Friends bought the same slip and slide so we decided to have an outdoor playdate and hook them together. The kids stayed far enough apart for me to not worry too much.
Of course after a while it devolved into this game:
50 feet of slip and slide!
Tag Archives: Chang-Yen
Playing with the Portal
We got a Facebook Portal and are LOVING IT. I can easily conference call with friends for work. And our good friends got one, too, so we call to chat all the time and it’s awesome. And it’s tech so of course the kids love it, too.
I don’t do April fool’s often…
But I did get the kids with this today! (I also got their friends, since they were on a video call with them. But the friends called me out within a minute or so.
Our new way of hanging with friends.
So this is how we hang Covid-19 style with friends… playing Evil Apples and having drinks.
Our kids were in the basement video chatting as well!
The closest I’ve gotten to Anna in over a week…
A porch pickup…or toss in this case. 🤣😭
Primo lunch besties!
Our favorite restaurant has Buy One Get One lunches twice a month so we always try to go. They also have birch tree decor and purple benches.
A new bingo night!
Owen’s school had a bingo night this year. It wasn’t quite the event the elementary has, but we still had fun (we invited Anna and the boys)…and Owen won one of the rounds!!
Initially he chose a gift card for 30 minutes of jumping at a local place but after talking to him and explaining that it would cost us more money to use it (because Katie would like to go, plus we usually go for 2 hours), he asked if he could switch prizes and they said yes…so I guided him to a $20 gift card to a local ice cream place!!!
Another year, another epic box maze!
And Owen’s teacher was there! I got to talk to her for awhile and get to know her…and then she finally went in with her kids.
I had zero desire to go through it because I know it would kill my back…but then Heidi came over and basically guilted me into doing it (with another friend who was there) so I succumbed to peer pressure.
Katie was our tour guide…and then we ran into Owen!
Note: My back and wrists were so sore on Sunday and Monday that I had to drug myself quite heavily. I knew I should not have given in to peer pressure!!
Why does this always happen every time we get together?
Street Scenes
Friends invited us to go to this school benefit that they have had great fun at at the past few years. I had high hopes but it was honestly way too many people for me. And the margaritas were tasty but they were seven bucks each which was way too much.
You’ve always wanted to test a breathalyzer, right?
When you get the chance to grab a free breathalyzer from Amazon Vine, of course you do it. So we invited our friends over to test it out.
Needless to say hijinx ensued…along with a drunken Facebook live. Good times.
Lunch with a deer.
Anna and I ate lunch at our favorite restaurant today (Primo) and she just loves this deer so we took a pic with it today.
My happy place…tonight.
Ahhhh. Margaritas. Casa Bonita with friends for Parents Night Out. This pitcher was Jalapeño Cilantro and they were delicious. Pomaritas came later.
Friends are 50% more!
Long story short I saw this Pyrex before Christmas but decided I didn’t NEED it. Fast forward and I decided I wanted a deep lasagna pan and scoured Amazon to no avail… forgetting about the one I saw at Target. Then a friend posted on Facebook that she found it (with a lid!) at a local chain (we don’t have one in our town but there’s one about 15 minutes away but I never go there). Well, another friend happened to be there and she knew I was looking for one so just as I was texting her to see if she could grab one for me, she told me it was in her cart already. I love my friends. And now I can’t wait to make lasagna!!
New Year’s Eve with friends!
We had dinner and game night and fireworks!
The fireworks started somewhat small.
Then we had one that was a little bigger.
And then the last one we were like Well this isn’t that impressive… and it kept going and going and getting bigger and bigger. 😂
Happy Friendsgiving!
Tom did a thing. (A brined, spatchcocked, and smoked turkey.)
A family photo before we left…
Dinner prep was fun. I got to make gravy. 😄 I didn’t take any pics of the rest off the food but it was all yummy.
A real non-selfie family photo since we had someone who could take the photo for us!
Decorating turkey cookie pieces.
Snuggling with Katie and Anna’s brother’s dog, who I nicknamed Peanut because he was all of maybe 2#, tops.
He cuddled in my lap for at least two hours. No, I don’t want a Chihuahua.
What. The. Hell?
Heidi and Anna wanted me to try this on but I refused because 1) it wouldn’t fit and 2) JUST YIKES.
Date night post-dinner Legion drinks
There’s nothing like topping off a date night with friends than stopping at the local Legion for a cheap drink. We had three drinks for $11 plus I got an eyeball!
Imagine my surprise to see a Grayling plate on the wall. Now I want to visit Grayling’s legion to find the Gurnee plate. (I had to search out the manager to figure out how they got the plates. He said they traded them.)
NOTE: I talked to my contact at the Grayling Legion and she said they removed all the plates during renovation and they haven’t gone back up.
A biscuit from my bestie.
It pays to live close to your bestie. Anna posted on Facebook that she made fresh biscuits and I invited myself over and the biscuit was still warm. And oh so delicious.
More jumping with friends!
Getting their jump on with good friends on a day off of school! Bonus points for matching Pokémon shirts.
Katie being a monkey.
How do you even choose?!
The funny thing is both these cards have come up at the same time before with the same players.
Earlier this year:
My ME weekend while my family was off camping.
So we’re all friends here. Which means I can safely admit that while we love our family with every ounce of our soul, we all wish for a break now and again, right? Since we don’t have family close by, we rarely get those breaks (other than a date night) so when I lucked into one this past weekend while my husband took both kids on a boy scout camping weekend…I took advantage.
So what did my weekend look like?
- Friday night? Chatting, eating, and drinking margaritas with a new friend Jessica for five hours (we hadn’t realized how late it was because we literally did not stop talking the entire time).
- Saturday morning? Donuts, crafty Cricut tee-shirt projects, and SeneGence facials with Ellyn. She has the machine and she helped me do a test run of simple text shirts before attempting six matching cruise shirts with a more difficult pattern.
- Saturday afternoon? Nachos and a margarita on the couch while watching A Star is Born (which I TOTALLY loved and am strongly considering buying the soundtrack). Then binging every YouTube video performance I could find of Shallows by Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper.
- Saturday night? Margaritas with Anna and David.
- Sunday morning? Sleeping in in perfect silence until 8:47!
Was I glad to have them home? Well, I enjoyed seeing their faces, but I missed the silence and clean house immediately. 😂
Retail Therapy Day
So Anna and I decided today called for retail therapy so we met at Marshall’s and just had the best time. We’d talk each other into or out of things and spent most of the time laughing.
I wish I had a fun pic of us to share but I didn’t take one because I was SO entrenched in this display of beverage containers.
I literally parked myself here for a good 10 minutes while I debated quantity vs price vs brand vs expectations vs color vs what we already had vs what I know we needed to throw in the garbage and replace. 😂 There might also have been a steady stream of texts and a phone call to Tom to make some final decisions.
What kind of therapy do you like? I love retail therapy but I wish I liked exercise because one is soooo much better for you. 😜
Happy 46th birthday to me!
When it’s your birthday and you can’t decide what color lipstick to wear.
First was too light. Second was too dark.
Also? Yes. You can bet your ass I’m wearing my tiara all over hell today!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Happy damn birthday to me! 😂
Tiara out to lunch, getting my nails done, and leaving my kid at a neighbor’s after school. Tiara on the go!!
Then, I got birthday calls from my mom and David (as well as a handful of friends who were all in Maine together!) and dad and Linda (who, when I saw they were calling, wondered why).
Then, what better way to end my birthday than a margarita with a new friend (we met at the Paint & Sip a few months ago).
No, wait. THIS is the best way to end my birthday. 💕
ROAR Run 2019
This was our third year doing the Woodland PTO ROAR Run fundraiser! We thought it might not happen as major storms rolled through a few hours before, but it cleared up in time! I didn’t get as many good pics this year…
Practicing football sprints.
She’s still good with the hula hoop!
Guess who pinned his own number?
This is the only pic I took with my phone. I just thought it was cute…but Anna said they look like cell phone reception bars!! I love it!!
Her face is how I envision everyone feels after running. 🙂
And our friend Evan…
RESULTS!
It’s fall, y’all!
I volunteered to do Owen’s teacher’s door for fall! I hadn’t thought that I’d get to choose what I wanted, so of course I started overthinking. I like Pinterest but it’s just so overwhelming. I ended up asking Anna to help me since she did a door for the same teacher last year…
It’s not perfect but it’s not bad for my first time! It was great having an extra set of hands, otherwise I’d have been there twice as long! Owen helped a little bit but honestly he wasn’t that much help (tape circles proved to be a huge challenge).
Our bag…not our cat.
We had birthday dinner with friends then went back to their house. We had brought a game in a bag and after we started playing we noticed this.
When your bestie decides she needs Lipsense.
So this is what happens when your bestie FINALLY comes to her senses and realizes she needs Lipsense in her life and she comes over to find just the right color and she’s a little picky. 😜 (Totally not judging because it also took me forever to find my perfect color, and I didn’t have anyone with this big of a selection to help me out so it took way longer than an hour.)
After all these colors, she ended up loving a combo of Cappuccino and Giddy Up with either Orchid or Grape gloss. She might also have gotten sucked into the Smoked Topaz on your brows train… GORGEOUS!!
Dual pool birthday party…go!!
Katie’s birthday is obviously today and Owen’s was back in February, but both kids love a pool party so we decided to celebrate both birthdays together! (Owen also begged for another pool party!) So we had a 7th birthday and 10.5 birthday!!
The party officially started at 3:30 but we got to the park when it opened at noon so the kids could get in as much playing as possible (and to stake out the best shade seats, as is my usual). I didn’t take many pics because, well, I rarely take pics at the pool… And once people started arriving and the party started it was crazy busy—we had 15 adults and 27 kids!!!
But first, lunch. Of course the kids hadn’t eaten lunch before we left, so they were hungry pretty much as soon as we got there. We asked if we could have some of our party food early and that wasn’t a problem, so the kids had hot dogs and popcorn! (Our party package came with 20 cafe meals but we were bringing in pizza so technically didn’t need all the meals, so we snagged them for lunch! Brilliant!)
The arrival of the pizza!
Once we got it set up it was like a feeding frenzy. You’d think these kids hadn’t eaten in days. For a moment I wasn’t sure we’d bought enough pizza as the boxes were emptying at an alarming rate, but in the end it was perfect and we ended up with about 1.5 pizzas to take home.
Cupcake time came shortly after…
Of course we had way too many. I figured with 42 total guests, 60 would be just right because some kids would have two. But apparently most adults don’t eat cupcakes… So we literally had an entire tray left! I walked around handing out cupcakes to random people then took the rest to the manager’s office (they were happy to get them)!
We left just a little bit of garbage…
Sooo happy to see these guys together again!!
Tom and I went back to the water to cool off (it was still like 85°) and relax and two of our friends snapped pics of us. 😄
Katie was actually done before Owen so she went home with Daddy a little early.
All in all a great day… The weather was hot (I think it got to 94°) but it was perfect around the pool. Everyone had a great time. No one got hurt. Well, I take that back…Tom tweaked his back a bit but he powered through. And I lost my sunglasses on the waterslide—I had them tucked in my suit but they still came out…but they totally disappeared. They weren’t in the pool with me and we couldn’t see them in the pool anywhere. It’s a mystery.
Milwaukee-bound, Day 2
My friend Anna invited us to go to a kid museum in Milwaukee today so why not? It’s only an hour away. The kids got McDonald’s on the way in the car so they were excited about that.
Turns out it was mostly for really young kids, but all ours said they had fun…
Being a sportscaster—for all of 4 seconds.
Owen did like the baseball section—he got to time his run for stealing a base, play catcher for some little kids, practice pitching at a screen for accuracy, and batting at a screen to see if he could hit a home run.
There was a Scrabble exhibit with a huge board…but it made me twitchy because it wasn’t a real board with the correct number of squares or bonus color squares in the right spots.
Then some of the kids put on a puppet show.
And then made some cool things out of biodegradable packing peanuts.
Then they had some fun on the bridge waving to the cars driving below.
And A&W ice cream on the way home.
