Quack-y Halloween 2012

TWO ducks:

Molly loves this costume. A duck holding a duck!

Biiig weekend

Parents in town. Mom's birthday dinner. Murray, Kyle, Maggie, and Janey in town. Courtney and Claire over. Full house. Fun house. Sore throat. Homecoming weekend. Reunion weekend. Reunion tailgate. Homecoming football game. Go 'Cats! Betsy + Archie's engagement party. 10-year reunion party. Hangover. Shame spiral. Betsy's Greek baptism. Family lunch. Bears game. Bears win! Long nap. Family dinner. Sleeeeeeep....

Ha! I feel like I'm still recovering. It was a big weekend, but a very fun weekend. In addition to having Murray in town, I got to see a ton of my favorite NU friends, and I got to meet my wonderful new Kantzavalos relatives. Here are a few pics from the weekend. Engagement party pics to come!

All decked out and ready for the game! Back row: Janey, Murray, Kyle, Jason, Me.
Front: Little Maggie, Molly. 

Post-game tea party

Switching gears now, my big weekend pales in comparison with what everyone on the East Coast has been dealing with from Hurricane / Superstorm Sandy. Good luck to all of my friends and family who were, are, and will continue to be affected. We're all thinking about you!

You win some, you lose some

Oh, Wildcats...another devastating 4th quarter loss. Most people who read this blog probably know the outcome of the NU / Nebraska game, so I won't get into the details. It was a heart breaker. But at least Jason and my house guests were happy :)

Regardless of the outcome, we did have fun tailgating. I was joined by fellow NU fans, Little Jon, Susie, Sean, a couple of their friends, and Sean's dad (Joe R, not to be confused with Joe O'G). And Jason had his brother Joe, Uncle Keith, and Grandma Janet in town to help chant "Go Big Red." Molly, of course, wore purple :)

Jason got to meet one of his idols, Tom Osborne (legendary Nebraska coach and athletic director). And Joe got to ditch his Nebraska "black widow" status as he improved from 0-4 lifetime to 1-4. Now the family won't be afraid to go to games with him.

So it wasn't all bad... Here are a few highlights:

The crew. Janet, Joe, and Keith, thanks for coming to see us!

Pretzels! Molly's favorite thing about tailgating. 

Werewolves of Evanston

My mom always loves to tell the story of when she was listening to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the car and realized my little sister Susie at age 2 was singing "a-weema-weh-a-weema-weh" in the backseat. Well, I was driving along today with Molly in the backseat and had my own weema-weh moment. Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" came on the radio and the next thing I knew, I heard her sweet little voice singing, "Aaahoooo! Aaahoooo!"

If you're not familiar with the song, or want to take a trip down memory lane, here's a little clip from The Color of Money. The song kicks in around 0:50:

His hair was perfect :)

Skip to my Lou, my darlin'

Molly is trying so hard to learn how to skip. She runs and jumps and throws her arms in the air... it's pretty funny, and also pretty cute. Check her out:

Flies in the buttermilk, shoo, fly, shoo!

Buckeyes and Babas

This weekend, Molly stayed home with her grandparents while Jason and I road tripped to Columbus for the Ohio State / Nebraska game. It was Jason's first time in Columbus, and though I know he wishes he would have seen a Husker victory, I think he still had fun seeing Ohio Stadium and meeting up with his brother, uncle, and cousins. 

Obviously, the weekend was a little bit more fun for me. I got to see my friend Chad and meet his adorable little son, Blake. I got to see the Buckeyes win. And I also got to hear Jason admit, after years of making fun of Ohio State fans' obsession with the band, that they do indeed put on a pretty impressive show. I think he'll still laugh a little bit to himself next time an OSU fan starts bragging about the band...but at least now he knows how good they are. 

Unfortunately we made the mistake of taking a cab to the game instead of driving and parking. We were worried about traffic getting out and figured we'd just grab food and drinks after the game and cab it back to the hotel after that. Big mistake! Apparently there are only a few cabs in the city of Columbus and they were all busy taking college kids to and from their dorm rooms and the bars on High Street. We wandered around in the cold from about midnight to 2:30 am, trying desperately to hail a cab without any luck. I think Jason called every taxi, car service, and limo company in town. Finally, Jason's uncle chased down a cab that had kicked out its belligerent passengers and managed to get us back to the hotel. Next time, we will make sure we have a car parked at the stadium!

 

Of course I didn't take any pics of Jason and I in Columbus, but here are a few of Molly having fun with her Grandma + Grandpa O'Grady:

Shake it up

Enjoying her desk

Making cookies

Fun times at the park

More fun at the park

Sweeping up the pine needles

Thanks to Steve and Marsha for babysitting. And thanks to Dad for the tickets!

Second opinions

Turns out the root problem might not be as big of a deal as we thought! I heard from my friend Craig and also our next door neighbor that a consistent schedule of preventive maintenance can also be a way to manage the root growth. Jason called the plumbing company recommended by the city of Evanston and basically got the same story. We had everything cleared out on Saturday, so will just have to have this new plumber out again in a couple of months for a check up. Yay!

Now that I'm in a better mood, I'll leave you with some Molly pics from the weekend:

My girl Dana with Molls. Getting her mom practice in before January!

Beautiful. I don't need a second opinion on her cuteness, do I?

And, here's 30 seconds of joy: