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Aaaaand we’re off to Florida!

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It only took us about 15 minutes from Tom dropping us off to sitting at our gate!

I gave the kids mini lessons on how to navigate in an airport—checking boards for gate info, following signs, using the moving walkway, how to take your suitcase on an escalator, etc. Gave them my credit card and told them to go buy their own lunches.

This was the biggest gate I’ve ever been at—an entire room!—which makes sense because it was the biggest plane I’ve been on (3/4/3 seat configuration)!

Aaaaand I realized halfway to the airport that I forgot my cleanser! If you know me at all, you know I’m crazy about my skincare regimen!! So it was INSTANT panic! So I asked in one of my distributor chats if anyone happened to be close to where I was staying…thinking someone could mail something and I’d maybe get it next day. And a handful of ladies volunteered to ship something but someone was actually in the same area! And she’s dropping off some skincare samples for me tomorrow!

NIMCon Solo Ensemble

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Northern Illinois Music Conference

Thankfully it wasn’t too far to Highland Park Middle School—and they looked pretty alert for 8am.

Lucas and Owen
Our actual view during their piece. LOL — They earned a 2.

Between performances we just hung around the library/cafeteria area with Lucas’ parents. It’s a really nice school.

Owen’s big ensemble did The Entertainer and it was really good!

They earned a 1!

After the performance, the judge gives them a few tips and suggestions and has them practice some bars again to see the difference. It’s really neat.

First non-snowday snowday!

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So… eLearning. That’s what day the kids get now if we get bad weather. Bummer for them now…but one less day they have to go in June.

Katie (and Owen) had all their work done by 11:30!

We took the kids out for lunch because the weather wasn’t that bad…but it was starting to get slippery by the time lunch was over. And then I came back home to my book and my chair and my dogs.

Olive and Ivy, Day 2

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Ivy explored the main level and played a little with Olive. Olive is a little jealous but they’ve sniffed each other a bunch and then napped together on my lap.

Then since it was a nice sunny day we went outside. And they played and ran and it was a delight to watch!

Time for a harness!
They play so quietly it’s weird!

Oooh, sticks are fun!

A lucky shot!

And then the fun ended when Ivy was digging in the dirt… which earned her a bath!

And later, she refused to walk out the sliding door…but I got this amazing photo.

Fast forward to evening…

It’s official — I’ve lost my damn mind!

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I’ve agreed to get a second dog.

We’d been thinking about getting a cat to have a friend/playmate for Olive, but long story short that’s just not a workable option…so when Tom found Boston puppies locally it sparked the discussion. I still have reservations, but Tom loves to remind me I’ve always said I wanted a fleet of Bostons.

So we discussed it with the kids (Katie was REALLY excited—enough to offer to pay for part!) and discussed it ourselves…and decided to take Olive to meet her and at least see what happened.

The lady warned us that “Sasha” was really shy so everyone was surprised when they got along! (Maggie never got along with other Bostons so we didn’t expect much.) They even ran around and played a bit!

We don’t have a name yet but we get her Monday. ❤️ (We had to put all of Christmas away first.)

BrickFest was a dud.

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We’ve been to a BrickFest before in Virginia and it was AMAZING. So we were excited to go again… Except this one was a complete dud compared to that. Super SUPER disappointing.

There were basically NO displays—the previous one had city blocks, automation (think roller coaster), big things, little things, selfie stations…

This one had some giant creations:

and a very small area of smaller creations like this:

but that was about it. Most of it was lame (for older kids) stuff like “make and race a Lego car”

or “create a glow in the dark Lego” (which Owen did to at least do something).

The kids also did one square of a bigger design—which we would never see.

But man did the store and checkout lines take up a ton of space (conservatively 1/4 of the venue):

This was the best part for me—a local artist who did lilacs. I’m going to need that ASAP.

What was even more disappointing is that we were supposed to go with Anna and family—but long story short they got there after us and got stuck in a huge line and then we discovered it sucked so they just gave up and never made it in.

After we got home I decided to look up the last one we went to…and discovered it wasn’t BrickFest, but was BrickFair. UGHHHHH.