Family

Boxing Day 2017

For the past two or three years, our son has joined my brother and his friends for a bit of soccer on Boxing Day.  The older guys usually go watch all of the pro soccer games at Nomad bar in Milwaukee, but since our college age kid doesn't drink, he sleeps in and joins them later for some fun (and competitive) soccer.  The younger high school kids got to join the older gents later in the day to play.  Pretty cool that there happens to be an ex-pro soccer player turned Red Bulls coach that plays with them. A fun way to end the Christmas holiday.

Lost My Mind

I have been working extremely hard at keeping my newly designed routine for 2010 in both my personal and business life....and it was going pretty well until yesterday.  It started with my morning routine when I decided just a quick shower would do, no fancy clothes, no makeup, and well....the kids and I skipped breakfast.  Probably was not a good idea!

The day went straight down hill from there.  I felt out-of-sorts and just could not keep my focus or routine going.  It began with walking out of the house, closing the door behind me, the kids already in the car, and no keys in hand.  Yes - all the doors into the house were locked and there I stood in the freezing garage with two kids angry at me because now they were going to be late for school.  I called my husband, he drove home quickly to rescue us, and off to school we went.

After school, I drove to pick up the kids as usual, parked in the lot and waited.  My daughter came out and got in the car as usual....and then we sat and waited for my son....and we waited....and we waited....and we waited...until my daughter went to check on where he might be.  But before continuing her trek into school, she returned to the car and stated, "doesn't he have basketball today?"  Well, if I were paying attention to my usual schedule, and did not steer off course, I would have certainly remembered the routine.  Yes, he was in basketball practice.

While making dinner, my daughter asked what we were having, and my reply was a Potato Lasagna...a vegetarian dish.  My daughter's reply, "why are you cooking bacon then?"  My reply, "I guess it isn't vegetarian lasagna after all."  This was one of those "Pam-ism" moments that so many of my friends and family members know me to do so well.

There you have it!  Day six of 2010, my new routine, and how steering off course can cause all sorts of confusion.  Lesson learned -- stay with my routine because it is a good thing!

 

Happy 15th Anniversary

Hard to believe my husband and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary today! It seems like only yesterday we were walking down the isle, and here it is 15 years later, and our home is still filled with lots of love --and two beautiful children, animals and lots of stuff we have accumulated together.

Cheers to us on our 15th anniversary!

Celebrating the New Year

My husband and I have celebrated New Year's Eve in so many different ways over the years. Once kids came along it became a bit more of a challenge to really celebrate all that much, but we have always managed to keep the entrance of a new year interesting. Early in our marriage we would enjoy a prime rib dinner. When kids came along we continued that tradition, but didn't stay up to see midnight. The 4th of July and New Year's Eve are my two very favorite holidays. I am terrible at creating traditions for my children since I am such a creature of change and keeping life interesting. BUT, these two holidays are definitely about tradition for me, and I have found ways to keep New Year's Eve interesting all while keeping with my traditions.

Although my favorite New Year's Eves have included parties with friends either at their home or my home, the last couple years have brought us back to early traditions of food and family. For the past two years, we have decided to stay in and just relax with our kids, and make a fantastic surf and turf dinner. And last evening, this is what we did....relaxed and had a grand dinner. As my husband stated, "dear, you out did yourself this year", and I must say, I did.

My husband works extremely hard, harder than anyone I know, even harder than my father did. And New Year's Eve, and even today, he is working. And he will be working all weekend too. So I decided I needed to give him a great meal, better than anything we have ever done before, and a way to celebrate a year of hard work -- for our whole family. I guess we kind of celebrated the fact he is also one of few employees that can say they actually are still working in our difficult economy, and although we are blessed to be able to celebrate, we are definitely without struggles like any other middle-class family today.

Ringing in a New Year has always been a spiritual experience for me in that I reflect on the year behind me and then refresh myself for the journey into the year ahead. Happy New Year!

Happy Anniversary

Today is my 14th wedding anniversary to my husband Matt and we had the best day ever. Believe it or not, we decided to spend the day as a family, in lieu of spending it alone together. Matt works a ton of hours and finally took the day off to spend it at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. We spent most of the day in the water park just relaxing while the kids were off running around in the wave pool and lazy river areas. The weather was perfect, and even though the park was super packed, we would not have traded today for anything different. So happy anniversary to my husband of 14 years and thank you to my family for an absolutely delightful day!