Football Highs and Lows -

Here is Landon - number 80 - in his first football game for Concord High. His position is corner and they had him play the whole game Thursday night.

His wrist got hyper-extended when a lineman was blocking him in the 2nd quarter. He said it really hurt - but one of the coaches just taped it up and they sent him back out to play the rest of the game.

Friday - it wasn't swollen, but he said it REALLY hurt - so we took him into Kaiser to get it checked out. The Dr. poked around at his wrist and said it was probably just a muscle strain and after a week in a wrist brace he'd be 100% again. He sent us down for an X-ray just to be certain. When he popped the X-ray on the screen we were all in for a surprise. You could clearly see the buckle fracture above his wrist. The Dr. said - "sorry buddy - you are in a cast for the next 6 weeks. Tough break".
Pretty devastating news for a kid that has been training all summer long with the football team -and so excited to play and to be a starter. His cast should be coming off just as the season ends. So sad.
I still can't believe he played the last 2 quarters of the game with a broken wrist! I said so to the Dr. and he said - "Well, this is one tough kid!" So here's a picture of him playing in the last half (with a broken wrist). I agree with the Dr. - Landon is tough and pretty dedicated to football. I'm proud of you Landon!

The Minnesota Half of our Trip

John and I hopped on a flight from Chicago to Minneapolis and drove out to Rochester to see Summer, Paul, Noah, and Alex. We were so excited to see everyone.The next day - Paul took the day off and after Noah got back from Kindergarten at noon we headed out to a little town about a mile away and took the kids to an Eagle Museum.
FACT: An eagle can spot a little rodent running on a hill from several miles away their vision is so good.
FACT: Noah an Alex were both chosen to assist the museum director with his presentation. Noah got to have an up close and personal experience with a bald eagle.


FACT: If you try to take a family picture out in the bright mid day sun - you may temporarily blind the whole family (sorry about that)
We crossed over a bridge and we were in Wisconsin - (I've never been there before). We had lunch at a cute little creamery and got to taste the delicious Wisconsin cheese.

FACT: Even if your loose tooth and fat lip make it too sore to eat your sandwich - you can always manage to eat your ice cream.

FACT: Alex + chocolate ice cream cone = you guessed it - a happy, sticky mess.
We headed back home and took the kids over to our hotel that had an indoor pool.

The kids had fun - Noah even took off his water wings and was swimming pretty good solo. We're proud of you Noah!
We about wore Alex out so she just found a nice chair and a few minutes later she was out.
FACT: You can take pictures of Alex all day (we love all her funny faces).
FACT: If you try to take a picture of Noah he makes a run for it.
It was a great trip - my only complaint was that it was so short - we spent about 48 hrs in each spot. My consolation is that I will be back next month when Summer's baby is due and will get to spend more time then. Watch out Noah - I'll be back with my camera :)

MARATHON MAN!!!!

This last week we were in Chicago to visit Tiffany, Randy, and Madden. We just lucked out that it was also the weekend of the Chicago Half Marathon that Tiffany was running in so we could go and cheer her on. Somewhere about 2 1/2 weeks before John decided (with Tif's encouragement) to run in it with her. He had more than a few people tell him he was crazy - but he has been working out hard (have you noticed he's lost 40+ lbs in the last 4 months?) and decided he could do it. Here's our hard core marathoner's the night before the big event.The morning of the Marathon Randy, and Madden and me got out to the finish line - wish was packed with people and watched anxiously for OUR runners. This is what our view looked like for about 1 1/2 hrs. It started to get HOT - and I started to see carts going out into the race and hauling people back in to waiting ambulances. One healthy young guy stopped right in front of me and looked a little confused and then just collapsed on road. Paramedics came in to help. One guy looked like he was literally ready to die (I've never seen anyone so white and sick looking). He was being supported by people on either side pretty much carrying him across the finish line. This is not easy - just plain hard!
Then we saw what we wanted to see - Tiffany, looking happy, sprinting into the home stretch.
Then a little later John was coming in - you could tell he was hot and exhausted but he was happy.
Tiffany ran back to meet him so they could run the final stretch together. Pretty awesome - Tiffany having just had a C-section 4 months earlier and John who didn't have much time to train and has never done anything close to this in his life. I was SO PROUD of both of them.
The whole time that we were driving to the Marathon site, watching the thousands of runners, and baking in the heat it just seemed unbelievable that this WHOLE time they were out there running and running. 13.1 miles!!!!! Absolutely incredible to me.
I found out after that John did all this with a pulled muscle that he got right before the race started - (ironically) jumping a fence to get to his starting corral. Pretty impressive - now John is already talking about doing another one. I am so proud of you! When you set a goal you persevere and don't let anything stop you. Way to go!!!!

Chicago Architecture

I LOVED Chicago! It is really a beautiful city - I had no idea.

This is the Chicago Tribune building - one of my favorites in the city. All over the building they have embedded stones from other famous buildings - places like Edinburgh Castle (below), and the Taj Mahal, baths at Pompei, castle at Roen France, White House, Great Wall of China, etc.
It was pretty fascinating.
Most of the buildings we learned about on the river architecture tour. It lasted about an hour and our tour guide had a ton of intesting facts and stories about the buildings we were cruising by.

It was interesting to see the old mixed in with the new.
This building mirrored all the buildings around it . . .Here is the Sears Tower - it has a brand new clear balcony that you can step out on to - it is supposed to be the "new don't miss" attraction in Chicago. Next trip maybe.
The whole day while we were exploring the City Madden was such a happy little guy - he looked pretty much like this all day -

The Chicago half of our trip

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Chicago and Rochester, Minnesota. Here's some photos of our first day visiting with Tiffany, Randy, and Madden. Of course the main attraction was Madden . . .

We took the train from Chicago out to Downers Grove where Tiff and Randy live and picked up Randy at school to go out for lunch so John could see the gorgeous Midwestern Campus. Then later that afternoon Tiff and Randy took us to the nearby town of Naperville - it was absolutely beautiful!
We walked along the river walk - it was so pretty and the weather was perfect.

Tiffany and Randy and Madden are very happy there. The next day they took the train into the City and met up with us there. We had brunch (a popular thing to do in Chicago) along the river with this view -Great food and great weather again . . .

It was a great place to celebrate Tiffany and Randy's birthdays (both that weekend).This is the view from our hotel room. Did I mention that I fell in love with Chicago? It was beautiful and fun and there is so much more I want to go back and see. It really is a fantastic city. I loved the architecture - more on that in the next post if you're interested.