To Spanky With Love

Dear Spanky,

Thank you so much for my cool shirt!

Love, Ethan

Weekend Update

Last weekend was such a great weekend, the perfect way to cure the mid January blues. I (Ali) kicked it off with an early morning trip to Naperville to have breakfast with Heather, Sarah, and Shannon and meet Jackson and Ellie Nickoloff for the first time. The twins are so sweet and just beautiful. They were perfect angels and slept through the entire meal so I didn't get to hold them, but it was great to finally meet them. I can't wait for Ethan and Matt to see them, they are just precious. Breakfast at Egg Harbor was delicious and it was great to catch up with the girls, I have missed them!

After breakfast I made a quick drive back to the city to pick up Matt and Ethan and head over to Kaitlyn Dill's first birthday party. Sarah and Nathan hosted a great party at the Garfield Park Conservatory. It was our first time to the conservatory; what a beautiful place and such a great place to have a party. Kaitlyn was not really interested in her birthday cupcake, but enjoyed the party nonetheless. Thank you to the Dill's for including us and Happy Birthday Kaitlyn. We can't wait to return to the conservatory in the spring and check out all the gorgeous plants and flowers.

The Dill Family

Ethan and Jack partying it up!After the party, we headed to Union Park with the Rice's and some of their friends to have a late lunch/early dinner and a few beers (for some of us, it was more than a few). It was a blast to spend time with Katie, Dana, and Jack and get to know Lindsay, Bob, and Ben better. Such a fun group! The big boys had fun playing Golden Tee Putt Putt, while the girls chatted and the little boys snoozed. I think this is about the only time in your life when it is alright to fall asleep at a bar!

All tuckered out from too many games of Putt Putt and way too many Sam Adams

After a very busy Saturday, we decided to have a lazy Sunday morning. We all slept in a little bit and then Ethan helped his dad make raspberry chocolate chip pancakes. After all Ethan's hard work in the kitchen, I decided he could have a few bites of pancake. You would have thought they were candy, he loved them!

Helping Dad make pancakes The rest of Sunday was spent cleaning up around the house and getting ready for my first business trip to Cleveland. My mom and dad were kind enough to drive down Sunday late afternoon so my mom could watch Ethan while I was away and Matt was at work on Monday. My sister and Ben hosted dinner on Sunday night; chili and Dea cake....yum!

We were thrilled to have such a fun weekend in the city and so glad we were able to spend it with family and friends. We are so grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives.

See more pictures from the weekend here.

A Few Random Tidbits

Just some things I have been thinking about lately:

• This winter has been brutal. We have received more snow than in my previous seven Chicago winters. The fact that it just doesn't melt really gets me. I want to stop wearing shoe rubbers to work, but there are still sidewalks with snow and ice everywhere.
• Because of the previous bullet point, my trip to Phoenix this weekend will be extra nice. They are calling for 72-73 and sunny.
• Most people know I have a buddy that works at Taylor Made. The tour players just last week got their hands on the new R9 driver. I am anxious to try it out this weekend, but for now, I can't figure out why I would want to take the head off just to fix my slice. I think fixing the swing may be more important.
• There was a big to-do about the inauguration last week. I felt it was over played. I understand the historical significance of electing the first African American president, but uncontrollable weeping? Obviously I have never lived in a segregated world, but weeping? You had a year to prepare yourself. Get it together.
• The new president's approval rating as of last Friday was something like 68%. How is that? The only thing he did was say his people aren't getting raises this year. First off, welcome to my world. Secondly, who are the 32% that thought they should get raises? Thirdly, and I reiterate, how can you have an approval rating for someone on the job three days?
• Back to unshoveled sidewalks. Is it that hard?
• We have gone trough three workforce reductions in the past two years. One of the things I am working on is determining whether or not there is sufficient staffing to cover our key controls for Sarbanes purposes. Short story is there are. My problem is looking over the list of reductions and wondering what all of these people actually did in the first place.
• Very happy that Lost has returned. How I Met Your Mother, Lost, Chuck - those are probably my top three shows right now. I haven't watched Mad Men, but overall, there are very few shows on that are worth anyone's time.
• IU basketball is struggling, like everyone knew they would. My problem is that everyone anoints Tom Crean as the perfect person to turn it around - why? What happens if he's not the right guy? Do we then anoint the next coach as the savior?
• Even though it hurts the Red Wings, I like the fact that the NHL suspends their players if they don't go to the game. Two Red Wings were named to the team, but neither went to Montreal citing injuries. Since they played in the last game before the All Star break, they are now suspended for a game. It only hurts the league and the perception of the game when the players don't show. Maybe the NFL can take a page from the NHL and MLB where the All Star games actually mean something.
• We have a bunch more pictures of E-man, but we now struggle to do a blog post every few days. Blame Facebook - Ali is on it instead of the blog. Its not that she spends a ton of time on it, but if she gets online for 20 minutes a night, 15 are spent on Facebook tracking down kids from 3rd grade.
• I am soon kicking some blogs off of our list of Friends and Family to the left. Our three months since last post limit has expired on a few of you. We have added a few to the list recently, such as my cousin and her husband that just had a new baby a couple of weeks ago. Welcome to the blog world JB.
• I am determined to start riding my bike to work again in the spring. I did it for a few summers then not once last year. Not only does it reduce my carbon footprint (that's for you Al Gore) but I get just a smidge of exercise as well. That is about a smidge more than I have ever done, so its a good thing.
• We still have not paid one bill for Ethan's month and a half long hospital stay. Due to the incompetence of many parties including the hospital, Blue Cross (of California - Gibson would want me to note that it was not an Illinois plan) and Ali's old employer - good ole Skidmore Owings and Merrill, we are sitting on paying anyone until the correct insurance plan Aetna, gets all of the information they need. By the way, Aetna at first denied E-mans 42 day hospital stay, approx $131k, because the hospital had not sent the correct information. Trust me, I am ready to part with my money, if they would ever figure it out.

Yummy In My Tummy

E-man started eating cereal last month and a couple of weeks ago we started giving him baby food. He is currently dining on apples in the morning and sweet potatoes in the evening. He started with carrots. I took video of the first time he got the food and it is below. You can see that he enjoys eating just as much as his dad.

After I drafted the above post, E-man had some peas. E-man did not like said peas.

Future Sausage King of Chicago

Ethan sporting his new Vienna Beef t-shirt. I think he is excited about a never ending hot dog supply someday.

E-Man

Sorry everyone for the lack of posts lately. We have been on the road again, visiting with family, and just plain busy. We are heading to Michigan this weekend for Lindsay's (Doyle) shower and to visit with the Doyle's, Hunt's, and Kelly and Addy. It will be a long cold drive, but we are looking forward to seeing everyone and celebrating Baby Gross. We have lots to catch everyone up on, but to tide all our loyal blog readers over for the next couple of days, here are some new pictures of Ethan.

Such a big boy in his high chair.

Always so happy!

His big buddah!

Also, congratulations to Matt's cousin, Amber and her husband, Adam on the birth of their little boy, John Benjamin (JB) Moore. JB was born on January 14th via c-section and weighed 6 lbs. 14 ounces. We are awaiting pictures of the little guy, but just wanted to congratulate the Moore and Tennessee Hunt families. Welcome to the luckiest family in the world, little guy!

January 8, 1953 and 1977

I wanted to wish a my dad a very Happy Birthday today as well as a very Happy Anniversary to my mom and dad!

Happy Birthday to a wonderful man and someone I have looked up to my entire life. You have impacted every aspect of my last 30 years and for that I can't thank you enough!

Also today my parents celebrate 32 years of an incredible marriage. I know there have been plenty of ups and downs, but they are truly blessed to have one another and compliment each other in so many ways. I am honored to have them as parents and feel so grateful to have such amazing role models in my life.

Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary! Can't wait to celebrate with you this weekend!

Free Lunch

Who says there "ain't no such thing as a free lunch?" Check out the new Chipotle on Elston and Logan (by Target) for just that....a free burrito. That is right, today only they are offering free burritos to customers who visit from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. 4 of us headed over there today for lunch and after a short 15 minute wait in line, we all enjoyed our free burritos (steak with guac for me) and a drink. Didn't have to pay a dime...pretty good deal if you ask me! Head on over there if you are in the area and don't have anything planned for dinner and enjoy your free lunch (or dinner)!

Holiday Cheer

Our Christmas post is a little overdue, no excuse really, just enjoying some time as a family after traveling throughout most of the month of December. Christmas got off to a rough start, but ended up being the best Christmas yet. We delayed our trip to Lafayette a night because of the terrible weather here in Chicago. Instead of driving down Tuesday night, we thought it would be a much easier drive early Christmas Eve day. Matt had woken up a few times during the night with terrible stomach pains and by the time we got to Lafayette they were so bad (and a few other symptoms, but I will spare everyone the details) we went straight to the hospital. After spending about 5 hours in the ER, he was finally released with the instructions to see his primary care physician when we returned home. Great! We ended up missing Christmas Eve mass, which I think was the first time for both of us in 30 years. Unfortunately, it had to happen on Ethan's first Christmas Eve, but we are just thankful that there was nothing seriously wrong with Matt.

We woke up Christmas morning to a family room filled with presents. While Ethan was pretty clueless to the fact that it was Christmas morning, he loved all the wrapping paper and ribbons, along with all the really cool toys he received. So far, I think his favorite is the "Learning Farm" piano he received from Grandma and Grandpa Hunt. After opening some wonderful gifts, the Addy and Ethan headed to bed for a little nap and the adults had fun opening the infamous Hunt stocking stuffers. We always get a good laugh about what Grandpa Larry finds for everyone. This year was no different! Thank you to Carol, Larry, Kelly, Jim, and Addy for a very generous Christmas! Ethan playing with his new Caterpillar!

After a delicious Christmas supper with the Ulrichs and Elmores, we got on the road and headed to Crystal Lake. Driving on Christmas Day is usually very easy and this year was no exception - only 2.5 hours which is a new land speed record (by the way, Matt has now taken over the authoring of this post, so beware for sarcastic and dry remarks.) The three of us met Grannie Annie and Papa Bob at a neighbor's house and enjoyed some delicious fondue before calling it an evening a bit early due to Matt still not being 100%.

The day after Christmas was spent enjoying a huge brunch/lunch with the McArdle family (Ali's mom's side if you don't know the name.) After brunch, it was time to celebrate the Konneker Christmas. The "kids" headed upstairs while Santa made his way down the chimney and delivered many wonderful presents. Because we spent most of the time opening presents in various states of food comas from an abundance of food at brunch, we decided to skip dinner at the CLCC and instead opted for a few games of Blokus, wine, and pizza! It was such a relaxing way to spend the evening and very enjoyable. Thank you to my mom and dad and Kristi and Ben for many wonderful presents and an amazing evening.

Ethan playing in the Christmas Tree - next year, he won't need help!

See pictures from Ethan's first Christmas here!