I am Thankful...

Happy Thanksgiving 2009.

The Greffet's Take On Chicago!

Here's a few more from our recent trip to the Windy City

And then came the fun part...

Here's the girls, the first (and only) time we wore our bike helmets...

And Jennie and I met a crazy guy showing his support for his friend! I'm all about the support, but as you will see later, we were nearly frozen and we were layered!

Our Fearless Leader! Jim spent most of the day staring at a map trying to figure out the most time-efficient way to navigate through downtown Chicago whilst keeping us at a place where we would not be stranded on the "wrong side" of the marathon line...

And Jennie spent most of the day wishing Jim had better navigational skills, and wondering when my camera would break or my hands would get frostbite so I would stop annoying everyone with my relentless picture-taking...(the answer is never!)

LOL...at mile marker 10-ish, we stood for roughly an hour and a half searching for Mark...to no avail! During this time, as we froze and Jennie couldn't feel her legs, she decided to wrap her right leg up in the only spare piece of clothing we had (leaving her left leg to go numb)...notice the look of anguish on Jennie's face, and the mockery on Joanie's...

(This picture is out of place, so don't let the look of comfort on their faces fool you!) This is from the first day we had the bikes. Jim and Joanie look happy when they haven't been riding for 4 hours, right:

Sibling love...

Fun times, good laughs...

Oh, Chicago: I may like your city...but I still hate the Cubbies! :)

Way to go, Mark!

Congratulations to my FIL, Mark, for finishing the Chicago marathon with flying colors! In freezing weather, he toughed it out to impress and inspire us all. Here's the gang pre-race

He brought it home for Kansas...and the Greffet family!

We tried desperately to find him at 3 different check points during the race, but between 40,000 other runners and about 25% of them wearing a white shirt and blue hat, we had little luck...until the last mile! (Next year, we will use the GPS tracker, for sure...and we're getting Mark an outfit to help him stand out!)

So Jim "pirated" the race and hopped in to cheer his dad on! I think Jim's total miles ran for the day was roughly 0.05 (est.); Mark's total miles for the day: 26.2!

And here's the champ, post-race...

Can't wait for Chicago 2010!

As Joanie's poster read, "If it was easy, I would do it!"

I have much more to share, including plenty of random pictures (I think everyone finally understands why Jim gets so annoyed with my incessant picture-taking!) and some funny tandem-biking stories! :)

Ohhhh Chicago!

Jim and I are off to Chi-town this weekend to watch his dad run in the marathon!

Mr. Jack will spend a whole weekend with Nani, Papa, CC, Jason, and Poppy…and as much as I will miss him, I think he’s just going to go ballistic spending so much time with Nani! (No offense to anyone else, but Jack is just head over heels for her!)

On Friday night we’re heading up to Bolingbrook to check out the sites and visit with the locals GO TO IKEA! (Doing a happy dance!) I know, right!??! E-x-c-i-t-i-n-g! I already have lists planned out and ideas in my head, so I probably won’t even be able to sleep Friday night with so much excitement.

And then it will be off to the city I hate to love…hopefully finding a bar to relax and watch the Cards game! My funny, funny, SIL, Jennie has some hilarious idea that we will be biking along with the marathon…and seeing as I haven’t ridden a bike in +10 years, I should be back with some good stories to share and hopefully some fun pictures.

Ps: Go CARDS!

My pumpkins...

I love my Pumpkins...Jack and the orange ones!

I used the idea from Living with Lindsay to recreate the Pottery Barn-style pumpkins. I'm obsessed! I love my little Spider pumpkin (even though he isn't anatomically correct because he only has 6 legs!) Check out her tutorial and make your own pumpkins!

And the other option I made was the Pirate pumpkin...Arrrrrrgh!

But this will always be my favorite Pumpkin:

And these two make quite a pair...l-o-v-e!

Happy Halloween!

Fall

Fall is here! (and don't let the exclamation point fool you...I am not excited about it! I'm still mourning the loss of summer!)

But we had an awesome time at the company picnic on Saturday (despite the wind whipping off the river). It was complete with a pumpkin hunt, petting zoo, playground, and tons of new friends for Jack to play with!

But he had the most fun with Nani ('cause she's like his BEST friend!)

Here's Jack showing off his loot from the pumpkin hunt!

and with his new buddy, Will...

Family time!

Happy Fall! (kinda...)

up and down, up and down!

More pictures from our vacation. Here's me and Jack in the pool:

He loves to shout, "Up and down! Up and down!"

So happy!