Barbershop Singing

What better way to enjoy a hot summer night than to sit in Wing park and hear some barbershop singing. There was a gentle breeze and no bugs.

I dragged Mike along - one, because Sharen is full filling an item on her bucket list and fishing in Canada AND catching the big one. A 2 hander (one she has to show you by using both hands to lift). Yes - I got an email from her and she did get the sucker. So she was out for attending the concert with me.
Reason 2 is because Mike used to sing in a barbershop group. I have proof.
Mike is the little guy on the left. His friend, still to this day, Steve, is standing next to him.

We staked out our seats on the hill middle center.

If this was a band concert we should of been ok, but this was singing, no music, and we could not hear too good. Everyone around us (the crowd did fill in) was yelling to turn up the mics.

You can notice the very small speakers on the sides of the stage. That was it.
Which was a shame because they had groups from Elgin, Rockford, and Schaumburg there. The only time you could really hear was when they were all on the stage. Unless you moved to the front.

Mike sang along to some he remembered. It's funny how you can't remember where you put your keys or cell phone, but play a song from your past and you know all the words, where you were, and who you were with.

The Dome

Roger finished off his t-ball with a special game under the dome in Rosemont.
It is the home of the female professional softball team - The Bandits.
The older kids got to play on the outside field, but this was pretty intimidating for the younger ones. Two of Roger's teammates would not go out on the field

Roger getting ready for his grounder.

It's pretty sweet. They announced each kids name over the PA system. I hope you can hear it. He is a much better batter than this though.

 Luke discovered the air vents. Throw your hat up and it gets caught way up in the netting.

They only played one inning (they usually play 2) - There are 32 teams in his league. It was plenty enough time for the kids. Roger finally figured out that playing first base you don't have to run with everybody to each ball. The ball comes to you.

Playing first base.

Naked and Afraid

I must confess I have watched this show when there was nothing on. I tell myself to shut the TV off if this is all you can find to watch. Ha.

 My goal this summer was to get walking. I want to try some different walking trails close by, Maybe just a short drive. I got online and found some worth trying out. Some I have walked already but I found a couple new ones.

So this morning I talked myself into checking one out - by myself.

Otter Creek Bend Wetlands

It's 4 minutes from our house and it's a gem. The parking lot was empty. I was going this alone.
It's just a 1 mile long loop and the first 1/4 mile is along HUGE houses. Then it goes into seclusion . All that's there are you and the birds, bugs, butterflies and bees.

Flowers full of butterflies

This one for the bees

The temperature on the car said 75 so I left my water bottle in the car. I needed my hands to carry my cell phone for pictures and Yes, I carried a stick to fight off the wild animals. The sun was not out - they were calling for rain.
1/2 way through I was thinking Not a very good idea. I could of used the water - it was so humid out there. I was walking through a wetland for crying out loud. Taking my sweat soaked clothes off and going naked crossed my mind (for a second).
 So many wooden walks over water.

beautiful bridges

I was all alone in a wetland - I could go naked. Then it hit me I am all alone in a wetland.
Here comes the afraid part. I had called Sharen to join me but she was busy, so she knew where I was in case I didn't come home.  I had my phone, and a big stick. I should be OK.

Foliage over my head on both sides

Turns out I didn't need to be afraid. All I heard was the birds a few chipmunks and the breeze rustling through the tall cat tails.  I left my head phones off too thinking I needed to listen for wild animals. I'm glad I left them at home. The subtle sound of nature was soothing.
This place is a definite "do over".

Windows

I got the room painted. Mike has the crown molding up and now it's time for new windows.
It's been a few month since we had our new windows installed.
It took 2 guys about 4 hours to get them in and I gotta say I love them.
One worked on the inside.

 They other on the outside. I decided to have the whole outside window covered with white instead of leaving the old green trim or trying to match the faded color green.

 Looks mighty good.

I knew as soon I had taken down the old wooden blinds, they were not going back up. I really have a gorgeous back yard and I wanted to see it. All the time! In all the seasons!
These new windows are super thermo and hold back the heat from the sun.
There is no heat or air in this back room and it can get pretty hot (or cold). I'm thinking don't put anything back up leave them plain.
Well that lasted about a week and I was searching for some blinds.

Of course I had to order some - custom. Home Depot had the ones I wanted.
After 3 weeks for the order. Mike got them installed for me.
Love - Love - Love them.

I do have one problem though. the furniture is right in front of the windows.
Yeah, I have to climb up on the couch to reach the blinds to pull them down OR I could leave them down half way.

Not liking either options I decided to make myself a "pull it down" stick.
I went over to Menards and found a dowel and a hook and made me a "pull down" stick.

One end has a hook on it to pull it down and the other end has a flat end to push them back up. Works like a charm.
I will leave the climbing on the furniture to the grandkids!

Wrigley Tour

Let me start out by saying I am a White Sox fan. I love my Sox.
I do not care what the Cubs are doing and you do not have to save me a seat on the bandwagon, because I am not interested in getting on board.

BUT my husband is a lifer Cub fan and  my Grandson, Logan, is a huge, in your face, Cub fan. Ugh.
So I thought for his 13th birthday (which was in April last year) it would be fun to take him on the tour of Wrigley field.
With all the changes being made at the park we had to wait till now for the tours to start up again.
I researched it and knew that we definitely wanted to go when the team was out of town so we could get into the visitors locker room.
Mike had no idea that there was such a thing and he was super excited to tour his Cubbies' ballpark.

I had a really good time. Surprised myself.

We walked around the ballpark and had to stop at Mike's favorite player of all time Billy Williams' statue.

We started out sitting behind home plate while Trevor, our awesome tour guide, told of the history of the ball park. I saw my first Bears game there the last year they played there, 1969.
Then we headed out to the famous bleachers. He told of great stories about the bleacher bums, the ivy, (which was planted by Bill Veeck, who was a grounds keeper there)  and the scoreboard.
There is no woman who has ever worked in the score board.

 Then on to the visitors locker room. Everything there is pretty much as it was when Babe Ruth played there except for the carpeting. It's also the "green room" for concert people and they needed to replace the carpet after the Pearl Jam concert. I stood in the same spot as Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Jim Thome, Marian Hossa, Michael Jordan, and so many others. History right there!

 From the locker room we had to walk up stairs to the press box. This is the tiny space they give their TV guys. It's really tiny. 4 steps down.

Before they hosted the All Star game in the nineties they expanded the press box to accommodate all the press so this is a little bigger. I sat in the spot for CSN.

 Then on to the part that everyone was excited about. The dugout and field.
I almost felt sorry for the players. This dugout is small. Really, really, small. If you stand up to fast you bump you head on the overhang.
and it smelled - It was nasty. And hot!!!

 Logan loved it all. For a kid that doesn't like to smile he couldn't help it.

When we left we asked him his favorite part - "All of it - I loved all of it"
He is going to be telling his kids and grandkids about the time his Papa Millikan took him to tour Wrigley field. I may get a shout out for taking the pictures, but that's OK. This is something that needed to be shared between a long time Cubs fan and his Cub fan grandson.

I would highly recommend this tour to every Cub fan and most baseball fans. There is really a lot of history there.
Do I want to see a game there? No. Like I said my allegiance is to my beloved White Sox.

Branson

I decided that we needed to vacation somewhere different.
Branson came to mind. It's not too far. It has some amazing golf courses and some after golf activities. So I booked us a room and assigned Mike to hunt down some golf. The shows we decided to tackle once we got there.
Gotta love Illinois' budget problems. On the way, None of the rest stops were open and there was cop cars parked in the medians BUT no cops in them.

Mike found 2 great golf courses. One was very short for me :) and the other was so scenic.

This was the driving range

While looking through all the vacation guides Mike stumbles across a quilt shop card. Bless his heart he took me there. OMG, I wanted so bad for Sharen to be with me. (No offence to Mike). This place is one of the biggest in the state of Missouri. 15,000 bolts of fabric. Room after room of fabric and notions and everything quilt related! I was overwhelmed, but did manage to find a few things I had to have.

Just a corner of this place

If your wonderrng where the Navy Pier old ferris wheel ended up - It's in Branson!

We took a stroll downtown and along the Lake and I visited my first Pawn shop. So many guns. I have never been that close to so many hand guns. How do kids just carry these around with them like it's nothing? It freaked me out.
There was an ad on TV where a guy is running for Governor with a gun in his hand (an ex Navy seal) telling us if "You are ready for change I'm ready to fire" and he shoots the gun. His opponent's commercial - he is sitting around the dinner table with his family praying. So different. The evening newscaster ended his broadcast with "Blessed be your day."

I have never been to a magic show, so we got tickets to see Rick Thomas.
He was so good.  I  loved it all. And, of course, you can't go to Branson with out seeing a country and western show so we selected Patsy Kline and Friends. It was good too.

After spending 4 days in the 90 degree heat we decided to visit a cave. There are so many around there to choose from. We went with the riding a golf cart through it in favor of walking 2 mile through it. It was beautiful.

The trail down to the cave was awesome too. So glad we decided NOT to walk it though.

Branson was a nice place to visit. But the visit I enjoyed the most was on our way home.
After a little confusion with phone numbers (thank You, Linda) I finally got a hold of my Aunt Vernice. She did away with her landline and just uses her cell phone now. She says it's easier to carry around with her. Ha! She will be 90 in Sept.

Me and My Aunt Vernice

Aunt Vernice is my Mom's youngest sister. My only living Aunt. She lives with one of her daughters in Springfield MO. Just 5 minutes off the expressway.
It was so nice to see her. She brought Mom back a little bit. She sounds just like her. She was so happy to see us.
It was good to see my cousin Bobbi too. She is 9 month younger than me and we played together as kids. It's great to know that she remembers the same good times that I do.

Out of the way

My time came to an end being a Helping Grandma and  Mother. Time to get out of the way.

Mary is back from San Francisco and all the Florys are back under one roof.
She started her new job working from home today.

Her new desk arrived while she was gone and Bryan was anxious to get it put together for her.
Of course the boys wanted to help.
They each got their own screw driver. A big persons screw driver too.

They weren't being much help to Bryan - they just wanted to rip open boxes. It takes a mess of boxes to put together a home office.

I could see that they were getting in Bryans way so I stirred them into the back room to rip up the bigger boxes into smaller pieces to go into the trash,.

Dummy me - There was Styrofoam in those boxes.
It started out innocent enough.....

Started out sharing

 Then I separated them and they each got their own huge sheet of Styrofoam to destroy.

Luke is under there poking up

 They had it everywhere. It stuck to everything. I had a great time watching them destroy it.
Not so good time cleaning it up.
HUGE mess.
While they headed up to bathes I tried to clean it the best I could.
I'm pretty sure Mary will find it in her coat pockets and her shoes.