Happy 15th Birthday, Graham!

Can you believe this kid is now 15 years old?!  Where has the time gone!

On this birthday, we decided to drive into city for the Member's Night at the Griffin Museum (of Science and Industry).  Unbeknownst to me, it would take over 1 hour and 50 minutes to get to the museum!!

Thankfully we made it on time to the Flight Simulator:

Some quick training and the boys are strapped in!

It's a 2-person flight and we had 4 tickets, so the boys swapped seats between pilot and gunner:

It was funny listening to the boys inside the pod, especially when Graham was piloting. You can hear Charlie screaming and they ended up doing a 360 degree turn. Too bad I turned the video off just before that!

Okay, time to head over to the Spiderman exhibit:

Charlie and his crazy eyes. Let's do this again. There, much better - sort of.  Ha!

This Spiderman exhibit is so cool!!

Graham used to be such a Spiderman fan:

Although, he wasn't as enthusiastic as Charlie to pretend with the web-shooters :-)

It was really neat how the Museum portrayed these comics.  The technology was really cool!

That was fun, and now back into the museum for the bigger things - like this big airplane overhead!

And we love this section here:

We finally had a chance to try this wind tunnel.  It was quite chilly in it!

In another section of the museum, a tractor with big wheels:

I didn't take a photo - but did you know what cows don't have upper front teeth?? I'm not sure how that will be helpful to know.  LOL!!

Okay, time for a dessert birthday:

We actually sang Graham a song but I totally messed up with my video recording:

After dessert, we are back in the car.  And it's time to open up presents.  First off, new underwear for this now bigger kid:

Another copper bracelet, as his other one is cracked:

It took almost 1.5 hours to get home, with all the construction along the way.  Urgh!

Now that we are home, more presents to open up.  Almost all of these were on Graham's "birthday list" - which was an extension of his Christmas list.  This kid, I tell you!

Protective covers for his VR (virtual reality) headset and handles:

Although, this book was obviously not on his list.  At some point, I hope he reads it.  He said he would do it "later".  Pha!

He was happier with this one - a remote control for flying drones (on his computer):

Can you believe this kid was this kid 14 years ago??

Ha, what a cutie pie!

Well, hope this summer goes well for Graham.  We are having him take one summer course, which will count for high school credits.  He still continues to harp on buying a new drone - which would have been bought by now if his grades were better. Hope Graham learns get his priorities right soon!

Orchestra recital

One last recital in middle school for Graham! Although, I just found out this past week that he is continuing with orchestra AND Chinese in high school.  I was pleasantly surprised and actually was so happy to hear it when he mentioned it.  I just hope he puts in a bit more effort for Chinese!

Omg, totally got photo-bombed by the random kid in the back row when I was taking a family selfie.  Ha ha!

Here's a sneak peek of Graham as he plays his violin:

So glad he's kept up with his music:

He's getting as tall and as big/heavy as I am now.  Compare this to how he was just 2 years ago. What's huge difference!

Graham actually just turned 15 years old. Yikes!!

Random photos

Just some recent happenings.  I haven't been very good about posting recently - so still trying to play catch up!

As I'm not home as much, I'm trying to teach Charlie how to cut Bobby's hair.  Hmm, looks like we still need more help here. Ha!

Rather bland fried rice - so I spruced it up with some ketchup.  He he!

Lunch at the golf club where I work, on the other hand... YUM!!  Thankfully I don't do the burger too many times.  But it had me at string onions :-)

Finally had a day off this Saturday, as the past few Saturdays I've been busy practicing for the US Women's Open Qualifier.  Glad I was able to repot a couple of plants.  Looking good!

And this fig plant is growing nicely. I'm putting it outside this summer.  Hopefully it continues to do well. It's getting a bit busy indoors with too many house-plants:

And taking some measurements so we can hopefully fit a new washing machine in here:

Well, 2-in-1 machine has been purchased. Let's keep our fingers crossed for delivery and installation in 1 week!

And finally organized my trunk as well.  These containers have been sitting in the living room for weeks now:

Before (it's like a mini-closet in the trunk of my truck):

After - looks so much better!

I rolled up all of my clothing and put them into separate containers - rain gear, wind gear, cold gear.  You name it!

Hopefully I'll be able to slowly tackle a little bit of everything every Saturday.  The next item on the list is the boys' bedroom. What a mess!!! So yeah, wish me luck! :-P

Crazy weather

The weather this year has been so weird.  Although, I suppose I wasn't spending this much time outdoors last year.  It's funny how I've only been working since July of last year.  Seems so much longer than that somehow.

Well, this is what I have to deal with - when it's nice and warm and sunny, the wind is crazy! 

I was literally hanging out right next to the door of the golf shop to get away from the wind!

And then a couple of weeks ago, there was an alert on the phone. It was a dust storm.??!

And then, the dirty car.  Aahhhhh...!!

Arizona, yes... Abu Dhabi, yes... but dust storm in Illinois?! What is happening to this weather system!

And then, the birds.  Seriously?!!

I have a feeling it's going to be a hot summer!

Chinatown Field trip

I had a chance to chaperone Graham and his schoolmates for a field trip into Chinatown in the city.  I'm glad it wasn't any warmer because the bus trip back to the school at the end of the day was quite warm and sweaty!

I suppose wearing a long sleeve shirt didn't help.  But like mother, like son with the long sleeves!

The Nine Dragon wall - supposedly there's one just like this in Beijing, China:

We head over the other direction, towards the river.  Train!!

The train is going so slow that it takes a total of almost 10 minutes.  Yikes!

We are finally able to cross the tracks and head over to the park.  Who knew there's a river over here.  And there's water taxis as well that go into the city from here.  We'll have to check this out one day! 

And there's more to see on the "older" side of Chinatown. Never noticed this part of Chinatown before. Pretty cool carvings!

And a very large mosaic - which depicts the history of the Chinese immigrants.  They arrived to work on the railway system:

I grew up eating these White Rabbit sweets, but oh my gosh, there were so many other varieties in this one candy shop: coffee, chocolate, mint, yogurt, matcha, and more. Wow!

Graham bought me a little egg tart to bring to work after the field trip.  Awwww, so sweet of him!

It was delish!

So glad I was able to spend some time with him on this field trip.  He did leave his bag at the restaurant where we ate.  It's a good thing I was still there with some of this classmates. Never a dull moment with this kid!  Can't believe he will be heading to high school next year.  What am I going to do with him?!?

Tree down!

We just can't seem to catch a break.  Another storm and another tree down! And this time, it ended up falling and leaning on some overhead power lines.  Thankfully the lines held up!

It took a couple of days for the utility company to come by and undo this mess.  But prior to that, I had sent a message to our neighborhood and asked who to call.  The police chief (yes, the chief himself!) sent me a direct email and told me that he was dispatching an officer to our home.  And perhaps even the fire department.

Well, within 5 minutes, the police officer showed up.  And we thought that would have been it, since he called the utility company.  Well, within another 5 minutes or so, a fire truck pulled up.  Wow, that about service!!

Fireman (and woman!) checking out the situation:

Well, nothing much we can do at this moment but wait for the utility company to show up for clean-up.  In the meantime... 

So, the boys didn't want to jump into the rig, so then of course I took the opportunity to.  LOL!  Perhaps the boys think they are getting too old for this??

Well, the fire-fighters had a chance to show us a couple of their equipment - including the Jaws of Life. The fire-woman mentioned that it was quite heavy and wow, let's just say she made it look easy.  As strong as Graham is, he struggled to hold it up for a long time!

Fun day :-)

Okay... minus the tree that came down. And never mind that, it was actually the neighbor's tree!!

Thankfully, the utility company only took 2 days to show up:

I'm glad they were just able to park that truck close enough to get to the wreckage:

Quite the task to tidy up the larger trunks!

I'm glad they were able to provide this service for free!

But in the meantime, here's the remnants of the tree that came down:

Graham said that he saw some carpenter ants by the trunk. So looks like they chewed through the insides.  You would not have known because it looked like a healthy tree!

Well, now we have to call another crew to clean up the rest of this mess.  Obviously this part is going to cost money.  Ahhhh...!

If it's any consolation, we do need some mulch and I suppose some firewood for next winter won't be bad either.  

Always something though!! We just had our A/Cs looked at today.  It's over 20 years old and both units are holding on to dear life.  Hopefully it will survive one more summer??! Otherwise, we are looking at another huge expense!  Home ownership is never easy, is it?  But we do love this house and this neighborhood!