Surprise!

This weekend we had a surprise birthday party for Rob's grandma up at Bass Lake!!!!!

I would say she was shocked!!!!  Everyone stayed by the Wennerstrom cabin until the surprise, so the party started early for us!  :)

It was a great weekend with the family!  Everyone made special shirts to wear to the party, which added a special touch to the party!

Here's a look at some of the fun...which went well WELL into the night! (I stopped taking pictures around 5pm for the safety of all involved!  ha ha!)

Walking in...SURPRISE!!!!!

The whole family!

Miss Caitlin sporting her yellow Wennerstrom shirt!

Abigail with the birthday girl

Cousins with their gram...fighting over who's the favorite I'm sure!

Gram and her 5 "babies"

The out-laws (in-laws)

The Wennerstroms....you can see us from a mile away!

We all had shirts of pics with Gram.  (Mine was my favorite cause it was Rasta Gram)

Who doesn't need a little "tequilla rose" on her 80th???

Happy Birthday!

Papa and his look-alike

Our hostess and our bug!  Thank you so much Georgeanne for the great party!

All the grandkids (and one grandkid-in-law) and great-grandkids there!

Happy Happy Birthday to Gram and Great-Nani!

We hope it was a special special special day, because you deserve it!!!!!!

Oh What a Night!!!!!

I should be posting about Caitlin's 18 month birthday or the fact that my grandma got released from the hospital and is at a nursing home getting rehab right now...but I have to post about last night.

Last night was what my mom called "the highlight of my life" (after her wedding, birth of 3 kids and 3 grandkids, trips to Italy and all over the US, etc I'm sure). 

By what we first considered luck, but after last night now think it was my persistance, my mom and I got to go to the Oprah Surprise Spectacular!!!!!  And we weren't just there...we were THERE!!!!

I think it starts with the fact that I have loved Oprah forever!!!  I loved her in high school.  I really loved her in college...in fact, one of the best things about going to Valpo was that we got both Chicago and Indianapolis television stations....so I got to watch Oprah at 9am on Chicago stations and then again at 3pm on Indianapolis stations!!! And I really LOVED her once I became a stay-at-home mom!  So I would say in the past 15 years, I have rarely missed a show!  When she's not on, I have my DVD's to entertain me!

I know it sounds cheesy, but she has been a constant in my life for 15 years....she made me a better wife, a better teacher, and a better mom!!!!

I have tried and tried and tried and tried for tickets for years!  I wrote in for myself, for my students, for my friends, for my family.  I entered contests.  I called the hotline.  I emailed, and facebooked, and emailed some more. In fact, when Abigial was in the NICU, I decided I was going to get the nurses tickets because they are amazing, so I wrote for weeks and weeks about the nurses in the CDH NICU.   I once had tickets when Madonna was on Oprah, but it was right after my wedding and I didn't want to miss a day of work. I always regretted it (full circle moment last night...more to come)...and I got to finally see her earlier this year, but it wasn't a tv show, just a webcast show.

When she offered tickets for this surprise spectacular, my mom, sisters, and myself entered to win.  And we all got rejected.  But then, a few days later, I got an email saying I now had tickets.  Seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't!  Comes to find out, they gave tickets to their "ultimate" fans, and while I'm probably not one of those, I don't think it was a coincidence that I won tickets!

I was excited to get tickets...but much more excited that I could take my mom to Oprah!  It's something we watched together growing up....and it was something I really wanted in my life was to take my mom to an Oprah show...and what a show to take her to!!!!!!!

So last night my mom and I headed to the show at United Center.  The crowd was insane and the energy was like nothing I've ever seen before!!!!  After a long wait to get it, we finally got in.  Within 5 seconds of walking in, we saw Suze Orman and knew it was going to be a great night!!!!

We went to our seats, sure that we were behind the stage or out of sight and wished we had our binoculars.  But when we walked to our seats, we were shocked.  We were on the side of the stage, 4 rows from the floor!!!!  Somehow we got in the section with the Harpo employee families!!!! 

(My camera has terrible zoom..this is literally not even how good our view was...it doesn't do justice to how close we were to the stage).

While sitting there, we saw tons of famous people walk by:  Carson Presley, Eric from Eric and Cathy....there were more, I'm just blank!  Also, if anyone watches Oprah Behind the Scenes on OWN, we saw all the producers (Sheri, Jenna, Brian, etc) which was more of a highlight for me!  The crowd was full of amazing people (Mayor Daley, Tyler Perry, Dr. Phil, etc).

And then the show started...and it didn't stop!!!!

I'm not going to  post about all the famous people, because I want you to be able to watch the shows on Monday and Tuesday and have a little bit of the surprise we had at the show!  After it airs, I will post my second half of this post about the actual show.  But let me just say, it was amazing!  We knew there would be a few big people there, but they just kept coming and coming and coming!  I know the details of the show are out there (Oprah was tweeting throughout the whole show herself) but I'll post later!  But it was amazing!!!!!

I'll leave you with a few pics, but details to come later!!!!!  They did say NO cameras (no flash) and if you took a picture, they would escort you out of there...but after the beginning, everyone was taking pics and I figured there was no way we'd all get kicked out, so we started taking some too (no flash of course).

 I'm just so happy my mom got to experience this...she was so excited (and believe me, I was freaking out excited..and of course they had kleenex at every seat because it wouldn't be an oprah show without touching stories). 

And for those who watch the first show, we are in one "stunt".  We hold one of the "screens"...we are the third picture back to the right of the stage from stage view...we are 4 rows from the bottom...you won't see us but you can see where we "are"....

Waiting

At our seats

Tommy and Oprah

Great moment....you have to watch!

FUN!

Can you name this guy?????

My absolute favorite moment!!!  When you watch, when Kristin Chenweth starts singing, that is this moment!!!!

Girlfriends

Celebration

Too  much!

More to come later.....

Mother's Day Weekend

As you  may know, my Grandma Fran has been in the hospital since last Sunday.  We've been very busy visiting her and helping her get better...so not much time for blogging.  Please keep my grandma in your thoughts and prayers...she's 97 and by far the STRONGEST woman I know!

We also want to wish Great Nani a very happy birthday!!!!  We were supposed to go visit her last week to celebrate, but had to reschedule.  We hope to see you soon so we can wish you a happy birthday in person!!!!

And finally, we want to say CONGRATS to my dad who got 2nd place in his age division in the Rockford Marathon yesterday!  Not only did he run a marathon and get second place, but he qualified for the Boston Marathon!  Great job Dad....and I'm looking forward to beginning our training for the Grand Rapids Marathon in October!

Last weekend was Mother's Day weekend.  We spent the weekend at Bass Lake, and ended the weekend with dinner with my mom!  Getting to celebrate with our moms is the best mother's day for us!!!  We also got to play a lot, put the boat in, and go to a derby party (hat required).  Here are some pics from the weekend.

chalk

slide

boat

Reggae Great Nani

HATS

Rasta Abigail

LOVE

Family

(I didn't get pics from our dinner with my mom)

Tomorrow is a BIG day....my mom and I are going to Oprah!  :)

Happy Birthday Great-Nani!

We want to wish Great-Nani a very very happy birthday today.

Hanging with my girls

Last night was Mom's Night at Abigail's school!  We had a really nice night making a necklace and a picture frame.  Then there was an ice cream social, but Abigail and I decided to ditch out on the ice cream social and go have a special date of milkshakes!  It was a great night and so much fun to see Abigail in her school environment with her friends.  She LOVES one of her teachers so much and just watched her wherever she was the whole time...it was so cute! 

Heading for mom's night.  Notice my left hand HOLDING Caitlin down who was NOT happy that we were taking a picture without her and would not stop crying and crawling on me.

Funny side note:  Abigail said when we were leaving "Mom, I like your seat belt" referring to my belt!

Making our picture frame

On Monday, we had a free day (not watching any kids) so we headed down to Lincoln Park Zoo to meet Lucy and Jules.  The kids love being in the city (which I do too) so this summer I am going to make more efforts to get into the city on our free days.  There is so much to do down there.  Abigail really wants to ride on a bus (ha ha, she may change her mind when she smells it) and the train so we'll do both of those this summer too!

Too many buses and people to actually look at mom

A girl after my own heart....what girl doesn't love a Deere?

Inside Kid's Zoo

Getting braver every visit

I swear Caitlin is along for all these adventures, but she will NOT let me take a picture of her.  I'm going t have to start taking sleeping pictures or something!  Check out my cute chick!!!

This week we also went to Monkey Joe's to get some energy out!  Again not great pics but we were there!

Caitlin really has NO fear and explores the place like she's 5!

Abigail also has no fear and actually made a "friend" who we didn't know, which is a big step for her!

In other news, Caitlin is really really teething this week.  She's been waking up in the middle of the night for about an hour or so which isn't like her.  She's been a lil fussy this week, but nothing too bad.  She's also really been into dancing to any music this week, so I'm looking forward to her dance class that starts in a few weeks, I think she's going to LOVE it!

We have a busy summer coming up starting in June which includes swim lessons, gymnastics and vacation bible school for Abigail, and Mommy N Me dance for Caitlin.  Unfortunately, there aren't many options of classes for Caitlin, but we will make efforts to do special things while Abigail is in her activities.  I am trying to balance all the things the girls want to do this summer (and we don't do during the year because of school) with just having downtime this summer to play! 

Have a great weekend and a happy mother's day!

Wonderful Weekend

What a weekend!!!  Summer is fastly approaching and we couldn't be more excited!

Summer means golf.  Rob's golf season began this Saturday.  He has been putting LONG hours in at work, so I'm so happy that he has golf now for himself on the weekends!  Although it does mean finding activities for the girls and myself on Saturday mornings. 

This Saturday we headed to Brookfield.  No matter how often we go, we always have so much fun.  We try to do different things each visit so it always feels new! This visit included dolphin show, children's petting zoo (where they had a week old goats, so cute), and children's play place (kids got to pet animals, make project, and paint faces).

My girls.  Abigail is holding her "bug" we made and the girls painted their own faces.

Playing at playground.

Combing the goats (Caitlin didn't think this was as fun...but she's small and they sort of were in her face).

Dolphin Show

Say "cheese" Caitlin

This girl LOVES dolphins

"Wow!  What a show!"

Behind bars???  Not this bug!  She makes me laugh!

Play area

It was a perfect zoo trip!

Rob decided Sunday was "unofficial" mother's day!  It started with doing a half marathon!  My dad came with me and was there cheering me along the way!  Thanks Dad!

Total Dork, I know!

What????  My coffee mug????  Oh, that's nothing...just my lil 2nd place in my age division.  Talk about being a dork!  I know!  It was a small race, but fun to get a little "surprise" at the end of it!

When I got home, Rob and the kids had brought me my favorite lunch and my mother's day present, the cutest dress for Vegas!!!!  I was so excited!  They had a great Sunday that included walking to a park and going out for lunch with Daddy (he has pictures I'll have to get).  Then, after nap time and some major chalking outside, I met my parents to see Water for Elephants (great movie, but even better book).  The kids had dinner with Daddy!  It was a great relaxing day for myself, and the girls and daddy got to spend the whole day together!

The evening ended with the news of the death of Bin Laden, which just seems like something important to side note.  Brian Williams said, "You'll never forget where you were when you heard the news of 9-11, and you'll never forget where you were when you heard of Bin Laden's death".  Well, 9-11 I was teaching 6th grade in the city of Chicago and it was a really rough day for our whole school.  However, Bin Laden's death, I heard while watching Real Housewives.  So sad....I'll associate this historic event with those ridiculous women!  Oh well....