Holidays
He’s My Favorite
Last week, I sent Jenn a tiny birthday care package that included a cake mix, a tub of frosting, and candles (a 2 and an 8.) She nicely texted me and thanked me for her package but was very particular about thanking me for the Bye Bye Birdie DVD. (Her husband thanked me for that, too – I am sure he loved the DVD more than Jenn did. Heh.)
Then, I turned around and sent Chris a little birthday care package that included a cake mix, a tub of frosting, and candles (a 2 and a 5.) Today, he texted me… “You sent me a cake!!!!!”
Since I hadn’t had the opportunity to sing to him yet, I decided to call right then rather than texting him back. He was very excited about that cake. Apparently he hasn’t had one in a long time and was sort of wishing he could have a birthday cake.
He’s such an easy kid. But 25… how did that happen?
The birthday boy – beyond breakfast
Prince J will be 15 on Tuesday (I know, right?!) so we’re celebrating a bit this weekend and we’ll celebrate a bit more on Tuesday.
The boy, as his sisters did before him, chose Krispy Kreme for his Saturday morning birthday breakfast. We got a bit of a late start but still had plenty of time to get to the KK near O’Hare and get him back to Skokie for his flute lesson. Unfortunately, the Krispy Kreme closed under cover of darkness and we did not know that until we arrived and found it shut down, dark, with scary signs on the doors.
The nearest KK is 10 minutes further away and we did not have time to make that drive and get back to Skokie. So we started driving back the way we came, discussing quick breakfast options. We were thinking bagels but then I asked the Prince whether he’d prefer Starbucks for coffee and pastries. He said he didn’t care. Then, I had a brilliant idea… Cinnabon! It’s close to the flute lesson and they all love Cinnabon and never get to go. He agreed, it was a great second choice.
Unfortunately, the Cinnabon also closed – no idea when that happened, it’s in a shopping center near us that we never go to. That left us with NO time to choose something else – we rushed into Starbucks, grabbed our coffees, wolfed down pastry and breakfast sandwiches and dashed to the flute lesson.
Geez. What else is going to shut down????
This morning, the boy requested eggs benedict and everyone was happy. TW and RJ are making “Fake Thanksgiving dinner” and took a break to watch the kid open some of his birthday gifts – including a 12 pack of Dr Pepper (a traditional gift to teens in my family.)
15. How does that happen?
The birthday boy – beyond breakfast Read More »
Another Krispy Kreme birthday breakfast
RJ was given the choice of where to go for her “birthday breakfast” and she chose Krispy Kreme. For a few moments, I thought she might choose Cinnabon. I’m very glad she didn’t. I don’t like Cinnabon but I do like Krispy Kreme – even if it means a longer drive.
Liz was excited about the Halloween offerings – until she saw them and then the only one she selected was the boring Halloween “topette”. Prince J, on the other hand, ordered both the pumpkin and the spiderweb. RJ didn’t order any of the Halloween specialties.
Another Krispy Kreme birthday breakfast Read More »
TW’s Apple Festival Birthday
Years ago, when I lived in the Upstate and TW lived in Florida, she brought the little kids up for her birthday. I searched the internet for some place fun and interesting to go and celebrate her birthday and I found the Hendersonville Apple Festival. So we jumped in the car and we drove up. It was fun but more importantly it started a birthday tradition – that’s what happens around here… you do something once and suddenly some people consider it a new tradition. So, every year I’ve struggled to come up with “apple festival” ideas for TW’s birthday.
It hasn’t been easy. Florida doesn’t really have a helluva lot of apple festivals! One year the kids painted still life apple paintings and we had our own apple festival with bobbing for apples in a bucket and stuff like that. Another year I took her to St Pete, to a quilt shop, and we looked for “apple” fabric (as well as other fabric.)
This year, I again turned to the internet and found Apple River Canyon State Park, Illinois and discovered they were in fact having an old fashioned family festival. I sent the driving directions to my iPhone and sent secondary driving instructions to my phone for another possibility just in case that festival was a dud…
We started the morning with breakfast at Hamilton’s which is right across the street from us, and a restaurant we had not visited. We all enjoyed it, RJ in particular. While paying the bill, I got a work related emergency phone call and had to run back home to resolve a problem – then we started our drive (about an hour later than I’d originally planned.)
We drove. And drove. And drove. And never thought we’d find it – but then, we did. Except there was no festival! It was just a park with very few people in it. WTF??? How frustrating to drive that far and then … nothing.
So we drove out of the park and proceeded to get lost. Driving around the “mounds” while amusing was really not anyone’s idea of a fun birthday and we were all pretty grouchy about being locked up in the car with no payoff when suddenly we stumbled into Elizabeth Illinois. Since we have an Elizabeth, that perked us all up. We perked up even more when we discovered Apple Valley Fort… which was apparently where the festival had been held.
Who knew there was an Apple River State Park and an Apple River Fort? We didn’t but we know it now, damn it.
We arrived at the fort about 15 minutes after the festival ended but the reenactors were nice and showed us around, one of them shot his gun for us (hah.) and we watched the special little Apple Valley Fort movie. And then it was back in the car for us.
Not quite the apple festival birthday I’d envisioned but whatever, we went with it and it was amusing. We also stopped at Beefaroo on the way home, for dinner. Interesting. Worst food ordering experience we’ve ever had, but interesting and everyone was happy enough with their food.
The next day, I decided we’d take a chance on the other apple birthday festival I’d considered before settling for Apple River…. we headed to Long Grove for their Irish fest.
Long Grove is a little like Helen, Georgia (not the Bavarian part but the theme touristy town idea) so I thought everyone would be both amused and entertained, even if they weren’t really interested in the Irish fest part of it. (though we did enjoy the Irish dancers.)
Long Grove has a shop called The Apple Haus and we all had apple donuty type things, apple cider, apple smoothies and we bought a couple of cookbooks (ask TW to blog about those, on Retro Food – they’re very amusing and very retro…)
They have a yarn store that we all enjoyed and an interesting craft store. There was a gift shop where we found a ton of great gift ideas for just about everyone and another gift shop that had some gourds that Liz and I really liked. I think Liz would like to try her hand at some gourd design.
Even with the confusion between Apple River Canyon and Apple River Fort, it was a pretty successful apple festival birthday weekend.
And TW, this year… you are 39:
TW’s Apple Festival Birthday Read More »
The House on the Rock
Since we didn’t have an opportunity to take the kids away for a summer vacation prior to the move north, we thought we’d use Liz’s 10th birthday as an excuse for a mini vacation. The problem we had was – where should we go that wouldn’t cost a fortune, we are after all still recovering from the move.
We considered one of those nifty chain hotels that has the indoor water park. We considered one of those funky towns around here that are trying to turn themselves into tourist destinations by having tons of mini golf and mini water parks. We thought about a lot of things but when TW said “How about House on the Rock?” and I said “Huh? A house? On a rock? Fine, whatever you want” I thought maybe we should just stay home. What kid wants to go to a house on a rock for her 10th birthday and what teenagers would want to accompany her on such a trip. Hah. I changed my mind as TW started explaining it and the minute I loaded the House on the Rock webpage I knew it was perfect. I booked the hotel immediately. Creepy, interesting, relatively close (though I did have second thoughts when I saw it would take 3 1/2 hours to get there) and inexpensive (less than $300 for a 2 room hotel room that sleeps up to 8 and full tour packages for 5.)
On the Saturday morning of Liz’s birthday weekend, we loaded everyone into the car and started to drive toward breakfast. None of the kids have even mentioned breakfast and none had mentioned a stop at Starbucks either. So, as we were approaching the last turn toward our breakfast destination… “Anyone want breakfast?” All three replied that they did. TW asked Liz what she would like to have for a birthday breakfast and she said “Pancakes or waffles” Huh. Weird. So I asked “If you could have ANY breakfast in the WORLD for your birthday, what would it be?”
KRISPY KREME
Hah, that’s more like it. I told her to look to the left and there it was… Krispy Kreme, her favorite. I think we could have eaten our doughnuts and turned around and gone home and she’d have been happy. But we didn’t. We carried on down the freeway until we reached the first rest area in Wisconsin. We used the facilities and then wandered around their travel brochure area where Prince J and I discovered the PERFECT tourist attraction for us… The Mustard Museum where the King of Condiments lives. Hahaha. Since I know the Prince would rather stay home for his birthday than drive 3 1/2 hours, even for condiments, I decided we should take a bit of a detour and head to the Mustard Museum before House on the Rock. TW indicated it was pretty much on the way so we were set.
Almost to Madison, we started thinking about lunch and TW said “Ella’s!” This is the restaurant TW talks about all of the time. It’s the restaurant she wants to recreate someday, but do better. So, we took another detour and headed into Madison for lunch.
Ella’s was totally packed but it was exactly what TW always said it was. Full of toy gadgets and fun things and we all enjoyed the food (and some of us enjoyed the desserts) and the girls enjoyed the carousel.
Then, it was condiment time! A mustard vending machine! All the mustard tasting a boy could ever want! Crazy mustard puns. And lots and lots of old fashioned mustard jars. They even gave us a little mustard song booklet when we left.
Onto House of the Rock hotel, boy what a long drive. The last “six miles” were hell. Pure hell. The kids were ready to get out which means they were touching each other and yelling and screeching and just being generally idiotic and ridiculous. Once we released them from captivity and went in, they were fine. Thank goodness.
The hotel room, much to my surprise, was very large and very clean. 3 queen beds and a pull out couch. Microwave, fridge, very large bathroom. Only two problems – only 5 channels on the TV and no wi-fi in the room. The kids pool with the submarine – HUGE hit.
Finding dinner wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be – we ended up at Culvers and I got Culverized with a butter burger (never heard of it and don’t even want to think about how to “journal it”.) Fried cheese curds! Custard for the kids. Everyone was happy.
Next day – House on the Rock. I’m not even going to attempt to describe it. It’s not possible. It’s like Ripley’s Believe it or Not but better. The infinity room – the dude must have had some great drugs to come up with that. I didn’t really stop to think about what I was walking on (air) until TW mentioned the swaying and then RJ started to bounce and then… OMG amazing and frightening all at the same time. The Prince didn’t even get halfway and started backing up, which is good since I’ve seen him barf in tourist attractions before – it ain’t pretty.
We toured the whole place, we ate more fried cheese curd, we had to tear RJ away from the carousel. We had a super super time – obviously since as we were leaving the Prince said “We did a LOT of walking for fun and exercise and it REALLY was FUN.”
On the way home, we took another detour to Peck’s Farm Market, which we had passed on the way to House on the Rock. It’s a farmer’s stand with a petting zoo. Llamas! Goats! Pigs! and Carriage rides!
It was a fun weekend and a good birthday for the little one. (more photos here)
The House on the Rock Read More »
