June 11 - Day 1 of Camp Mommy

Char and one of her very best pals are out of school already.  They convinced the moms to  not signed them up for a camp but to let them run their own camp! So today we made a list of summer camp activities, went to target and got lots of supplies and set up the tent for the sleepover.

After chipotle dinner, we enjoyed family movie night and watched a wrinkle in time! Girl power!

June 10 - Staycation 2018 Starts Today!

After the big Indian Princess Campout yesterday, Jack hopped on a red eye to Hong Kong where he will be spending the summer saving the world from cyber criminals.  The ladies and I are spending the summer at home with friends and camps and Maisy!  I knew, if left to my own devices, summer would slide by without us doing anything of note so I decided to summon the power of The Blog.  The Blog keeps me honest.  If I let the kids eat Doritos and watch TV all day, then The Blog will know and The Blog will shame me.  According to Aristotle, the unexamined life is not worth living.  So, here we are, opening our summer to examination!  Let's make some memories!  Here is our checklist so far.  Let's circle back in August and see how many of these got done! 

June 12 - It's gettin' real!

So we are now 2 days out from leaving and I am in full hair-on-fire mode.  It's getting real in a hurry! All those little things I needed to do and order and obtain, now is the time!  There is no more time.  This is it.

June 11 - T-minus 60 hours

The girls wrapped up school today and it could not have been a sweeter ending to a fantastic year.  Jacqui had a formal luncheon in her classroom and Charlotte's class played games and ate pizza on the Common.  There's nothing like the buzz of the last day of school!  After each 'graduate' enjoyed their classmates at 2 separate Last-Day-Of-School pool parties, Jack and I high-tailed it into the city to have dinner at the HoPR and see a concert with friends.  Not just any concert though, Whitesnake. You remember them -- they were at the very apex of the tragic pyramid of hair metal bands.

I cannot believe that these guys are still going, and that the don't look at all different.  Not. At. All.  To whom did they have to sell their souls to retain their youthful vigor and flowing locks???  I want to know!

June 1 - T-minus 13 days until lift-off

We've finalized all of our accommodations now.  Rome, Forte del Marni, Milan and Venice.

May 21 - School Winding down, Summer Ramping up!

Can you believe that there are only 13 and a half more school days left!  Where did grade 4 go?  Where did grade 1 go?  I feel like my head has been in fog and I'm just coming out of it!

So, even though Jack is working up to the day we leave, we are still planning on setting off for our Italian adventure on June 15th.  The girls get out of school on the 11th and then we get out of Dodge! I'm excited and stressed and petrified.  It's a fun cocktail of emotions!  Oh well, as long as I have enough benedryl for the kids and enough Xanax for me, what could go wrong ... :)

More soon.

July 29 - bilateral ear infection and Eataly (part 3)

Natalie woke up with pain in her head so we took her to the clinic and, sure enough, she had an infection in both ears. Kind of terrifying with a long flight tomorrow but all we can do it do it and hope for the best. After getting the antibiotics, we played in the playground and went home to get organized. We waked downtown for the last time - 2 in the stroller and one on jacks back. It may be the last time Natalie ever sleeps on jack so he enjoyed it while it lasted!

On our last evening, we went downtown for a free Opera concert and then to the playground downtown where there were a group of kids practicing their hip hop dance routine. The girls were mesmerized! We ignored the first few drops of rain and payed dearly - I sprinted 6 blocks in a downpour to the 'L' station and jack took Charlotte for a last visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Great trip, team! Good memories!

July 28 - Lincoln park playground and zoo & dinner at the Bristol

This morning was cool and breezy so we scrapped our original plan of hitting the splash park and did the zoo instead. Once our sitter showed up for the last date night of the trip, we set off on foot for Bucktown for a visit to the restaurant that makes one of the best Dark & Stormies in the city -- The Bristol. We came to the Bristol many times when we lived in Chicago so it seemed a fitting ending to a fantastic trip. After dinner, we were going to see some experimental theater at the Steppenwolf incubator but missed the tickets so we went to the movies. I'm ashamed to admit that we saw a movie on vacation - we do that all the time in Marin - but it was our last night and we'd done it all. We just wanted to chillax! We saw the movie 'Boyhood'. I urge you all to stop reading my ramblings RIGHT NOW and go out and see this film. It's about nothing and everything! It seemed a very fitting final chapter to a vacation where we purposefully and thoughtfully tried to engage the girls -- to remove all of the day-to-day distractions and connect with them. That's all well and good and we did a bunch of that and they loved it but they are growing up every moment of everyday. It seems glacial right now, g-l-a-c-i-a-l, but experiencing the passage of 12 years in 3 hours gave me a very small but visceral taste of what it must feel like when your kids have flown the nest and you, as a parent, are looking back on it all. Our littlest is 9. Almost a decade has passed since we started this crazy phase of our lives. What?!?

Please, grab a handful of tissues and a box of milk duds and give this movie 3 hours of your life - I promise, you won't regret it.

July 27 - 2 play dates and Poetry Slam at the Green Mill

Last lunch with cousin Bill and family, early dinner with friends from our British school days and up to the Green Mill for a poetry slam! That was a banner day! Gotta find a poetry slam in SF! Awesome. Then a burrito at one of Jack's old late night haunts - Taco Burrito MF'n Palace #2! That stop was ill advised! There
Is a reason it's only busy after the bars let out ...

July 26 - Jet Skiing at North Avenue Beach & Cocello

We decided the girls needed a little thrill so I took the 2 older ones out on Lake Michigan on a Jet Ski. Charlotte on the front, me in the middle and Jacqui hanging on for dear life on the back. We all had a ball! There was some trepidation at first but we eased into it and by the end of our ride, the girls were begging to jump just one more wave! It was somewhat challenging to steer with Charlotte holding onto the handlebars but, we managed!



In the evening, we reconnected with our old British School friends Matt and Kate. We had lots to catch up on since our last dinner together! Cocello served up refined Italian classics and very respectable cocktails. We walked home past the strip of bars on Hubbard Street and then through the party area at Clark and Division. I'm happy to walk through all the craziness and then get safely tucked in at home! That's enough for this Saturday night!

July 24 - Art Institute x 2 & Yusho

July 23 - Southport and Wrigley Field -- Go Cubs

We stayed on the north side today, taking the kids up to the neighborhood we lived in briefly when we first moved to Chicago in 2003. We lived on Jansen street just north of Addison in the Southport neighborhood. It's come a long way baby (although it has been over 10 years ...)!

To make up for how boring this little trip down memory lane would be for the kids, we took them to get ice cream at Jenni's Blended Ice Cream.  this is new since we left and they make some beautiful ice cream.  Instead of eggs, they use cream cheese as a thickening agenda.  OMG - delish!  Our tour included the local playground (of course) and a fun sculpture to climb on.

In the evening, we decided that we'd better visit Wrigley Field and cheer on the home team.  I'm embarrassed to admit it but we didn't go to one game when we lived here so we figured it was time to remedy that tragic situation.  We got some scalper tickets, grabbed a Chicago dog, a cold beer and a bag of peanuts.  We stuck with the cubbies through the 4th inning, then we decided to split when the Brewer's lead was unsurmountable and the promised 'hot summer night' had turned decidedly cold.  We walked home past all the fun bars on Clark Street, reminiscing about being drunk and 20.  We passed a bar called, simply, 'Beer'  -- they had ongoing beer pong tournaments and a low-fi Karaoke machine.  Doesn't get any better than that!