Socctoberfest

Morgan's soccer team had a tournament this past weekend, Socctoberfest. It was surprisingly hot for late September. Both days were high 80's and sunny. Their first game was at 12:00 on Saturday. They played against Galaxy 2012 Aspire and lost 3-1. Morgan scored their team's only goal. Since we had a break between games, we brought a picnic and relaxed in the shade. Abby and her dad joined us.

The second game was at 3:15 Saturday afternoon against Eclipse 2013 ECNL. The girls did better this game and won 4-0. Avery took some pictures for me, so I actually have something to post! :)

It was so hot! Luckily, the Kona Ice truck was close to our field, so the girls got those to have on the way home.

On Sunday, the girls played against Galaxy again for the semi-final. It was a tough game and they lost 2-4. We ended up with 3rd place in our bracket. It was really hot again. We stopped off for some gear and more Kona Ice before heading home.

We had no out of town tournaments this season, which is odd. With the select team, you usually have one out of town tournament a season. Hopefully, they get one in the Spring.

Belly rubs

When your dog requests a belly rub, you give him a belly rub! :)

Herrick Spartans Basketball

Morgan tried out for the Herrick Girls 7th Grade Basketball team this past week. They had two days of tryouts on Wednesday and Friday before school from 6:30 - 8:00 AM. There were 24 girls that tried out. On Friday afternoon, they narrowed the group down to 16 girls. Morgan was really excited that she and her friends all made the first cut. The final tryout was on Tuesday morning before school again at 6:30 AM. The final list of 12 girls came out on Tuesday night and Morgan made the team! She is really excited to be on the team! Unfortunately, her friends she tried out with didn't make the team. But, knowing her, she'll make friends with the other girls on the team fast.

Go Spartans!

Soccer game

Morgan's team is playing in the NPL again this season, but they have the teams split into brackets this time. So, we are in the lower bracket, which hopefully means we'll win a few more games this year! We won the first game 4-1 and lost the second game 2-3.

They had a game tonight and tied 2-2. Morgan scored one of the goals! It was a late game - 8:30 PM in Schaumburg, which means we didn't get home until about 10:45 PM.

Dance Team Kick-Off Cook-Out

Every year, the dance studio holds a big BBQ at Ty Warner park to kick off the new dance competition season. They also get their dance "siblings" and "family" at this event. They break the girls up into groups with older and younger kids to help the newer kids get acclimated to the competition teams.

They gave all the kids balloons that they had to pop to find out who their sibling was. And on the tag, it had a picture which says which "family" they were in. Here's Avery, Kinsley and Kendra looking at their tags.

Then, Avery and Kinsley realized they were in the same family!

Yay!

After popping all the balloons and locating their families, they take pictures together. Here's Avery's dance "family".

Here's hoping for a great season!

Basketball shootout

Morgan had a basketball shootout for Team MC on Sunday morning. We all got up early and headed to Romeoville for the games. Her first game was at 8:05 AM. They won the first game 24-22. It was a really good and competitive game. They lost the second game 31-19. :(

There was an hour break between games, so we watched some of the other games.

Weekend fun!

My parents came up for the weekend to celebrate Erin's and my birthdays. You know it's a fun weekend with my Mom and Erin when you see this on the table! We love a little Word Yahtzee and wine! Also, Rummikub and wine! I guess just anything and wine - ha!

Avery had a photo shoot for dance team on Saturday from 10-3. Here she is getting ready. She does her own make-up and hair these days!

They had to dress in all black and could leave their hair down. They also had to bring an all white outfit for a special photo (which ended up involving fog... can't wait to see those!)

On Saturday night, we hosted everyone at our house for a birthday party. Matt grilled up all the meat my parents had bought for vacation that they didn't get to bring because my mom broke her knee cap. Erin order cakes from Portillo's - yum!

Such a fun night with everyone! Glad my mom is more mobile now!

AT&T - OUT, Verizon - IN

We have been talking about getting the girls cell phones for their 13th birthday for a while now. We currently pay a lot each month for our AT&T service, so were worried about how adding two more phone lines was going to impact our bill. 

I first went into AT&T to talk to a guy named Diego about adding two more lines to our existing plan and buying two new phones. I don't even know how to explain the interaction I had with this AT&T salesperson besides just really frustrating. For some reason, he didn't believe who I said I was, despite me showing him my driver's license with an address that matched my account address. I'm the main person on the account, since we moved Matt to my cell phone plan when we got married. So, that wasn't the issue. The AT&T guy pulled up my account on his screen, so I knew he had all of my information. He says to me "Did you ever have a different name?". I say "Yes, before I got married". He just says "Hmmm", like super skeptical. He kept asking me questions trying to "confirm who I was" (his words), but he was like smirking and acting weird, so I thought maybe he was joking around with me. But, he was not. It was really strange. I asked him if we could switch the two watch lines to phone lines and buy phones. He asked "which two lines are the watch lines?" Um, dude, I can see on the screen the two lines next to pictures of watches, so I know you can tell which two are watch lines. At one point, I asked him "Why is this so hard to do? I am just asking for a price quote. I'm not going to buy anything today." I didn't want to go all Karen on this guy but I was feeling it bubble up in me! Like, why would I come into the store and try to get a price quote on someone else's account? What would be the motivation for that? There was another person waiting behind me and she kept loudly sighing throughout this whole interaction (which was also super annoying). In the end, he gave me a bogus quote that didn't have any of the monthly taxes/fees included or the price of the new phones. It was a waste of my time. Oh, and I did find out that we've been paying way too much because he says to me that if we had 4 phone lines instead of just 2 phone lines, we would already have a lower monthly cost because of the "multi-line discount" (our 2 watch lines don't count towards this). Um, you're just digging your grave here, AT&T.

I next went to Verizon and talked with a guy named Oz. He was great! I told him what we wanted and he made it happen. I spent less time there than I did at AT&T, and we were pricing out a whole new account. He even gave me quotes with different options (like if we traded in our phones or not, etc). The quotes included all the taxes/fees/etc so we could see exactly what our bill would look like. Plus, we would all get new phones for switching carriers (that sealed the deal on our decision!)

Fast forward to today... Matt and I went to the Verizon store to officially sign up. It all went smoothly. Matt and I were able to get the new iPhone 17 Pro Max's and we got the girls new iPhone 17's. And as part of some promotion they were doing, the girls got new Apple Watches. Our bill is not that different than what we were paying with AT&T, but now we have 4 phone lines with all new phones and 2 watch lines with new watches. I think we did pretty well. We showed the girls their new phones and they are super excited for their birthday to come!

(No, this is not a commercial for Verizon... ha!)

7th Grade School Pictures

The girls had school pictures on the first day of school. They use these for their school IDs, too. Can't believe how much older they are looking these days - yikes!

Father Daughter Weekend!

While I was away for my girls' trip in St. Louis, the girls were having a great time with Matt!

They kicked off their weekend with dinner at Weber Grill on Friday night. This is always a fan favorite!

On Saturday, they visited Ruth and took her out to lunch at the Olive Garden. Another favorite dining spot!

On Saturday night, they went out for a fancy steak dinner at Gibson's. The girls really loved when we went out in the Dells to the Del-Bar steakhouse, so they asked if we could do that in our town. Of course, Matt was happy to take them out!

Morgan loves shrimp cocktail!

Morgan got the fish with mashed potatoes.

Avery got her favorite - pork chop! (It's like the only meat she'll eat besides McDonald's cheeseburgers)

The girls mentioned their birthday was coming up and the waitress said "well, that's close enough!" And she brought them this gigantic chocolate mousse cake! And they sang the birthday chant to them! So much fun!

On Sunday, they went to watch Grayson play football. My dad came up to see the games, so they got to hang out with him.

Girls Trip - St. Louis

I met up with JJ and Crystal in St. Louis this past weekend for a Girls Trip. We stayed in St. Charles at the Ameristar Casino. Crystal's friend comped us a great room!

On Friday, we went to Bella Vino Wine Bar for drinks and apps. Afterwards, we walked around the area through the shops and the craft fair. There was a store with all kinds of fun things... I thought these earrings were so crazy!

We headed back to the sports bar at the casino to watch some football. We also grabbed some more drinks and apps.

On Saturday, we had brunch at the hotel and then took an Uber to Augusta, MO to tour some wineries. We started off at Augusta Winery, but their outdoor beer garden wasn't opening for another 45 minutes, so we went over to the next winery, Mount Pleasant.

At Mount Pleasant, we did a wine tasting. All very good!

Then, we decided to do the chocolate port shot - port in a little chocolate cup.

I'm not sure we were all that jazzed by the port shot. I love this picture - all of our faces are like "um, that wasn't great!"

Then, we walked around the winery and got a bottle of wine to enjoy in the beer garden.

I wanted to try the wine slushy... it was surprisingly stronger than it first seemed!

After we finished up at Mount Pleasant, we went back to Augusta Winery. With a quick stop off at the Friendship Garden!

No other pictures from the Augusta Winery, but the band was great! JJ and I had a wine tasting flight. We also got some sangria which was really fresh and delicious. They had a small store where we bought some cheese, pretzels and sausage, which really hit the spot. While we were there, they did some Taylor Swift trivia and had some vendors selling random things. It was a nice afternoon!

On our way back to St. Charles, the Uber driver stopped off at this picture spot that has huge butterflies on the side of the cliff. Also, there are painted silos at the same stop.

Crystal took a pic of us taking a selfie

And here's the selfie!

Our Uber driver took our picture - he was great!

On Saturday night, we went to a cooking demonstration class at the Kitchen Conservatory. It was a Taylor Swift themed night, so they played TS songs and made foods that are favorites of hers. So, we had honey mustard salmon, coconut rice and grilled green beans. We also had a fun drink with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at this cute little spot in St. Charles called the Bike Stop Cafe. As always, it was fun to catch up with JJ and Crystal!