A Tale of Three Schwabs: A Trip to Chicago and a Visit from the Seidmans

Couldn't figure out how to move this: Mindy and me at City Museum.

Well, it's official: summer is over and the school year has almost begun. The chair and desk below were my last projects of the summer and (hold your breath) I DID IT MYSELF!!! I bought them for Zevi today as I was doing my (sigh) school supply shopping. BTW I thought we lived in a real city. What kind of Wal-Mart runs out of pencils in ONE DAY???!!? This isn't holiday season at Camp Lejeune where I had to have powdered sugar brought in from Raleigh for goodness sake!!

Anyway, Goldie, Zevi and I had a great visit to Chicago. First we went to Oak Park, IL to see my cousin and his family-and it happened to be his 39th birthday. He pointed out to me (quite happily I might add) that I am the oldest cousin from the Jacobs side. Well, isn't that nifty? We had a great time having amazing yummy chocolate cake and a new discovery: Squirt. Kind of like Fresca. So around dinner, we headed to Skokie. We got to Jewel and had delish chinese from there. We got up the next day and made our way to Bagel Country for breakfast. YUM!!! Doing 2 big adventures in one day proved to be too much for even Goldie, so we agreed on the Shedd Aquarium. Oh my! By far the best indoor aquarium I have ever been to. The Beluga whales were adorable, there were so many things to see and do. It was amazing...and exhausting. So we had a BBQ at our friends' home and then did something new and different: we went shopping! (That was a joke btw.)

We left Tuesday morning, trying to arrive before my friend Mindy and her 3 kids. They drove in from Memphis. Zevi and Izzy were in Pre-K 3 together in Raleigh and haven't seen each other in 2 years. (They visited us in Camp Lejeune and we saw them in Raleigh a few times.) You would have never known it. They had a BLAST!!! They played Legos, roller bladed, played the Wii, put on a show for us and just chatted. They were adorable. Ok, the other 2 have yummy peaches (thanks Mindy) and they are delish. Jack is 4.5 and had a little trouble with Miriam and kept calling me Maryann. But we fixed it! Molly (who is 2) was hilarious and LOVED Goldie. They brought this really, really, really, really, really, really fun game for the Wii called Just Dance. First of all, lots of the songs are from the 80's and the outfits of the dancer's are too. And then to watch everyone shakin' it was hilarious! WOW! It was tons of fun!

Everyone left us (dramatic SOB) on Thursday morning, so after the airport run, we went to Target (to get Just Dance, of course), had lunch and then promptly took a nap....until 6:30 pm!! Boy are we off schedule.

So tonight Zevi has a friend Noam sleeping over. Wednesday we go to Kentucky for a bar mitzvah and then summer is really over. WAAAA!

What about Mordechai, you may ask. Well, he is still in Pensacola. He has been told he may be extended (for, hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen: 2 more months), but the rumor is the command centers may be closing up shop sooner than that. So we just talk every day and wait. It's the military folks. Welcome to our life!!!

A new desk: proof school is really coming. And when did he get big enough to be in 2nd grade?

Their masterpiece...as more and more sprinkles were being dumped on my hand and all over my kitchen, both Goldie and Mindy commented on how much they liked my "happy pills."