Snapshots of Life

A little but of video from this past Friday when it snowed. Cameo appearances by Uncle Kevin and our friendly neighbors the Smiths from down the road.

This one will be short and sweet… Have some pictures up of Ali’s cooking-themed slumber party. It was our first and we just might do it again. Also have some pics from Halloween this year. Jenn did a good job carving the pumpkins and the kids are cute in their costumes so take a peek.

Since it’s been four months since I posted last, I thought I’d give a little update on all the Vances.  Hopefully, I won’t be too verbose.  I know most of you only visit for the pictures (if you’re still visiting at all!). :o)

School is a big part of our lives right now.  Alison is very proud to say that she’s a third grader this year.  She’s enjoying it very much - well, all of it but the homework. ;)  She is a member of the chorus at her school and on Monday she will attend her first rehearsal for the String Ensemble.  She’s been playing violin for almost 9 months now and loves, loves, loves it, although she is a little concerned about playing with a group. Up until now, she’s only taken private lessons.

Abby just turned SEVEN! I’ve always said that there’s something about turning seven that makes a little kid seem like a big kid.  Six still seems little to me, but seven?  Seven is no longer little.  (sigh)  Abby loves second grade and her teacher.  She’s been begging to take piano lessons, (”Ali gets to take lessons.  Why can’t I?”) but since we don’t have a piano, we’re holding off on that request for a while. She’s also been begging for a pet.  Thankfully, her teacher adopted a class pet this year - a guinea pig names Princess Snow Puff.  Maybe that will hold her for a while…

Sam is still Sam.  He’s enjoying going to Mother’s Day Out once a week with his friend, Ty.  They have been best buds since birth, and are loving having some “school” time together. Sam likes to play with anything with wheels right now, and when the girls are in school, he loves to sneak and play with their Barbies and Polly Pockets.  (Shh! Don’t tell them!)  He’s also just discovered the joy of building Lego towers that are taller than him, but I think he builds them just so that he can knock them down.

Brian and I are still the same old, same old.  We celebrated our 16th anniversary a couple of months ago.  (Crazy, huh?)  Our lives rotate around the kids’ schedules, so we’re both looking forward to our fall break in a couple of weeks.  Maybe then, I’ll get some time to edit the couple hundred pictures I took while we were in Ohio and Michigan over the summer.  I haven’t forgotten about them. I just haven’t had a moment (or more accurately, a couple of hours) to spare.  Check back in a couple of months for another update… :o)

We were downtown walking around the festival going on and ducked into a little coffee shop to pick up a few things. Sam and Abby got comfy in one of the chairs and started looking at a magazine together. It was such a great picture that I wanted to share it with you guys.
(you can click on the pic for a larger version)

Abby can have fun with anything.

Got some pics up of the latest couple of snows we had. Yeah, I know, it’s not like Ohio but it’s the best we got. Of course, the kids’ spring break begins today, so that means our chances of more snow in the next two weeks just increased exponentially. We’ll keep you posted.

After watching his sisters do gymnastics for so long now, Sam gets a chance to show us what he’s made of. This is video of only his second lesson and I think he’s doing a fine job!

We’ve been home now for a little over the week and life is beginning to return to normal. (Well, as normal as the Vance home can be.) Fall Break ends in a couple of days and we’ll be back to 6am mornings and crazy schedules full of too many activities. Sounds like a good time to re-visit our vacation photos(here and here), don’t you think?

I’m fairly certain that most of you reading this know that this year our fall break was spent celebrating the wedding of my sister, Bethany, and Randy Goldberg in Chicago. The wedding was beautiful and we all had a fabulous time at the wedding. After all the wedding festivities, we spent a couple of days in Chicago doing as much as we could do before we had to head home. The girls and I spent some time talking about our trip day by day the other night, and I thought it might be a good way to record our trip here. Join us, wont’ you?

Actually, before I talk about the trip I should probably tell you that the trip almost never happened. On the Monday before we were to leave Sam got sick. Seriously sick. With the FLU! Needless to say, the entire family began taking medicine to prevent an epidemic. It worked pretty well. No one else got sick, but the girls were not very happy about having to take yucky tasting medicine every day we were gone. They can’t wait until they can swallow capsules! Now, on with the travel log…

Day One (Friday):
The girls got out of school today. Alison was a little bummed because she missed her field day, but she said it was worth it to get to be in Aunt B’s wedding. Our trip was a long one, but not the longest one we’ve taken. A quick search online told us we should be on the road approximately 8 hours. We figured it would take our little crew at least 10. Everything was going really well and we were making great time right up until we got just outside Chicago. Construction and the extra traffic created by the upcoming Chicago Marathon were not in our favor. It took us about 3 hours to get from one side of the city to the other. But there were several positive aspects of this: we got to see the city light up as the sun went down, the kids learned a lot about the different forms of transportation in a big city (Sam was sooo excited and let us know every time he saw a train - or a construction machine, or a bus, or a truck, or a …), and we got our money’s worth out of our DVD player in the van. The other thing the kids remember today is that we ordered room service when we got there from the Ruby Tuesday that was attached to the hotel. We finally all crashed around 11pm.

Day Two:
Today was rehearsal day. Brian spent the day running errands and buying things that we forgot to get before we left. The rehearsal itself was a little hectic, but everyone got the gist of what was going to happen. The girls met Gigi and Lilah, Randy’s nieces and fellow flower girls. They seemed to hit it off pretty well - especially after they shared their Pirate’s Booty (snacks from Trader Joe’s!) with Ali and Abby. After rehearsal we walked down the street to the big pizza party where we all gorged ourselves on deep-dish pizza and pasta. Yum-yum! All the out of town family joined us and made a big crowd. The kids actually left before the highlight of the party. Randy put together an amazing slide show of pictures. He promised he’d send us a copy, though, so the kids can see it. (Right, Randy?)

Day Three (Wedding Day!):
Today started early for me, but it flew by. After Grandpa Kissell came in handy by purchasing a new tux for Sam since I left the pre-purchased and pre-tailored one in Tennessee, everything went smoothly. Other than that, the weather was the only glitch in the whole day. It was in the mid-80’s with a lot of humidity. Not great weather to be trekking the whole wedding party a couple of blocks away for pictures. But B and Randy took some amazing pics outside! Bethany was absolutely gorgeous and both of them were so very happy. The evening ended with a fabulous party, some great food, and a new member of the family!

Day Four (Monday):
Today we had brunch at the hotel with all the family. After brunch, we loaded up the kiddos and headed to Kohl Children’s Museum. What an amazing place. Sam loved the race car display and they all had a blast in the waterworks area. We caught dinner and some shopping in a little area just outside the museum and then headed back to the hotel for some aquatic activity and an early bedtime.

Day Five - Chicago!
We packed up this morning and headed into the city via a lovely drive up Lakeshore. We were pleasantly surprised by the location of our hotel and our amazing room. The kids had a blast watching the traffic outside from 16 floors up. We left the car with the valet and took off to American Girl Place. The girls had a blast spending their gift certificates from all the Vances and we even took the time to have a late lunch with their dolls. The girls’ favorite part was waving to people on the double-decker tour buses that stopped by the window while we ate. Later that night, we walked down to the river and saw the city at night. For dinner, we had pizza again - this time at Gino’s, which was located just next door to our hotel. The well-lit Gino’s sign became the landmark that the girls looked for to know we were close to “home.”

Day Six:
Today the weather shocked us a little. We woke up to temperatures in the lower 50s and 20-25 mph winds. We bundled up and walked down to Millenium Park and played with The Bean and the fountains. All of the kids loved the sculptures - especially the ones they could play on. We kept on walking and took a quick train ride over to the Museum Campus and visited Shedd Aquarium where the kids enjoyed the dolphins and the baby beluga whale and Brian enjoyed the Komodo Dragon. We walked back across Grant Park and had dinner at a neat little restaurant and warmed ourselves with some yummy soup. By the time we were done eating, it was beginning to rain, so we walked a block away and caught the El back to an area near our hotel.

Day Seven (Home again!):
Okay, if you’ve read this much, you’ll be sad to hear that, apart from the questions from the kids about why we had to pay to drive on the roads, the trip home was fairly uneventful. At least it was until we got here. We arrived home around 11pm to a dark house. A darker than usual house. Didn’t we leave any lights on? Turns out that we forgot to pay our electric bill before we left, and our utility company doesn’t mess around with shutting off power for late bills. (Classic Brian and Jenn.) After a quick trip to Wal-Mart to purchase extra batteries and a battery-powered night light for our 6yo who is seriously afraid of the dark, we settled in for our first night in our beds in a week.

Epilogue:
Brian took care of getting the bill paid on his way into work on Friday, and the power was back on by 9:15 the next morning. I unpacked as much as possible and laundered as much as possible and then re-packed. We loaded up again that evening around 8:30 to head to Maryville. Alison’s gymnastics team had a meet there and we were able to catch the Foothills Fall Festival. We made it back home on Sunday evening and have done nothing at all since. Just plain life. Well, life plus flu shots for everyone. It’s been nice, but it’s about to get a little hectic again. I suppose that’s okay. Maybe I’ve stored up enough energy from my down week to actually potty-train Sam. Life never stops…

Get some good disco music going and there’s really no controlling them. Just watch and see.