Spring Break

A few months ago my mom called me and told me she and my dad were wanting to come visit us in April. I had no idea they were even thinking about coming, so we were all thrilled. And then we waited (at times rather impatiently - especially Emma) for spring break to get here. Finally it arrived, as did my parents.  Emma was just a ball of excitement as we waited at the airport. I don't think she stopped smiling over the next 8 days. Until they left that is. Then it was all tears. BUT before the tears came we had some good times.

Easter sort of slipped in there amidst all the other activities. Knowing this would likely happen, we made sure to talk a lot about Easter and the Savior in the weeks leading up to it, including watching some fabulous church videos. So when Easter actually came we didn't worry too much about sliding right past the real meaning and having the candy be more of the focus. Usually we don't let that happen, but since we were heading out of town right after breakfast that day, I didn't stress too much about it.   Emma woke up to find her basket overflowing with goodies. I admit that I was super ready this year to not need to do the whole Easter bunny thing. Of course, Emma still believes so we went ahead and did it again, but I'm ready to be done with it. Just saying. I'd still get her treats of course, but the secrecy part sometimes seems like such a pain. But as I was telling Eric, I don't want to tell her yet, because then it stands to reason that she'll also figure out Santa. And I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. I mean, part of me is. Part of me would love that. But I love the magic of Christmas that comes along with Santa so much that I'd be sad for it to be gone. And since I don't have more kids who would continue to believe for years to come, it's all or nothing with Emma. So I'm torn. It'll end when it ends though (either her figuring it out, hearing about it at school, or me finally telling her because she's getting too old), so I'll deal with it at that time. Anyway, back to Easter morning.  After she perused her basket, we also gave her a fishing pole. We wanted credit for that one, not the Eater bunny. She was ecstatic! She loves fishing with Eric and can't wait to go again, especially since she'll have her own pole this year. Then she did an egg hunt. The egg hunt has always been from us, so no worries about secrets there. We just sent her to her room so we could set it up. Now I want chocolate from thinking about her candy...

We had a big breakfast with fruit, muffins, breakfast casserole, etc, and then headed out the door with our luggage. My parents thought it would be fun to go down to Nauvoo and Springfield while they were here. My family went years ago right before my mission, so they had both been before to both places, but the Nauvoo temple hadn't been completed yet. Construction had only just begun.  My dad was singing with the Tabernacle Choir when they went to Nauvoo and were inside the temple singing during it's dedication, so he had already seen the completed temple, and Eric, Emma and I took this same trip a couple years ago, so it was just my mom who hadn't seen the completed temple. I was excited for her to see it.

Emma was all set in the car. She was such a good traveler.
That's what video games, iPods and movies will do for you I guess.  =)

Emma was taking her own pictures like crazy on this trip. I think I enjoyed watching her do that more than anything else.  She was so cute planning out her pictures, sometimes crouching low to get just the right shot.

Enjoying the lovely evening light while skipping rocks along the banks of the Mississippi River

We stayed in a cabin this time just like we did on our last trip, and I think once again it was Emma's favorite part of the trip.  Before my parents got to town, any time we'd mention going to Nauvoo, Emma would promptly ask if we were staying in a cabin again, as if her asking was the only requirement to making it a reality.

My favorite part about the cabin. This porch swing. Eric and I spent the evening just
sitting out on the porch, looking at the stars, listening to the quiet, and enjoying the
wonderful temperatures. Love talking evenings away like that.

The three of us stayed in a huge room upstairs that could have slept 8. Emma chose the top bunk in a bunk bed and thought it was crazy that she could touch the ceiling.

We might have been the first people ever to play Mah Jongg in Nauvoo.
Being Emma's latest obsession, we had to bring it to play with my parents.

Our full day in Nauvoo was sort of rainy, but wasn't terrible.  Nothing like a little rain to keep the crowds away.  Oh, it being the day after Easter and a Monday didn't hurt either.  We practically had the place to ourselves!

Making some rope. You can never have too much rope.

The next day we went to Carthage and then to New Salem to see some Lincoln stuff. We ended that day in Springfield touring the Lincoln home and seeing his tomb. The next day after finishing up with museums etc, we came home.

The morning light on the jail was just beautiful. It seemed to add
such a amazing feeling to an already amazing place.

Emma's first selfie. Heaven help me - it's starting.

In New Salem Emma was trying to capture some pictures of wildlife.  Or maybe it was flowers?
Doesn't matter, she was super cute while doing it and I loved watching her. 

In the days after our trip we went to a great car museum which my parents loved. There were tons of classic cars and several very old ones. We've been there before, and Emma just loves it. I admit, I love that Emma loves cars. We also took my parents to see a Brewers game while they were in town. They won, so that made it even better!

Don't you just love it? I want one. But I'll take it in blue please.

I love having my parents here visiting, and like Emma am so sad when they leave. We love living here, but it is hard being away from my family. We miss them all like crazy all the time. Thanks so much for visiting Mom and Dad! We had so much fun with you!

Crazy Sleeper

When Emma goes to bed each night she reads for awhile.  The other night I guess she decided that she wanted to read in her chair rather than in her bed.  She got up and dragged her chair over next to her bed so she could continue to use her lamp.  Later when we went in to check on her etc before going to bed ourselves, we found her asleep in her chair.  Silly girl!

Class A Chicagoland TKD Tournament

Yes, another taekwondo entry.  Another tournament.  There are tournaments held all over the country each year that are open for anyone to come and compete.  If we wanted to take Emma to all these tournaments we could, no matter where in the country they were being held.  The only real incentive to do that is if you are competing for state champion or something along those lines.  If that's the case, you get points if you win based on the size of the tournament.  The bigger the tournament, the more points.  Emma is not competing for any sort of title.  We just wanted to go for fun and to experience a tournament this size.  We found out about it when she was asked to go by a couple of her instructors.  Class A tournaments are the biggest ones.  That's based on the number of people competing.  Smaller tournaments would be called class B and so on.  Being in the Chicago area this one can easily draw a huge turnout.  We went with no expectations, just looking forward to the experience.

There were tons of people there.  They had between 20 and 25 rings for the competitors to compete in.  They had competitors from all ages and belt ranks, from 4 year old white belts to over 60 year old 3rd and 4th degree black belts, and perhaps even higher.  The highest ranking black belt in all of American TKD was there - a 9th degree black belt.  There is only one of them at a time.  He's getting pretty old though.  I still wouldn't want to fight him.

There were several different events each competitor could do, but being our first time at a tournament this size, we decided to only have Emma do 2 of them.  She would compete in forms and sparring.  Those two events were sort of a package deal anyway - you did one, you had to do the other.  They were running very late on their events (I guess they misjudged how long each group would take), and Emma didn't compete until about 2:00.  She was supposed to compete just after 11:00.  I'm really glad I took some snacks for her, because all they had there was greasy stadium type food.

Anyway, they were dividing all the groups up by sex into fairly close belt ranks and ages.  Because of how they divided them, even though she's only 8, Emma was in the 9-11 year old group consisting of brown belts and red belts.  That equals 4 belt levels, because there are two levels within each belt color.  There was only one other brown belt in the group.  The rest were all high red belts (Emma was a low brown - she's since passed her next belt test and promoted to high brown).  It was definitely going to be an uphill battle for Emma.  We just wanted her to have a good time and enjoy herself.  We don't mind Emma learning that you can't always win at everything.  The idea of participation trophies?  Yeah, I think that's a terrible idea.  At least by the time you're Emma's age.

Anyway, they did their forms first.  The way judging for forms works, is they have 3 people come up and each do their form, then all 3 together stand before the judges to receive their scores.  After that, everyone receives their score immediately after they do their form.  The idea here is to help give the judges some perspective.  If the first person were to receive a fairly high mark, but then all the other competitors do better, the judges might run out of higher scores to be able to award.  Make sense?  In any case, the order they compete in is completely random.  It's better to go later though, because the judges often tend to forget exactly how the earlier competitors did, and might award a higher score to someone who was not in fact any better.  It seems a little unfair, but it's all subjective.

Of course, Emma was called to be one of the first 3 girls.  Bummer.  She did awesome though!  But we were on pins and needles while the remaining girls went.  And they just seemed to keep coming and coming!  Every time I thought it was done, and that she had secured a third place win, another girl would still need to compete.  It was torture!  I don't know how people do this all the time!  Crazy!  Anyway, they finally finished, and although they didn't officially announce anything then and wouldn't be awarding trophies until after all the events were done for this group, we knew from the scores that Emma had won third place.  We were thrilled.  Especially since the 2 girls who took first and second were amazing.  The first place girl must do nothing else besides TKD.  Ever.


Emma waited until the last event, which was the sparring, before she competed again.  It is again done by random who you spar against each round.  Emma had the great misfortune of sparring against the girl who ultimately took first place in each of the 4 events.  So Emma was eliminated in the first round.  Had she sparred against someone else she might have been able to earn second or third place, but maybe not.  We'll never know.  In any case, it had been such a long day up until this point that I think Emma was just relieved it was over.

After the sparring was done, they called all the girls up and handed out the awards.  We were so thrilled that Emma won a trophy.  These trophies were huge too!  She was so proud of herself too.  Not too bad considering we went into this with no expectations.  Emma said she would love to go to another one of these, even if she didn't win anything.  She really enjoyed to experience.  Awesome!

Emma shaking the judges hands when they were giving out the awards.

Emma with a couple of her instructors, including the owner of
the school, who came down to support the competitors.

Valentine's Day

Holidays are always fun times to do anything that might be a little different to mark the occasion.  It doesn't have to be anything big either, that's what's so fun.  I actually think it's the little things that can make a holiday a success.  All this is of course for Emma's benefit.  Valentine's Day has never been a holiday that I've put much stock into.  I just don't care about it that much.  I don't need Eric to spend hundreds of dollars on a new diamond whatever for me, and I don't need ridiculously over-priced flowers (which are marked up just for the holiday) or chocolates (trust me, our home is never short on chocolate).  Eric is an amazing man and I truly feel blessed to be able to share my life with him.  He does so many wonderfully kind and selfless things all throughout the year for me that I wouldn't be able to document them all if I tried.  I have told him numerous times, specific to this holiday, that I didn't expect him or even really want him to worry about doing much, if anything, for me.  And I further clarified that I actually meant that - it wasn't a wife trap.  He knows I would likely be upset if he spent lots of money on some trivial thing for me just because of a holiday that says he should.  Now this is not to criticize anyone else for feeling different about this holiday or for buying and receiving gifts (of any value).  This is simply how I feel.  Typically the most we ever did (before Emma came along), was have a nice dinner (at a restaurant or at home - didn't matter), and just spend time together.  Not much changed after Emma was born.

This year, because of busy schedules etc, it took us over a month to actually celebrate our anniversary (which is in early January), and we ended up celebrating a week before Valentine's day.  I told Eric we should just count it for both our anniversary and Valentine's day.  Easy peasy.

Kids change everything.  And while I don't care much about the holiday, I still want to make it a fun and special day for Emma.  Anything to break up the norm, even a little.  So I painted her nails pink the night before with little red hearts on them.  We put a heart in her hair (which almost didn't work - her hair is too short!), and she chose a heart themed outfit, with socks that almost matched.  When she came out of her room in the morning she found a couple balloons and some goodies from us (just some candy and treats and her favorite chap stick).  Then I made her pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast.

You can see some of the goodies she got on the bench next to her.  I have no idea why she pulling that face.

That evening we had a nice dinner at home with Emma's favorite chicken dish and some rice.  We lit some candles and played some nice music and used our fine china.  Eric did bring a few flowers home for us (some for me and some for Emma), which he always does, but they are not expensive ones.  Just simple ones.




After dinner we played some Mah-Jongg, which my family has played since before I was born.  We recently taught it to Emma and she is now obsessed with it.