Jackson made a fantastic cake out of play-dough, while I picked up some chocolate cake slices via the Portillo’s drive-thru. Another quarantine birthday party!
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Barista in training
Check it out — a homemade vanilla latte!! Doesn’t it look sooooo yummy?!
By now you all are familiar with my longstanding struggles to get my much-needed caffeine fix, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
As a belated birthday gift to myself, I bought a milk frother on Amazon. By far one of my best nursing-baby-in-the-middle-of-the-night purchases! (Which, btw, is a very serious problem…I really need to find something else to keep me awake.)
Now I can enjoy a latte — or a cappuccino — every morning.
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Sheltering in place…
…while sheltering in place!!
The tornado sirens sent us into the basement for cover as 100 mph winds hit the area. Several tornados ended up touching down, including one in Wheaton and Lombard. It was crazy to look at its path later because it was west of us and heading right towards us but then hopped right over us only to land again just a bit farther east.
Our street didn’t get too much fallen debris, but later when I drove through town there were massive, massive trees ripped out of the ground and tons of damage everywhere.
First an infectious disease spreading around the world, then out of control wildfires on the west coast, and now tornados in Chicago… this year is crazy!
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Socially distanced wedding
People have gotten pretty creative in safely celebrating birthdays, graduations and other special occasions throughout the pandemic. Making front yard signs, having a parade of cars drive by your house, having local police/fire vehicles drive by and honk, etc. I’ve even heard of people renting food trucks to come to their driveway or special construction vehicles for kids to explore.
Weddings, of course, are no different. I know of some people who had their ceremonies live streamed online for guests to view. Others have postponed their event entirely.
My cousin Bobby and his bride Jenny opted not to wait. They had a small ceremony with just immediate family outside in the gardens at the Morton Arboretum, followed by a drive-by reception!
I had no clue what to expect, but it ended up being a lot of fun. And it will certainly go down as one of the most memorable weddings I’ll ever have been to!
My side of the family met beforehand on a side street and we all decorated our cars to make it extra festive. I brought musical instruments for us to play, and grabbed some “fancy” costumes from our costume bin.
The bride and groom and their immediate families were all dressed to the nines in typical formal attire and stood outside in the yard, greeting everybody as us guests drove by.
Unfortunately, by the time our car made it up to their house, Beckham was screaming (he doesn’t like it when the car isn’t moving fast) and Jackson was also crying and whining (I forgot to bring his water bottle).
Just like at real weddings, we should have left the kids at home…
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