New Basement

New 1st Floor

After spending three long (approx 11 hours each) days over the weekend, we have a newly painted house. Many thanks to our painters, Larry, Carol, Bob and Apprentice Ben. The pro's are there today and tomorrow painting the ceilings and the trim and new carpet is installed on Thursday. Take a look around at the new, new house. PS - if you don't like the colors, please pretend that you love them.

New Upstairs

Kind of a Big Day

Trying to squeeze this in before midnight - but HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN!!!

The Big Guy celebrated his 1st birthday - in his new house tonight. There are many more pictures to come, both of the semi-party and of the house. But for now, you will have to feast on E-man feasting on his cake.

New House

I took some videos of the new house. Call it a tour. These will be the "before" videos. I will do this again once all of the painting is complete.

Upstairs

Basement

Design Dilemma

As of last Monday, we are officially owners of our new house in Glen Ellyn (look for another post on that topic soon). We have not moved in yet, as a matter of fact, we don't technically have possession because we agreed to rent back to the sellers until this Wednesday.

For the past couple of weeks, I have spent a lot of time at the paint store in Crystal Lake looking through color wheels in order to find some nice colors to paint every room in our house. Yes, we have decided to paint every single room and all in one weekend! Thank goodness we have lots of help!

Back to the topic at hand...the kitchen! I am really struggling to find a color that will look decent with the counter tops. Yes, you are seeing correctly...they are blue! Yes, blue Corian. While I would love to replace them with a nice slab of black granite or Silestone, our budget just does not allow for that at this time so I have to live with the blue counter tops. I am looking for some design help out there from all our creative readers. What color do you think the walls should be? The only stipulation I have is that they are not yellow. Would you go with a more grayish tone or something more taupe? Tan? The cabinets will remain white and we will eventually add subway tiles for the back splash. Any thoughts or suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated; I am seriously stumped!

Hope everyone is enjoying this nice hot weather we were asking for 2 weeks ago! More to come in the upcoming days!

Big Big Weekend

So we have a big next few days planned. Let me run it down for you.

Tomorrow, Ethan is going to his first Cubs game. My dad and Randy Rupp are coming up from Lafayette to join the three of us for the game. We will get some good pics and post next week.

Also on Friday night, the Red Wings are going to win the Cup - so that's kind of a big deal.

Kenny Chesney is singing the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley (watch last year's version) tomorrow because he is in town for the big concert on Saturday. Our Saturday will entail some tailgating with the Oskay's at Soldier Field then enjoying the concert all Saturday evening. It's a huge lineup this year, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert (see post from last November), Montgomery Gentry and Sugarland will also be there - so we will actually go in halfway early this year to catch the music. Oh, we have great seats too, so we want to enjoy them.

Sunday will be a day of rest as the big man envisioned.

Monday we buy a new house. Closing is set for 11am and hopefully all goes well. We will really try to remember the cameras this time and get some pics. They are going to rent back from us until the 24th, so we won't be able to move in for a few weeks. But at least it will be ours.

Look back next week for a multitude of postings from this very busy weekend.

Grand Rapids

The weekend following our trip to Nebraska held a trip to Grand Rapids. We headed over there on Saturday morning for my cousin Nicole's HS Graduation Party and a surprise wedding shower for my cousin CJ and his fiance Molly. Almost the entire Hunt family made it to Grand Rapids, we were only missing Kelly, Jim and Addy and CJ. Yes, you read that correctly, we had a couples wedding shower and the groom didn't even have to be there. We did try to Skype him in, but he didn't have a mic on the computer he was using.

I should note that Kelly and family were not there because she was in Lake Tahoe doing a 100 mile bike ride for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society - good job Kelly!

So it was great seeing everyone including meeting JB Moore for the first time. JB drug his mom and dad up from TN for the party.

See all of the pictures HERE. Below are some choice pictures from the weekend.

The guests of honor, Molly and Nicole with E-Man

Ethan and Nanny

Great Aunt Linda

Famly Pic - Nice Smile, E

Maybe the first time Dunk the Wieney has been played as a shower game

Nebraska

Over the last weekend in May, Ethan took his second plane ride - this time to Nebraska. We flew into Omaha on Friday afternoon and drove a couple of hours west to the metropolis known as York, NE. We were there for my cousin Stephanie's wedding to Joel. As we did not arrive in time for the rehearsal dinner, we ventured into York and ate a really good dinner at Chances R.

We met up with a lot of our family on Friday night when they got back from dinner. This was the first time Ethan has met a few of my aunts and uncles, so the standard holding and passing was performed. Ethan did not end up going to bed until roughly 10:30 which made for a pretty rough night for Ali and I. We fought through it and after a Runza run for lunch, we started getting ready for the wedding.

Ali and I have been to some country weddings around Indiana and Illinois, but this is the first time we remember seeing so many cowboy hats at a church. All in all it was a very nice ceremony that E-man did "ok" at and a very nice reception afterwards. (With roughly 400 of their closest friends.)

Ethan with the Bride and Groom

Matt and Pap-Pap

On Sunday we had an impromptu photo shoot with the four great-grandkids. I took approximately 50 pictures in the span of 3-4 minutes and this is the best I could come up with.

Addy, Caleb, Josh and Ethan

Not sure how JC Penny or other photo shops can get a group of kids to sit still and look straight.

We stopped in downtown Omaha for lunch before our flight back on Sunday and really enjoyed the little Old Market area. We ate a good lunch at Upstream Brewing Co. Lunch was the end of the fun on Sunday. Although only an hour flight back to Chicago, Ethan was "that kid" on the flight back. Crying, screaming, all of the sort. He finally fell asleep on Ali's shoulder approximately 3 seconds before touchdown at Midway. Great - nice timing big guy.

Preceding our trip to NE, my parents took our camera and drove out to Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. They had never been and highly recommend it. Here are a couple of pics:

A Buffalo - if you can't figure that out yourself

If you need a caption, please call me

For the rest of the Nebraska and South Dakota pictures, see the post below.

Bean, Millenium Park, and the Modern Wing

One of the things I wanted to do before we moved out of our condo was visit the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Friday before we moved out, my good friend Katie and I loaded up the Bumblerides and made our way downtown for lunch and a little culture for Jack and Ethan. Our first stop was the Park Grill and Cafe in Millennium Park for delicious sandwiches, a glass of wine, and some catching up. On our way to the Art Institute we stopped at the "Bean" for a quick picture.

By this time, Ethan and Jack had been sitting for quite a bit and while they had both been really good boys, Katie and I thought it would be fun to let the boys stretch their legs a little bit at the Pritzker Pavilion. Ethan and Jack had a great time chasing each other through the green grass and "rough-housing" (as much as 11 month old boys can). They also enjoyed all the attention they were getting from the other park goers.
From there, we traveled on to the new Modern Wing. Because admission was free opening week, the place was full of people. Not very fun to navigate 2 strollers around, but we managed and were able to see the beautiful artwork. I can't say that I truly understand a lot of modern art, but we did see some gorgeous pieces. We also made our way into the "old" wing of the Art Institute to see some of our favorite Monets and the infamous La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

All in all, a great day to spend my last Friday as a city dweller. I will miss being able to walk out the door and have a lot of culture just steps away, but it refreshing to know that it is all just a short drive away. Here are some more pictures from our afternoon in the park.