A 4-part busy Saturday; now ready for a quiet day!

This past week has been FUN! And, I’m tired now. Hahaha.

Yesterday was our last “action” day of this Thanksgiving week, which as you know by now, has been full of theater performances, shopping, cooking, lots of amazing family time, Thanksgiving, decorating, work and more.

My parents were slated to leave yesterday (Saturday), after being here since last Sunday. (The time absolutely flew by- it did NOT feel like they were here almost a week!) The boys had off school all week, too, so that added to the full feeling of the week. 🙂 Oh, and I had to work most days, too.

Here was our Saturday in 4 parts:

Part 1

It was an early start- Ethan had to work at 7 a.m. My mom rode along with me and we dropped him off. Then, I left by 7:30 a.m. with Asher for an 8 am swim practice. It was at the far-away pool, so I sat in the car and waited from 8-9:20.

Back home by ~9:45 or so, my parents were packing up and portioning off some Thanksgiving leftovers to take home!

Then, because Asher’s birthday is next week and we likely won’t see my parents again before then, they had him open his birthday gifts.

He will be 13! Officially at the age that he really doesn’t want “toys” anymore. His main gifts from my parents included:

• Xbox gift cards (a major fan favorite around here)
• a very cool desk lamp for his room (he had asked for one as he likes to sit and draw; this one has different settings, a built-in LED clock and a wireless charging station)
• a heated electric blanket (to snuggle up with while he plays video games).

He was thrilled with his gifts. 🙂

Then I had to jump in the shower, my parents left, and it was on to Part 2.

Part 2

Ethan only worked until 11 because we had afternoon plans. First up was going out to watch the Mexico vs Argentina World Cup game.

This was a tricky game, because obviously we are Team Mexico around here. But…. Argentina’s national team also has Lionel Messi on it, who is probably Ivan’s favorite soccer player in the world (and arguably the best soccer player in the world, too).

He kept saying, I want them to tie!

We went to “our” Mexican restaurant and sat up at the bar in front of the 3 big screen TVs.

It was quiet when we arrived, but a bunch of other Mexico fans filled in behind us for the game too. It was really fun! The boys were super into it.

Skipping ahead… (Mexico lost, 0-2. BOO. At least it was Messi who scored the first goal- Ivan said it would be worse if some random not-so-good soccer player scored on them. Getting schooled by Messi feels a little more acceptable, because he’s just sooo talented.)

Part 3

As soon as that game ended, we jumped in Ivan’s brother’s car (who met us there) and he dropped us off at the University of Wisconsin Badger’s football stadium (Camp Randall) for the UW vs. Minnesota football game! We were running late (due to the soccer game) and didn’t want to take time to mess around with trying to park closer to the stadium.

This was the boys’ first live football game (and Ivan’s, too). I had season tickets a million years ago during my college days, but it’s been a LONG time since I was at a Badgers football game.

They are super fun! Madison is literally the best college town. The atmosphere is crazy and the traditions and culture run deep. It’s my alma mater, so it’s always great to go back and sing those old songs, too. 🙂 Once a Badger, always a Badger. 🙂 (Even though I honestly don’t really follow Big10 football much at all…. 😬)

The UW Marching Band is out of this world good. The half-time show featured music from ABBA! Yay! So fun.

A nice man sitting behind us insisted on taking a family photo:

It was relatively warm at the start, but got persistently colder as the sun went down. Still, for an end of November game in Wisconsin?? It could have been MUCH WORSE.

It was a very exciting game. UW lost in a close finish which went right down to the wire. 😦 Not a good day for our sports teams, was it.

After the game, we did not have a ride back to our far-away car. (Ivan’s brother had plans, so he couldn’t pick us back up.) We walked the almost 2 miles back to the car which actually was not that bad. It was just pretty COLD by that point, but we were walking super fast. (Or as fast as we could through the sea of Badger and Gopher fans on the sidewalks.)

I forced the kids to stop for a picture. They are smiling here, but there were serious protests just seconds before and after this:

We breezed past the state Capitol, up close and personal:

Everything was so pretty down there!

Part 4

Finally, Part 4 involved getting home and turning on the fireplace. Brrr we were cold. Ivan and I put on the Netflix movie The Good Nurse. (The boys were in their rooms, but Ethan ended up joining us after a while.)

Have you heard of it? It’s based on a book (and it’s a true story), about a nurse who serially kills patients by adding a bunch of insulin to their normal saline IV bags.

It’s done in such a manner that the hospitals can’t exactly “catch” him, though; the deaths do seem rather sudden/ unexplained, but these are very sick ICU patients, so death isn’t necessarily unexpected, either. And due to liability/ press concerns, the hospitals don’t really want to fully investigate and draw tons of negative attention or legal issues…. So after a few suspicious deaths but no hard proof, they always end up just firing him for “unrelated reasons” (to essentially make the problem go away)…. meaning he then goes on to another hospital and does it again. And again. And again.

It is sooooo creepy!! The book was amazing- I read it years ago (being a nurse myself, it was talked about a lot on my inpatient unit and a bunch of us nurses read it).

Highly recommend the book. I thought the movie was good; the book was great.

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And now, on to Sunday- a WIDE OPEN DAY with no plans!!! Yes. I’m excited for a low key day now, after lots of fun. I have a million things I want to do, but I’m just happy to have some time to do what I want/ need to do, on my own. 🙂

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for a very fun family afternoon yesterday. I was feeling a little tired/ “not in the mood” really to go to the Badgers game, beforehand. But as I expected, once we were there, I was so glad we did. 🙂