And We Lived Happily Ever After....

Well, it's sad to say but our FAIRYTALE housing situation is coming to an end!

Our friends accepted an offer on their house a couple of weeks ago and Matt, Quinton and I are moving AGAIN this weekend! This will mark our fourth address change in 2 years and our 7th move in 8 years, not too shabby, eh?????

I will be a little sad to leave but a little relieved that I won't have to run around the house and clean everytime the phone rings, thinking it's a realtor! Quinton will be SUPER bummed when he can't take a bath in the Master bath - swimming pool - tub anymore. I think Matt is happy wherever he is so I think he's going to be A-O-K.

Goodbye 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, big basement, giant kitchen with a double oven and sub zero!

And here is our new house!

We'll be renting for a while until we have a better idea of how long we will be in Chicago. The housing market is pretty slow here so we think it better to rent than buy at this time. We are REALLY lucky that our new landlords are letting us paint and pull up yucky carpets to discover hardwood floors in need of TLC. I can't take another sterile rental, so I am putting my personal touch where I can and I think this place will be PERFECT for us for the next year or so.

If you need our new address, just email me!

Kenosha Rocks, Y'all!

I started this last week so bear with me!

I'm not packing my bags just yet, but I do have to say that Kenosha is growing on me!

Not only did we have the chance to spend Friday and Saturday in Kenosha, Wisconsin for Matt's triathlon, we had a chance to venture up north again on Monday due to a wardrobe malfunction:

Matt forgot to return his rented wetsuit after his race, to the Kenosha store from whence he borrowed said wetsuit.

So this meant a trip to Kenosha Monday afternoon to drop off the suit. But when we got to the store, it was closed on Mondays! Luckily, the salon next door was nice enough to hold on to it and turn it in the next morning for us. After we dropped off the wetsuit, we stopped on the other site of the highway at ACTION PARK ADVENTURE! Wooohooo!

Quinton had a ton of fun playing in the bouncy houses...

Then, in the ball pit, Matt and Quinton had to defend themselves from the 9 year old hooligans! You can KIND of see in this picture that Matt is on his hands and knees in a bridge formation so Quinton can stand on his back and shoot the gun. I thought this was one of the best moments of the night!

Then, we went into the boating ride where you can squirt your opponents, I mean family, with a water gun. Quinton LOVED shooting water at me!

Quinton took this picture of me and Matt. It's kind of cute:)

Don't You Wish Your Husband Was Hot Like Mine???

Matt has been looking forward to this weekend since January, I think!

Today was his first triathalon of the season!

Matt was pretty nervous about today because he's been experiencing some knee pain that he's never had and hasn't been able to train as much as he wanted to before his first big race.

This first race was about an hour and a half north of us in Kenosha, Wisconsin. You have to actually pronounce it like the locals: Kah-know-shuh, Wis-cahn-sin. See you are already steeped in Wisconsin culture!

Anywho, we stayed at the our friends' Lake Cabin last night since it's about 30 minutes from Kenosha and Matt wanted to be at the race site to drop his bike off by 5:30 AM. Lucky for us, my friend's mom, who owns the cabin, was at the cabin last night. She told us about a to-die-for frozen custard mom and pop shop where she promised I would have the best frozen custard of my life. Come to think of it, I think last night was the first time I have ever had frozen custard so, YES, it was the best I've ever had!

Anyway, After getting a lot lost last night and asking for directions at several gas stations, we arrived at Adrian's Custard in Burlington, Wisconsin. This place was quite the happening joint in the sprawling metropolis of Burlington. In case you HAVEN'T heard of Burlington, Wisconsin, there is a large Hershey's factory there (see, now you know even MORE about Wisconcin!).

Indeed, Sue Ann was correct, last night's custard was super-fantastic! We both had our own Turtle Sundaes and I even brought Matt home a strawberry sundae! Needless to say, last night's custard was a sweet reward for today's 5 AM wake up call!

To show our support for Matt, Quinton and I dragged our booties out of bed BEFORE the crack of dawn to go with Matt to the race site and watch his race. Aren't we awesome???

Here is Matt, aka DEAD Sexy, suiting up for the race---->

Snazzy outfit, eh? I bought him his Croc sandals yesterday and they totally make the outfit!

And please, notice the oh-so-tight Thunderbird Triathlon Jersey!

Quinton couldn't resist sending his dad off with a good luck kiss. Matt said he felt like the luckiest guy out there, today, with his wife and son in his cheer leading section!

This next picture is of the start of Matt's triathlon. He did the sprint distance and it started with swimming, then biking, then running. There were about 100 people in the sprint race, another 60 in the Olympic distance race, and about 50 there to race a Duet, which is the biking and running, no swimming.

The weather was pretty crappy this morning complete with rain and lightning but about 10 minutes before the start of the race, it all stopped and the race started on time!

Matt coming out of the swim and Quinton running to cheer him on...the funniest part of this interaction was when Matt ran past us and Quinton started running to follow Matt. On Quinton's left side, a race participant seemed a little miffed that Quinton was PASSING him! He said, "It's pretty bad when I'm being passed by him!" - meaning Quinton! I had to laugh!

Here's Matt starting off on his bike. The roads were really slick so most cyclists were taking it easy, including Matt! Sliding on asphalt is NOT something you want to do in these outfits!

Here is Matt passing by us the first time. he had to do 3 - five mile laps, I think.

His second lap.

And here is Quinton making the best use of his time while waiting for Matt...full body plunges into a giant muddy puddle. Have I ever mentioned how much Quinton loves mud and puddles? If not, this picture is worth a thousand kisses to Quinton's mud-loving!

And VOILA, here is Matt after the finish line! He was so excited to finish within 4 minutes of his best time. He placed 4th in his group and 17th overall, which I think is AWESOME! I am so proud of his passion and pride in keeping physically fit and competing in these races!

Matt and Q at our post-Tri breakfast in Kenosha, it was mighty yummy!

To end the day right, we stopped by the local bike shop and picked up my brand-spanking-new bicycle! It's not fancy like Matt's but it is a great cruiser for me to take Quinton around town on since gas prices are out of control these days. Now, I just need to add on my basket, bell and sparkly silver streamers to my bike and I'll be PIMPIN' on my new wheels!

JEALOUS?

Action-Packed Weekend!

I was so sad, tonight, when I realized that our 3-day weekend was over and the mundane routine of day-to-day activites would resume again. But it has been fun to go back over all of the pictures I took this weekend to realize how much fun we had and how blessed we are to live in the United States. We appreciate all of the people who help to keep our freedoms intact. Including family members who are currently serving in the armed forces and family members and friends who have served in the past!

Thursday evening, we enjoyed some COOL breezes out on the back porch for a fun BBQ with friends. After the BBQ, some of walked to the beach to watch the Wilmette fireworks.

Here is Matt enjoying his spot in the sand.

It was such a beautifully clear night to watch the fireworks from our little blanket on the beach. Too bad Quinton enjoyed throwing the sand more than he enjoyed watching the fireworks!

Here are our friends, Mrs. R, Mr. K and Miss A, waiting for the fireworks to begin. It was so fun to make new memories with friends who we knew when we lived here before!

Mr. K works for an airline and he was able to fly in and get to our place in time to eat a burger and watch the fireworks with his adorable family. Thanks for making it!

Friday morning, we were soooo lazy and slept in after our late night of fireworks watching! We did finally get up and walked to the park and then headed to Evanston, th next town south of us, to catch the parade. This parade is a BIG deal in this area and people put their lawn chairs out starting at 6am on July 1st. The whole thing is very Chicago-style territorial and kind of funny. A friend of ours woke up at 5:30 am on July 1st and went out and set up her lawn chairs, staking her rightful claim to a primo spot along the parade route! Luckily, for Matt, Quinton and me, we were able to secure this grassy spot with no advanced planning! I only wake up at 5:30 am if there's a good sale to stand in line for!

We really enjoyed the parade. I think it's our first official 4th of July parade with Quinton!

Here is the Evanston Parade panorama:

This group was one of my favorites and had both Matt and me laughing. I don't remember the name of the group but as you can tell from the picture and they guys' outfits, they were a crowd favorite, too!

Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to our friends' lake house in Wisconsin. I love going up there because it's only an hour drive from Chicago but you feel like you are days away from all of the traffic and noise from the big city. Plus, the lake is not too big and the temperature of the water is FANTASTIC!

Matt has a triathalon next weekend and needed to get a long bike ride in so he BIKED the 60+ miles to the cabin! It took him about 3 hours and I am so proud of him for doing it! He's an awesome athlete, even at 30 something years young!

Quinton LOVED playing at the Lake House with his friends!

Matt and Quinton enjoyed playing on all of our friends' lake toys. They both had fun on the jet ski for a tour around the lake.

And they enjoyed the kayak...

Okay, this has to be one of the funniest pictures of Quinton that I've ever taken! I was trying to get a good shot of Quinton's cupcake mustache because he looked a little "MAgnum P.I." with it but then, right as I snapped the shot, he did this!

You gotta love kids!

Q is quite the dare devil. As Matt and I were loading up the car after a fun day at the lake, we looked around to find Quinton on top of the car! He'd climbed up there all by himself!

Today, there was an open house at our place, so we had to make ourselves scarce for the better part of the afternoon, after church, so we decided to go to the last day of the Taste of Chicago. The past couple of days have been really nice and cool, but today was HOT and I thought that maybe today would be a good day to go since it was the last day but there were still tons of people!

A news report this evening said that over 3.5 million people went to the Taste of Chicago this year! I can believe it because there are SO MANY PEOPLE everywhere! We didn't even bother with a stroller because we've been before and we know it's wall-to-wall people when you are walking around the food booths.

We had a good time trying all different kinds of food. We had corn-on-the-cob, cherry gelato, fried ravioli, empanadas, chicken fingers, a burger, fries, chocolate covered strawberries and our total favorite: a chocolate covered frozen banana on a stick! We were not adventurous enough, though, to try shark meat on a stick...the booth employees wearing shark hats was enough to keep me away!

Q's favorite part was the kiddie area with a train and a boucny house for him to get out some energy.

Q had lots of fun!
And Matt njoyed eating!

Q in the bouncy house!

Family outings are so much fun with a little one to share it all with!

It was so hot, today, and Q had no nap so here he is the first 5 minutes in the car on the ride home:

And here he is at about minute 6 on the car ride home:

All-in-all, it's weekends like these that I wish would never end!

Summertime Blues

Despite my last post about delish cookies, when it gets hot and humid, like now, I don't like to cook! Who could blame me? I feel like I spend all day cleaning and then don't get too excited every night around 5:00 thinking about what's for dinner.

Matt, being the understanding dear husband that he is, humored me on Wednesday night and we walked into 'downtown' of our little village to a new Argentinian-inspired restaurant called "Depot Nuevo, fresh fare...latin flare."

In our little town, on a Wednesday evening, there was a 20 minute wait! Funny! So Quinton had to find ways to amuse himself:

Even after we were seated, we still had to find ways to amuse Quinton and I think Matt did a great job!

Little Purple Riding Hood, Quinton:

This was Matt's attempt at making Quinton a pirate. Quinton thought he was hilarious!

And finally, no walk with Quinton is any easy one. Quinton will spend the first 5 minutes of a walk in his strolling device, and then, it's Quinton walking and stopping from there! Every time we go past this rock, too, Quinton loves to stop and play on it! So far, the owners of the rock have not said anything to us! Thank goodness!

I do love summer for playing outside but for cooking? I could take it or leave it (translation= take out or delivery!)

My Not-So-Secret Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

These are the BEST oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I have ever made and it comes from the box topper of Quaker Oatmeal! A friend recently asked for the recipe, so I thought I would post it here in case any of you want to try it out:

From http://www.quakeroatmeal.com/

Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup raisins (I always swap the raisins out for chocolate chips!!!

Preparation Steps
Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins; mix well.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

Cook Tips and Variations

Bar Cookies: Press dough onto bottom of ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Store tightly covered,24 BARSVARIATIONS: Stir in 1 cup chopped nuts. Substitute 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or candy-coated chocolate pieces for raisins; omit cinnamon.Substitute 1 cup diced dried mixed fruit.HIGH ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Increase flour to 1-3/4 cups and bake as directed.

Recipe Yield:
ABOUT 4 DOZEN
Serving Size:
1 cookie
Nutrition Information:
Calories: 90, Calories from Fat: 35, Total Fat: 4g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 0mg, Sodium: 70mg, Total Carbohydrates: 14g, Dietary Fiber: 1g, Sugars: 8g, Protein: 1g