chicago marathon

on october 7th, my amazing brother, matt, ran his second marathon in chicago!! my mom and i were able to head up there for the day to cheer him on!! what an awesome experience!!

 

matt and i before the race!

 

mom and matt!

 

this was at the very start....well, right around mile 2. the wheelchair racers go first! pretty amazing!!

 

and here come the elite runners....whoever won the race was probably in this group and they set a course record....2 hours and 4 minutes!! that's 26.2 miles in just over 2 hours!! wow!! that's just crazy!

 

 

so we had our plan all set up as to where we would go to try to see matt. the first stop was right around 2 miles (the pics above)....we missed him there! in our defense, the runners were still pretty crowded since it was so close to the start!

 

so off we went to our second stop....just before the halfway mark. we got there in plenty of time, got a great spot and waited.....and waited and waited and waited.....and then i got the text update that matt had reached the halfway point....uh oh! that means he flew by us yet again! darn it!! we have no idea how we missed him! we were watching so closely for him! grrrr.....

 

we had one last chance to catch him. we made it to our designated spot (i believe around mile 16), found a place to stand where we could sort of see the runners, and waited and within a few minutes, there he was....

here comes matt....red shirt, gray shorts, blue shoes and black hat! go matt!!!

 

we yelled for him, thinking there was no chance that he'd hear us, but he did! yahoo!

matt and his friend rick after completing the chicago marathon!!

 

we are so so proud of matt!! he is such an inspiration!!!

jonomac orchard

i always try to make a trip to an orchard in the fall with the girls. as much as we love boggio's, it's nice to get away to other places too if we can! so this year we decided to head up towards dekalb, to jonomac orchard in malta, il (don't worry, we've never heard of it either until now! lol!) what a nice place! the girls had a ton of fun!! and they have apple cider slushies.....yum!! all apple cider should be in the form of slushies!! haha!

 

 

 

the big slide! i think charlie could have stayed on this all day!

the giant bouncy pillow! these are awesome!! (and as you can see, the weather was a little more summer-like than fall! but i guess that's what happens in illinois!)

ah, the corn maze.....i could take them or leave them, but we usually do it anyway. here there were 2 halves, so we started with the first half. there were questions along the way letting us know we were going the right way and we did pretty good until about the 5th or 6th checkpoint and then it got a little hairy. the girls were tired, it was hot, we were lost. and then we found out there were maps! oops! guess we shoulda grabbed one of those! so we kinda followed some peeps with maps and nick managed to get us out of there! thank goodness!

the spider web!!

 

"i'll take you for a ride in my big green tractor"

yeeee-haw!!

 

 

the girls got to feed the animals.....

.....and then they got to go in their cages and pet them!

 

the giant chair!!

i can't remember what they were doing, but i'm guessing they were being some kind of animals! lol!

 

the apple launcher! neither of the girls wanted to try it so nick and i did! it was pretty cool! and not as easy as one might think! haha!

 

waiting to watch the giant pumpkin canon!

 

man, this thing shoots far!!! glad we were around to see it! it was neat!

 

and just before we left, the girls went for a ride on the apple barrel train!

 

what a fun day!! i can't wait til next  year!!

lp homecoming parade

haylie's brownie troop was able to get a float for the lp homecoming parade this year!! the girls were super excited to be in the parade!! we had a ton of candy to throw out, but we still ran out before we even got to lasalle! oops! oh well, now we know for next year! we even hid some for a while, but it still wasn't enough! the girls were just so excited to be throwing candy out to all the kids!!

 

mikaela, haylie and charlie, all ready for the parade to start!

 

even logan got to ride along!

the girls also made posters to display on the float! here is haylie's!!

 

most of brownie troop 1415!!

thanks to scholle's for the ride!! :)

september kids birthday parties

the month of september was filled with birthdays to celebrate! in addition to great grama's birthday, we also celebrated our cousin blake's 2nd birthday, our friend brennen's 4th birthday and charlie's friend landon's 5th birthday! what a busy month!! but we don't mind a bit....we're lucky to have such amazing friends and family to celebrate with!!

 

 

brennen getting ready for the pinata!!

haylie taking her turn at it!

and geno!

and charlie too of course!

all the kiddos!! what a fun time!!

 

 

 

 

blake had a 'two two train' party!! how adorable!!

nick and i got held up on our way home from the cubs game, but the girls made it on time thank goodness!! they got to play with all the kids and ride the pony!! how fun!! 

 

 

 

charlie was suuuuuper excited for landon's birthday party!! landon was in her preschool class last year and is in it again this year and is one of her best friends from school! (her 'super friend' as she once told me! lol!) she literally talked about his party for weeks before, asking every day when his party was!!  

preschool friends.....keean, landon, charlie and lucy!!