Winter has (very) slowly faded into Spring. The trees are budding, the grass has greened (and been mowed) and the Midwest weather is as crazy as ever!
My sister Teri was in town for a week in March. We enjoyed our time together but it flew by. While she was here, we got the extended family together to celebrate some birthdays.
Maddie and I headed to Peoria for a Brooke Ligertwood concert - it was a powerful time of worship! So, so good! This was my birthday present from Maddie.
After enjoying some "regular" Spring weather and temps, we were shocked to wake up on March 25th to VERY heavy snow - totaling almost 8 inches. There were a lot of trees lost in the area due to the heavy snow, power lost due to downed lines, etc. We actually lost one of our arborvitaes along the driveway.
In true Midwest fashion, most of the snow was melted by the end of the day!
A few days later, we got together with extended family (again) to celebrate my mom's birthday as well as girlAlex and boyAlex (yep, that is what we call them, ha!).
March 30, 2023 - A holiday in the Hart Household! Opening Day for Baseball - GO CUBBIES!!!!!
Here we are, sporting our Cubbies gear!
We've had 2 major severe storm systems come through our area. Both caused early closures of schools, restaurants, stores, etc - all in anticipation of possible tornados/straight winds. Thankfully both of those storms didn't amount to the severity that was projected. There were tornados that hit around us, but minimal damage all in all. Unfortunately, we did have a storm cell that went through our area (ahead of the crazy stuff predicted for later in the day) that had a wind burst, causing a lot of damage to parts of the Illinois Quad Cities. We are thankful that our property was spared.
April 10th - Happy Anniversary to us! #24 Matt suggested that we head to Galena for the afternoon. It was a wonderful idea and enjoyed our day together.
First stop was lunch at Vinny Vinnuchi's. Yum - super delicious Italian lunch.
We drove over to Grant Park and walked across the bridge.
I opted to walk from Grant Park up the hill to the Grant House. We never knew that the staircase to the house existed!
From Galena, we headed to Apple River Canyon State Park to hunt for a few letterboxes. We were successful in finding all 3 and enjoyed some nice hikes while searching for them.
This spot is the cusp of confusion! We later found out that we missed a turn at the beginning at the trail and ended up at this spot, completely confused. We were ready to give up on the box but decided to continue down the trail (to the right). After a half mile, we were fairly certain we were NOT in the right area so we turned around and headed back. As we headed back up the bluff, Matt quickly discovered where we went wrong and he was able to locate the box.
We really enjoyed our time of getting away. I love having young adult kids who can drive and take care of things at home!
Easter Sunday with the family - we attended church and then grilled out for a late lunch. We played some Four Square later in the afternoon and then Maddie and I walked across the new I-74 bridge. It was a wonderful day with family.
A week later, the Barman family got together at Mom & Dad's to celebrate Easter.
We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together - Mom is such an amazing cook!
We also sang Happy Birthday to Deb!
Mom asked for the kids to help set up the swing and a few of the outside items. I love their servant hearts, esp when it comes to helping Grammy & Grandad.
With the rainy weather, the annual egg hunt was held inside this year. Round 1 was held upstairs. Mom had certain restrictions for each round (find 2 purple eggs, for example). She makes all of the kids us tongs to slow things down a bit. They also had to keep their bags on the landing. After a few rounds of rules, it was a free for all. Things got a little crazy!
After the first round of the egg hunt, Grammy had everyone head out to the garage where she had some games planned. The first game consisted of 3 teams being picked and a captain being designated (by Grammy). The captain donned a shower cap and their team topped the shower cap with shaving cream. They were then given a limited time to toss as many cheese puffs onto the shower cap/shaving cream as possible. It was a fun game but there was definitely a learning curve to the game so the third team dominated it all (happened to be my team!).
Next game - beer pong, without the beer! We chuckled at the thought that all of the grandkids were learning how to play beer pong (without the beer) at Grammy & Grandad's house. All of the mugs had candy prizes attached to them with the exception of one - which had a raw egg in it (later found out it also included $10 too). I thought that we had pictures of everyone but we missed a few (Deb-(who ended up getting the egg mug), Emma & Becki).
We came back inside to finish off the Egg Hunt (lower level of the house). This portion of the hunt included the coveted Camouflage Egg(s). Boy Alex & Kaitee were the camouflage egg finders this year!
We had a beautiful day together - family, food, laughter, memories made, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I got a text one day for a deal on baseball tickets so Matt & I purchased some to see the Dodgers play against the Cubs at Wrigley that next weekend.
Sadly, Alex was out of town and wasn't able to go to the game with us.
We stopped for an early lunch and then drove to the Rockwell remote parking lot (with free shuttle bus service).
The pictures we sent to Alex - showing her how much we missed having her with us. Yes, I am crying here...because I kept laughing every time we tried to take a "sad" picture. We suck at taking sad pictures...
Wrigley Field - Never disappoints. Such a beautiful ballpark!
Matt took this picture of us in our seats (4 of us in row 3)
It was really cold! High of 42°, breezy and no sun. When I purchased the tickets, the weather app said high of 49 and sunny. Yeah, the sun really makes a difference. We were prepared (as much as we could be) with winter coats, winter hats, gloves and blankets. They helped a bit.
Matt took this picture of me at 1:20 - I'm wearing my Wrigley Clock hat with the 1:20 start time. I loved that he thought of snapping this picture!
It was so cold that the Dodger fans had to go to the Cubs' store to purchase blankets - Cubs' blankets! We had a great (secretive) laugh over that. Even took pictures to prove it.
Matt spotted Boog (above the Marquee sign) and Coom (above the 670 sign).
Unfortunately our Cubbies lost 7-3 -- however, we did see Marcus Stroman strike out his 1,000 batter! After the game, we took one of the shuttles back to the van and hit the road towards home, stopping for dinner at Lou Malnati's for some deep dish pizza.
Maddie and Will were inducted into the National Honor Society last week. Their hard work has paid off and are proud of them!
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