A break from the kiddos

Following Jeremy's graduation, Jeremy and I got to have a weekend getaway to Chicago. The coolest thing: we stayed in a $400 hotel room for free! (Long story short, I have a hotels.com account and since I've stayed 10 nights through hotels.com, I got a free night. It was good for any hotel up to $400, so I hopped online, searched for one of the most expensive hotel rooms in Chicago I could find and booked it.)

I should have taken a picture of our beautiful suite. Suffice it to say that we experienced a (free) weekend of luxury and it was fabulous. Actually, I don't have much at all by way of pictures, but oh well...

My favorite place in Chicago: the boardwalk along the lake & the marinas

Stuffing our faces with the most amazing Chicago Deep Dish from Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.

Quote of the week

My friend, Melissa, was over here this morning. I told the boys that Melissa is pregnant. They looked at me funny, so I then clarified that Melissa has a baby in her tummy. So, later this afternoon, Melissa and the boys went out for a walk. Jordan looked up at her and started talking, and this is how their conversation went:

Jordan: So...You have a baby in your tummy?
Melissa: Yeah, I do! I have a baby in my tummy.
Jordan (with a really confused look on his face): Hm...Why did you eat a baby?


Hahahahaha! Isn't it hilarious how a toddler mind works? :-)

OK, now you've had your laugh for the day. You're welcome.

Jeremy's Graduation

Holy cow, has it been an eventful month! I have tons to catch up on, but let's start with the most important event of the month - Jeremy's graduation! Yippeee!!! I can't believe we're done. And even more so, I can't believe we've finished it all with our marriage, family and sanity in tact! Unbelievable.

Jeremy's parents flew out and my family drove over for the blessed event. On June 19, 2010, we all got dudded up and headed to graduation which was held at a banquet hall in Carillon Park. When I put my dress on, Jordan asked, "Are you going to be a princess today, Mommy?" And then Matthew asked if he could spin me. So cute!


Jeremy won two awards.He won the CREOG award, which is an award for scoring the highest on the annual national OB/GYN competency exam, and he also won the William Nahaas Surgical Excellence award for being the best surgeon in his class (in fact many of the staff have commented through the years that Jeremy is one of the best surgeons to go through the program there). Can't tell that I'm proud of him, can you? heehee. OK, less bragging and more pictures...

This is Brian Jewell, one of Jeremy's residency buddies and his fellow "P90X graduate"

Graduating Residents: Jeremy, Phil Jones, Kelly McCluskey, Anna Schissel, Adrienne Perfilio, Alicia Thompson

OK, this is SO cute. This is our friends' little girl, Madeline. During dinner, Matthew whispered to me, "Mommy, I want to spin that girl." (by the way, he is SO girl crazy). I said, "OK, go ask her." So, he did, and Madeline got up, curtsied (!) and then asked Matthew, "Would you like to dance?" Ohmigosh, they were such a crack-up! Don't you love how he's just staring dreamily at her? haha

Jordan also developed a little crush that night. If the boys were 13, I think a fist fight might have ensued over Madeline. Ha!

And now, Jeremy is the sidekick of this guy - Dr. Steve Guy (his new partner). Yay! :-) Go fight some OB/GYN crime, you two!

Jeremy, I'm so proud of you, Sweetie-pea! Now we'll see if the 8 years of schooling and 4 years of slave labor were worth it. ;-)

Camping

More than a month ago, I bragged that Jeremy took the boys camping, leaving me with a beautifully empty house. Well, finally here are some photos to document the boys' first campout.

Mapping out the trail

Being silly with Grandpa

More silliness

Jeremy said that it POURED buckets of rain on their hike. The boys were troopers on the way there, but on the way back, they were pitiful. Matthew kept talking about getting his Marley, his bed and taking a nap. Sad!

By far, the boys' favorite part of the whole campout was throwing rocks into the river:


And what's up with that anyway? Give a boy some rocks and a body of water, and he'll keep himself busy for hours!

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

OK, this is a Jordan quote from quite some time ago (like maybe a month ago?), but I had to post it anyway just so I can remember how sweet my children are (that last statement is dripping with sarcasm, by the way).

Admittedly, most days are good. The boys are sweet and obedient and fun for the most part, and we usually don't have many problems. Having said that, I had made it just two weeks into night float without having a complete meltdown (I still can't decide whether that's pretty good or pathetic). Anyway, just dream up the worst day imaginable, and that's the day I was having. It was around 4:30 and Jeremy had just left me (with two cranky, fighting, whining, crying 3 year olds) to go to work (lucky for him that he got to escape). I decided to get out a craft to do with the boys because, "Just maybe that'll do the trick and they'll cheer up." Bad. Idea. It was awful - the boys just fought more, whined more, cried more. And then, I completely broke down sobbing. I mean really blubbering. The boys just stared at me as if I was a lunatic and said nothing (I guess that's what it takes to get them to stop fighting and whining sometimes). I'm pretty sure that may have been the first time they had ever seen me cry (in fact they talked about it for 2 weeks), and I think they were fairly traumatized.

Anyway, fast-forward a few days...My boys were staying at Grandma and Grandpa's because my parents offered to take them for a few days (before I blew my brains out). Lindsey (my sis) was babysitting that first afternoon and Jordan started telling her all about Mommy crying "real bad".
Lindsey says: "Was Mommy crying because you guys were being bad boys?"
Jordan replies: "No. She was just whining."

Nice. I'm so glad my sweet boys are genuinely concerned for my well-being. :-)

Alone

I'm pretty sure most women desire to have a daughter. In fact, I think I would like to have a daughter some day (sometime in the distant future). Well, today I realized an awesome advantage to having only boys - when the boys go on a camping trip with Daddy, then I am left completely alone. In a quiet. Empty. House. (Can I get a hallelujah, y'all?!)

Yes, this afternoon, Matthew, Jordan, Jeremy and my dad packed up the car and headed out for a testosterone-infused weekend of camping; leaving me behind to bask in the glory of being alone. Ahhhhh.... What will I do with myself this weekend?! What does a mother do when given the opportunity to be alone?

Whatever she wants...

Root, root, root for the home team!

We donned our baseball caps, grabbed our mitts and headed out to the Dayton Dragons baseball game. Interesting fact: last year, the Dayton Dragons sold out more games than any professional team in the country - including NFL, NBA, etc., etc (random, I know). Anywho... On that evening, the stands were packed and the weather was beautiful - we had so much taking the boys to their first baseball game!

One of the attendings at Jeremy's hospital has season passes to the Dayton Dragons and oftentimes he can't fill all 6 of his seats, so he'll give them away to the residents. The seats are on the very front row on the first baseline. In the picture below, Matthew is resting his hands on the dugout. So fun. :-)


Both of the boys were TOTALLY into it. I love Matt's expression of concentration here - so cute. Matthew was hilarious. He kept begging us to allow him to go on out on the field. About a million times, he said, "Is it my turn now?! Is it my turn now?!" or "I need my bat!" He was too adorable.



The catcher from the other team threw a ball over to the boys, and later, the umpire gave them another one. You can imagine how thrilled they were about that! My boys were in Heaven. :-)

Throughout the game, Matt and Jordi were shown on the "big screen" about five times (one of the times they were flexing their little muscles because the announcer was playing the song "Macho Man"). The crowd couldn't get enough of them. At the end of the game, they were voted "Fans of the Game!" Ha!