at their age. The only problem is they are bit over-confident in their abilities and don’t necessarily want to put in the work it requires to follow through with whatever activity they are interested in. So that’s something they need to work on.

Tonight I tried a new recipe – Chicken Parm Meatball Subs. They came out much better than I was expecting! I was too hungry to photograph the evidence so you’ll just have to trust me. I burned the first two rolls under the broiler so I’ll need to pick up more so we can finish the leftovers tomorrow.

Speaking of leftovers, yesterday we took the kids to Boston Market for lunch to celebrate Joe’s birthday before taking the kids home. Can you believe it cost $28 for the four of us to eat, and that was with a $5 coupon? At least the food is pretty healthy, even more so since the kids had to get one veggie from their two sides. The boy wanted mac & cheese and mashed potatoes so he wasn’t too happy about that but he got over it. The plan was for us to go to Pepe’s for dinner after dropping them off since it’s right by their house, but their mom called about an hour before we were going to leave to say she was in the area and could pick them up. So we ended up at Red Lobster instead. It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten there and I only ate half my dinner and took the other half for lunch today. Plus I had grilled chicken instead of deep fried shrimp.

I started writing this post earlier but a big storm rolled in so we shut down our computers and played on our DS for awhile. We’ve gotten two new games recently – Left Brain, Right Brain and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The Left Brian Right Brain one is more like Left Hand Right Hand since that’s all it seems to be testing. My left arm actually hurts from using that hand way more often than I normally do.

Going to go weigh myself on the Wii Fit and then read before bed. I’ve been good getting to sleep by 10 pm every night and getting a solid seven hours of sleep. That with my daily dose of Vitamin D, more exercise, and eating better has made my stress levels quite low. Nothing seems to get me really fired up lately which is nice.