Catching up + a FIASCO + MESSI!

Ugh, did not mean to take a weeklong blog break!! But over the long Labor Day weekend I just wasn’t really in the mood and felt like people probably weren’t reading blogs anyway. And then the rest of the week flew by and it just did not seem to fit in. I am sorry, blog friends, that I have also been a bad blog reader this week. 😩

And now I’m in the conundrum that I have too much to catch up on and not a ton of time right now, either! Ethan has a soccer game later this morning + it’s my mom’s birthday + I want to squeeze in my cardio first.

Backing up to:

Labor Day Weekend

I was super looking forward to a low-key 3 day weekend. It ended up not being quite as low-key as I’d envisioned, but it was good.

Ivan and I went out solo on Friday night. Nothing much to report there.

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Saturday was a BIG CATCH UP day. I cleaned the house, Ivan did laundry/ cleaned the master bathroom, and I cleaned out the fridge, meal planned and got groceries. Not incredibly fun, but I listened to podcasts and opened the windows and loved the end result of a nice, clean house + fully stocked groceries.

Ivan had soccer in the late afternoon and the boys were off places, so I had a nice solo evening with a long gym session and leisurely walk with Charlie.

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On Sunday we made a rather last minute decision to take Ethan and drive to Milwaukee to wander around at Marquette University. We’d been wanting to get back down there for another look. (Ethan and I did an official tour last February, but Ivan couldn’t make it.)

It was a gorgeous day, too. In the morning before we left, Ivan and I biked over to my parents’ house! It’s about 20-minute ride each way. Just stayed for a short while to say hi and squeeze in a little cardio. 🙂

The one big downside to going to Marquette on Sunday was that being Labor Day weekend, and a Sunday, obviously campus was not the same as like, a school day. It was QUIET. But that’s okay. We got a very thorough look at all areas of campus and Ethan was glad we did it. He still liked it a lot.

We parked by the Milwaukee Pubic Market which was not quiet- it was PACKED!!! Like, could barely get in the door. We did though and had lunch at a Mexican place there.

Then walked the ~1 mile to campus from there through downtown before exploring campus.

We still got home in time for Ethan to go do something with friends, and Ivan and I watched Voicemails for Isabelle on Netflix which, man, what a tear-jerker!!

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Monday– our bonus day off!! Had a chill morning and then I pulled weeds for about an hour and 15 min (badly needed) while Ivan worked on power washing our fence.

I hit the gym for Upper Body A, and then Ivan and I picked up my parents to go furniture shopping. This was not really on my list for the weekend 🙃 but my parents had been shopping the Labor Day sales for new living room furniture. They wanted my “input”/ help deciding between some options they saw on Sunday.

Well, if you know my parents, you won’t be surprised to know that we spent over 3 HOURS at Penny Mustard. Ha. The good news, I finally helped them decide and they ordered a great new couch and 2 recliners plus a big area rug for their new house.

We got dinner after and that was basically the end of Monday! I think we watched an episode of Stick with Asher. (Loving that show!!)

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Tuesday meant back to work, boo. Both Sunday and Monday had felt rather busy out and about, so I welcomed a quiet evening at home.

The boys were both at practice (Asher volleyball, E soccer) and Ivan got home late- he went to watch our nephew’s JV soccer game.

I puttered in the kitchen and made chicken burrito bowls! It was DELICIOUS. Although, as I texted Lisa, “It’s a lot faster to just go to Chipotle.” 😅😅

This was not a hard meal to make, but just… putzy. Chopping all the stuff for pico, homemade salsa verde, the rice, marinated chicken, etc.. Just kind of a lot of steps! If I do this again (which I definitely want to, everyone loved), I want to pre-make the pico and salsa verde on the weekend.

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Wednesday was the highlight of the week. We went to Chicago to see Messi and Inter Miami play Chicago Fire!

As you know, we are HUGE MESSI FANS. Especially Ethan and Ivan, but I love him, too. This was definitely a bucket list item for Ivan. He’s been getting antsy because he’d never seen him play and obviously Messi is nearing retirement…

It was awesome. However, the getting there part was a major cluster!! Let’s see if I can concisely tell this story.

So, first of all, Ivan was the one who bought the tickets, so I wasn’t involved with any of the “planning”. He had just told me we needed to leave by 4. Okay, sounds good, I’ll be ready. (We were also bringing our nephew and one of Asher’s friends along.)

Well, as I sat there working on Wednesday morning, I started thinking a little. 4:00?? What time is the game? Isn’t it at 7:30? At Soldier Field, in downtown Chicago, which is at least like, 2.5 hours from our house with no traffic? And wouldn’t we expect a LOT of traffic in Chicago’s rush hour?? Especially when MESSI is playing?

I texted Ivan- where is our parking? He told me it was about a mile from the stadium. I did a little poking around online about the game and saw things like “Chicago Fire game completely sold out” and “city of Chicago warning extreme traffic delays”.

Um, yeah, 4:00 is not going to cut it. 🙄 I figured we needed to leave by like, 2:30! At the absolute latest. Earlier would have been better…

I spent my lunch semi-frantically trying to call Ivan (who was busy at work and not answering..), calling the other kids’ parents to see if they could release them from school earlier, then calling our boys’ schools…. Thankfully it all worked and everyone was here by around 2:30. We left at 2:45.

Things were going along fine until we pulled off at a McDonald’s to grab a few cheeseburgers and it ended up being the slowest McDonald’s on planet earth. When we (finally) resumed driving, we noticed the “get there” time on the GPS pretty drastically ticking upwards, later and later. Crap.

Long story short, traffic did, indeed, get very bad. We ended up exiting and taking a bunch of weird back streets, which were also backed up. Our GPS which originally had us arriving before 6 pm was now showing an arrival of like, 7:15. (Game started at 7:30…parking 1 mile away…). 😩😩😩

We finally made it to our parking garage (it took us 15 min to drive the last 0.8 miles…) at like 7:20 only to find a guy blocking it with a big FULL sign. We were like, WTF!? We have a paid reservation!!! I rolled my window down and told him that and he said, I don’t care, it’s full! Contact your parking company and ask for a refund.

WHAT!!!!??? The game was starting in like 10 minutes and now we had no parking, in jam-packed downtown Chicago. GREAT.

My mind was racing and we were in grid-locked traffic. Finally I was like, Give me your phone, Ivan. I went in the ticket app and transferred 5 of the 6 tickets to me and told him to let us out. I felt terrible, but there was no point in all of us missing the game! If anyone could find last minute parking, it would be Ivan, not me. lol.

So, we left Ivan in traffic and the boys and I all started running to Soldier Field. Like, full on running. Hahaha. (We were not the only ones doing this, I will say.)

We finally made it, now dripping with sweat (it was warm and humid), to the big line to get through security. The game had already just started.

The line moved slowly but eventually we get up to the security checkpoint and the lady goes, Oh, your purse is too big. WHAT?!?!?! This little dinky purse I brought?! (In fairness, this is my fault. I should have triple checked this. I do not go to a lot of big events/concerts like this so it didn’t really cross my mind- this purse is quite small and I took it Garth Brooks so I didn’t give it much thought!)

But after everything so far, let me just say I was not in the mood for this. We were already late, Ivan was who-knows-where, the tickets were pricey, I had sweat dripping down my back and 4 teen boys with me and now they won’t let us in?!? I literally almost got into a brawl with the security lady and it was not my finest moment there. 😅😅 (She was telling me to go back down this long ramp, down the street, around the corner, and find a locker, which sounded like a 20 minute long endeavor. Or, I could turn over my purse and donate it. Lady I’m not donating my Coach purse! The only decent purse I own!) There was literally nothing in my purse except my phone, my little wallet and a lip gloss….

I finally gave up and realized she was not going to cave and was frankly kind of panicking. And sweaty. I needed to get rid of this purse! There was a tree grove/ grassy landscaping area along the entrance to the stadium, all dark. The boys ended up jumping over a railing and taking my (empty) purse in there and shoving it down inside a bush to hide it! 😅😅 Figured I’d take my chances on no thieves searching inside the bushes….

Now purse-less, we finally made it through the security gates, made it to our seats, where of course, random people were sitting in them. Because why not. The place was packed, so then we had to be “those people” blocking the staircase and standing in front of everyone while Asher squeezed in and basically kicked the people out. (They were our seats.)

Miraculously, Ivan showed up right then too!! I could not believe he made it there that quickly. (Well, it really wasn’t that quick- we lost a lot of time fighting with the security lady about my purse. 😆 ) He was also dripping with sweat, so I knew he had also run. I asked where he left the car….?!?! Ah, well, he parked it illegally in an open spot labeled a “tow away zone”. NICE. 😬😅 He said, “Chicago is packed. They can’t possibly tow every car parked illegally tonight, can they??” LET’S HOPE NOT…..

All in all, we missed about… 10-15 minutes of the game. Which sucked. But, we made it!! HA.

As we were running, I was saying to the boys, ” THIS IS WHY I AM THE ONE WHO PLANS OUR VACATIONS!!!!!” (If I had been in charge of this, I probably would have planned for us to leave before noon, get there for an early dinner downtown, and arrive to the game well in advance.)

Once my heart rate settled down, lol, it was so fun!!

The crowd was insane and they announced it was “record attendance” for a Chicago Fire game.

It was seriously so cool to see Messi play in the flesh. Experience of a lifetime for us!!

After the game, it was the moment(s) of truth. Would my purse still be there?! YES! Even more importantly, would the van still be there?!?! YES!!! It was! Thank God. Hahaha.

Thankfully the traffic home was fine! No big backups. We stopped for tacos at like 11 pm.

After drop offs, it was after 1 a.m. before we made it home. Exhausted- but relieved it all worked out. We had a great time (in the end, lol). But note to self- LEAVE WAY EARLIER FOR ANY EVENT IN CHICAGO. And I need to buy one of those clear purses. 😆

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Thursday was mostly a recovery day! I called Ethan out of his first mod so he could start a little later. I had to work, of course, but slept in until 7.

I got to the gym on my lunch and then we had decided to not go to Ethan’s Thurs pm soccer game. It was pretty far away and there was going to be a live stream!

We stayed home, I made a healthy but tasty dinner of tilapia, broccoli and rice, and we watched Ethan play on TV. 🙂

He scored a banger of a goal! And had a couple assists. It was frankly awesome to watch him play from the comfort of my couch in my PJ pants. Haha.

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And finally, Friday. I had a BUSY work day with wayyyyy too many meetings for a Friday. Hit the gym in the morning (have I mentioned how much I am LOVING getting my strength/ gym workouts in Monday-Tuesday- Thursday-Friday?!? It’s so awesome going into the weekend without those longer gym sessions on my “to do list”.).

Today, Saturday, is my mom’s birthday and we’re going out tonight, so we opted to stay in last night. Just hung out and I went in the hot tub for the first time in a long time!

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So there you go. That was my week! Lots going on, as usual I guess. Hopefully I’ll have time next week to stay more connected to the blog. 🙂

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for my mom! Happy birthday, mom! 76 today!