Part of the team

Spring soccer has officially started. While Jason is having a little more trouble coaching this time around -- the kids are all over the place, eating grass and wrestling during games -- Molly is doing much better and actually seems to be playing with the team -- a huge improvement over the Fall season. She's not out there scoring goals, but she's paying attention, running in the same direction as the ball, and even getting her foot on it occasionally. Go Molls!

Action shot -- Molly throws it in

Running with the team

Future marketer

Molly (pointing out a Yelp logo to Jason on the computer screen): 

"Daddy, what's that?"

Jason: 

"It's called Yelp, a website where people review different businesses."

Molly: 

"Oh. I've seen that name on many dot coms."

Ha! We're not really sure where Molly picked up on the term "dot coms," but she has always paid close attention to logos. Walgreens, Jewel, Starbucks, Chase. She's like a live action GPS calling out points of interest on every drive. Apparently brand loyalty starts early...

Milwaukee mini-vacation

Jason and I had a free rewards night with Marriott, so decided, semi-spur of the moment, to drive up to Milwaukee with Molly for a weekend away. Since Sunday soccer starts next week, this will probably be our last trip until Spain. We were lucky enough to get awesome weather and ended up having a really fun time up north.

On Saturday, we went to the Discovery World Science + Technology Center, which is a really cool, very hands-on museum. Molly loved it and so did we. Especially Les Paul's House of Sound, where you could actually play the guitars on the wall and experiment with different equipment. 

That night, we walked around by the river, met the Fonz, and had a pretty good dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery. We have one in Chicago too, but it's been a while since we've been there, and I think they've improved their food (and beer).  

Happy days

On Sunday, before driving back, we got brunch at a really cool place called the Comet Cafe that has popped up on a couple of those Food Network shows. It was definitely worth the wait...and the calories. We all 3 cleaned our plates and somehow managed to make room for a delicious chocolate orange cupcake. 

The best part about the weekend was spending time with my 2 favorite people. Molly loved having our full-on attention. And the hotel was nice enough to upgrade us to a suite so Jason and I could hang out after Molly went to bed (one of the trickiest parts about sharing a hotel room with a kid who falls asleep by 9). 

Thanks, Milwaukee...we'll be back!

Hoppy Easter!

It was just the 3 of us this year, so I was a little worried that Easter wouldn't feel special, but I think we ended up having one of our best family days ever. 

We changed it up this year and put a basket from the Easter Bunny in Molly's room instead of doing an egg hunt. She was SO surprised and happy to wake up and find a basket of goodies in her room -- I don't think she was expecting that at all. We probably should have also put a few eggs on the lawn, but quickly smoothed over that disappointment with the next surprise of the day -- Cinderella at the movie theater. Molly absolutely loved it (so did I). And Jason and I could not stop laughing when Cinderella was about to try on the glass slipper and Molly pulled off her boot and extended her own foot toward the screen.

After the movie, we went to the park (it was a gorgeous day) and then surprised Molly again with her first scooter. We spoil her, I know. But she needs some wheels to get around this summer and has grown too big for the stroller or trike. She's still getting the hang of it (the scooters at school have 3 wheels and are a little more stable) but I think she'll be racing around the neighborhood soon enough. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing outside on the driveway with squirt guns -- "squirters" according to Molly. It felt like Spring. Molly had our full attention and knew it. Happy Easter from the O'Gradys!

The best book I ever listened to

Middlemarch! This book, as one review put it, is bananas. So much happens...25 CDs, 880 pages and yet so few words are wasted. It took me about 3 weeks to listen to the whole thing, but it made every drive to and from work fly by. 

I wasn't sure I would like this book so much when I first started listening. The main character (Dorothea) takes a little time to warm up to, but she makes such a huge mistake and changes so much throughout the book, I was desperate for things to work out for her in the end. It's not just about her though. There are 3 main plot lines that weave in and out and keep things interesting. The characters are all flawed and end up getting themselves in trouble in one way or another. For a good portion of the book, it seems like no one will ever end up happy. But George Eliot does not disappoint (well...very much). 

I don't know if I would have loved this story reading it as much as I did listening to it. There's something about having a Judi Dench-sounding narrator build up the suspense and add personality to the different characters (the actual narrator is Nadia May, I should give her credit). It probably also helps that I love Victorian novels. 

So now it's over. What should I listen to next?