Spontaneous Fun!

I have a confession to make. I am a planner, but that should not come as a surprise to anyone. However... (pause)... I had absolutely nothing on the schedule for today. Oh, the horror of it all! *gasp!* Well, maybe I did have some ideas just in case, BUT I was fully prepared to do nothing and be perfectly happy about it!

That being the case, I have no explanation for why I was wide awake at 5:30AM!!! But I'm so glad I was, because I checked Facebook and saw a late-night message from our good friends from college... who just happened to be in Chicago, too! They were flying back home late today, but wanted to try to meet up before they left! Yippee!  

The boys were so exhausted from Great America yesterday that they didn't wake up until well after 9:00AM, including D who slept upstairs at his grandma's again. But once they got up, they were clamoring for R to take the three of them to go shoot some hoops before R's cousin/D's mom came to pick him up.

Off they went to the park and luckily, they were able to play for a little while before a storm came through. My California boys have hardly ever experienced thunderstorms, so they were convinced that the rolling clouds were really a tornado forming. Silly children.

Building a storm shelter

I went along with Auntie A to help her pick up lunch from Panera for the hungry crowd, which now included D’s mom, older sister and brother. While we were waiting for our order, the text messages started flying about plans to get together with our friends later in the afternoon. By the time the food was ready to go, we were all set to meet up with them at another mutual friends’ home. What a deal – a two-for-one “old friends” special!

After a 45 minute drive (man, the tollways are so expensive now – and twice as much for us without an I-PASS!), we made it to our friends’ house in the western suburbs. Since our other friends had to get to the airport for an evening flight, we only had a short time to visit. Not nearly long enough, but still so much fun to be together again!

Oskee-wow-wow!

As a bonus, we had enough time to grab an early dinner together before they had to leave for the airport, so we hit Portillo’s for Italian beef sandwiches. Check off another place on our must-eat list!

By the time we got back to Chicago, my brother-in-law was home and my in-laws were over. The boys love to watch movies with their uncle, so they made sure to bring along our Netflix DVD of “Red Tails” from our house and immediately popped it in. Ehhh, just a so-so movie – the boys were expecting more dogfighting scenes. They must have used them all in the trailers!

I must say, if all unplanned, spontaneous days turned out as well as this one, I just might have to change my ways…