broken ankle

Markel Family Christmas Getaway–Day Two

Day two of our Christmas Getaway was a BIG DAY. A day I’ve been planning and hoping for for years…the day where I would show the Fab Five Christmas in Chicago!

But first, a look at the view from our 11th floor room in the tower at Pheasant Run. We’ve never had a north facing view before, and while we missed being able to see the skyscrapers in Chicago that we’ve been accustomed to (with the way the weather was in Chicago last weekend, there’s no way we would have been able to see them anyway!), it was fun to see something different. It was also nice of Chicago to hang onto the snow until we had a chance to really see it, because it was pretty much gone by the end of the day!

We enjoyed a hearty breakfast at Pheasant Run’s Jambalaya restaurant, compliments of the resort. It was a great meal…I especially enjoyed my eggs Benedict, a rare treat for a person like me who doesn’t usually eat breakfast!

And then we headed out. Our first stop was the Museum of Science and Industry, using the reciprocity that comes with our St. Louis Science Center membership to get in for free! We were there to see only one thing…the “Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light” display, something I enjoyed as a child who grew up in the Chicago suburbs. It’s much bigger than I remember it being, and we were definitely not disappointed…I think it took us over an hour to see all of the trees and other displays!

After the museum, we stopped briefly to take a look a Lake Michigan, which was wild…way wilder than the children have ever seen it, and possibly more so than I ever have! We really enjoyed watching the waves crash against the shore! It was a grander display of wind and waves than we even saw the two times we’ve visited the ocean!

We then headed into the heart of downtown, a harrowing experience that involved a crowded parking garage with narrow spiral ramps that terrify me, and no spaces available until we hit the 10th floor. I can’t tell you how glad I was that Ryan was driving! Despite my terror, it was a good place to park, and fairly close to everything I hoped to see. It was only a short few blocks’ walk to Millennium Park, where we saw the city Christmas tree:

And the “Bean.” Since Ryan hasn’t had the opportunity to see it with us the last few years we’ve visited the city in May, I made sure to get a picture of him with the children in front of it:

Of course I had to show the children the Art Institute lions with their wreath manes:

The number one thing I wanted to share with the children was the Chicago Christkindlmarket. I have happy memories of going downtown with Ryan when we were in college and having lunch and shopping at the stalls, and I really wanted the Fab Five to have that experience, too. It was so rainy and windy when we were there, though, that we didn’t spend much time at the market. We had a snack (not a full meal), and didn’t get to do any browsing. I didn’t even get a picture of the children there, although I did get a few shots of the market:

We then went to Marshall Field’s of Blessed Memory, where I wanted the children to see the Christmas decorations, especially the tree in the Walnut Room. And that’s when the second disappointment of the day occurred, because I discovered that apparently, you can no longer go up to the eighth floor and view the Walnut Room and its tree from above. I was not happy about that, but we did still buy a tin of Frango mints, so it wasn’t a wasted trip. And by the time we had purchased our treat to take home, the rain had stopped, so we could admire the Christmas windows outside:

After we finally made it back to the car (the garage was right across from Macy’s, but I was over using my knee scooter, especially with all the standing water that had collected everywhere, so I wasn’t moving too fast), we drove over to the Adler Planetarium so the Fab Five could see the city at night. Due to the weather, they really only saw the lower third of the city, but at least they got an idea of what Chicago’s night skyline looks like:

We decided to take the long way back to the resort, so we got on North Avenue basically where it begins in the city, and drove…and drove…and drove some more. There was traffic and construction and too many potholes to count. But it was still kind of fun (other than the potholes), and we stopped for a favorite treat from our college days on the way…Italian ice from Johnnie’s. This was a first for the Fab Five, and they really enjoyed it.

When we got back to Pheasant Run, we headed back down to Bourbon Street to see the light show again…this time, we caught it in its entirety, and then saw it again!

When we got back to our room, we indulged in one of favorite hotel activities…watching the Food Network on cable TV. It was hard to believe our second night at the hotel was also our last, but we still had a day of fun to look forward to on Sunday!

Snow Boot

We had a series of somewhat unexpected snow showers yesterday, including one that occurred right during the time that I went to pick Moose up from school. Now, I’m not one to mind the cold, and with a few exceptions, I haven’t even bothered to wear a sock on my foot under my CAM boot, which means my toes are usually exposed to the weather. That also doesn’t bother me. I was surprised, though, at how quickly the snow accumulated on top of the boot, while my good foot in a normal shoe didn’t see accumulation like this. I don’t know why it happened (I’m guessing the greater surface area had something to do with it), but it was kind of amusing!

Sartorial Saturday–Holiday Harlequin

I have waited so long to wear this amazing dress from Pinup Girl Clothing, and now that it’s Christmastime, I get to accessorize it with…a CAM boot. Sigh. But this dress is so gorgeous, it makes the boot look good!

This is a new style dress for me…the Genevieve. When this gorgeous Holiday Harlequin print was on sale over the summer, I immediately knew it had to be mine. And then I thought about it, and thought about it some more, because it was a final sale item, and I was nervous about trying out a new style of dress that wasn’t returnable. But I had a birthday gift certificate from the children burning a hole in my pocket, so I finally decided to take the plunge.

I’m so glad I did! The fit is great, the twirl factor is outstanding, and I feel like I just stepped out of my very favorite Christmas movie, White Christmas, which is pretty much the highest compliment I can give a piece of clothing. It’s the perfect dress for the holiday season!

In addition to the CAM boot, I paired it with some actual accessories, too, including Splendette Duchess Bangles in varying shades of red, green, and white, and my favorite Christmas tree brooch:

I love this dress so much, and I’m looking forward to wearing it to several special events over the course of the Christmas season…this truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

A Markel Family Thanksgiving, Broken Ankle Edition

Normally, Thanksgiving in our house is a three-day affair, beginning on Wednesday (pie day) and culminating the day after. Because of my broken ankle, this year Thanksgiving had to be a four-day holiday. I started by baking four pies (S’mores, Nutella, pecan, and pumpkin), on Tuesday, (and we had a regular school day, too!), in addition to making the cranberry sauce and chopping the vegetables for the stuffing and the turkey soup. I knew there was no way I could do all of that, plus the other five pies and stuffing prep on Wednesday, and I’m glad I planned it that way, because even just that was a lot of work on my booted leg!

On Wednesday, the other five pies were prepared (banana cream, caramel apple made by Bunny, strawberry, cranberry apple, and butterscotch), plus the stuffing was finished and ready to go in the slow cooker Thursday morning. We also read all of our favorite Thanksgiving stories (it was the least I could do to make up for the lack of our regularly scheduled Thanksgiving school) and made hand and footprint turkeys. This was an exhausting day!

I do have to admit, all the pies did look really nice!

Of course, Thursday was the Big Day. There was more work, including giving the turkey a bath in the sink and prepping the rest of the menu. We also watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and the National Dog Show, which are Thanksgiving highlights for me. I also love setting a nice table for a holiday!

In case you’re wondering, my motivation for doing all of this even with a broken ankle was the Fab Five. I have been aware that “the days are long, but the years are short” since the very beginning, and that’s becoming even more real now that we’re getting closer to the time when the children will all start scattering as they reach adulthood.

We had our usual Thanksgiving feast…roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, carrots, Brussel sprouts, green beans with almonds, cranberry sauce, and rolls with butter:

Red and white wine, and red and white sparkling grape juice accompanied our meal:

It was a delicious feast!

And then, after much clean-up, the annual watching of Holiday Inn, and the boiling of the carcass for turkey soup, it was pie time!

I went with my favorite, cranberry apple, plus the Thanksgiving standard of pumpkin pie with whipped cream:

The celebration continued this morning with our traditional day after Thanksgiving breakfast of pie:

And then, something new this year! Moose got to march in the town parade with his school’s band. We’ve never attended before, and despite the wind, it was a lot of fun!

This year, our annual day after Thanksgiving Lego build didn’t feature a Winter Village set. Instead, I carried the year’s Harry Potter theme through to Thanksgiving, and we built the Whomping Willow set, plus a free-with-purchase Diagon Alley set.

And then turkey soup for dinner!

And more pie for dessert…this time, I went with the chocolate-based pies…S’mores and Nutella.

And that’s the end of another Thanksgiving in the Markel house. We didn’t go to downtown Belleville following our turkey soup dinner this year, partly because we don’t enjoy the tree-lighting as much without the community sing they used to have, and partly because rain postponed some of the other activities. But almost everything else went according to our normal Thanksgiving traditions, even if the timing of some them were altered a bit…but there was no way I was going to allow a broken ankle to ruin our holiday!

2018-19 School Year–Week Fourteen

I think this week of school felt a bit more “normal,” although we haven’t had school in the actual schoolroom since I broke my ankle. We’ve been making do with having our lessons in either the living room or even my bedroom.

Turkey and Bunny worked more with factorials this week, and they both scored 100% on the test, so it was a good math week! In chemistry, they learned about physical and chemical changes, as well as density, and did a few experiments to illustrate those concepts. Next week, they get to balance chemical equations, which was always one of my favorite parts of chemistry! They finally finished Act Three of Romeo and Juliet, and got to write a short story in the style of experimental fiction in creative writing, which was a lot of fun to read!

Ladybug worked with fractions in math, which was a nice follow-up to her review of decimals last week. Her science lessons focused on horse health, especially as related to the digestive system and vision. She also started her literature study of Justin Morgan had a Horse. In history, she learned about the feudal systems of medieval England and Japan, and their knights and samurai.

Chickadee practiced more subtraction and learned how to count by 2s in math. She also reviewed counting coins. She did a great job on her spelling lessons this week! She is continuing to improve in reading and handwriting, and she loves the stories in Treasures from Grandma.

We also had an unexpected mid-November snowstorm this week, which gave Moose a snow day. Since we had already taken the day off on Monday with him for Veteran’s Day, we still had school, but the children did have time to go out and play in the snow for about an hour yesterday afternoon. Bunny came in and grabbed my phone to take a picture of their snow creation to show me (snow and a broken ankle don’t really mix!)…I love their interpretation of Iron Man and Spider-Man:

The one thing we didn’t do this week that we normally would have was our annual “Thanksgiving School.” I place the blame for that partly on my ankle, and partly on the fact that Thanksgiving is so early this year. We weren’t going to be able to take our normal field trip to Cahokia Mounds, because there’s just too much climbing there for me right now, but I didn’t mean to skip over the books and crafts we should have been doing. I’m hoping to make up for it a little bit next week, with the reading of at least some of our favorite Thanksgiving books, and our favorite Thanksgiving craft: hand and footprint turkeys, but we’ll just have to see how it goes. At least we’ve more or less kept up with our Thankful Tree…I am thankful for many things, especially this CAM boot that allows me to walk around more than I would have been able to in a cast, and all of my helpers who have kept the house running!

2018-19 School Year–Weeks Twelve and Thirteen

What a week(s)!

Originally, I was going to do my weekly wrap-up for week twelve last Sunday…a few days late, because I was feeling lazy last Friday, and I wanted to share our Extra Life for Kids marathon on Saturday. Which I did…kind of. Except that on Saturday, in the middle of the marathon, I broke my ankle. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was lucky I could remember how to type anything, much less a homeschool wrap-up, so instead, I saved it to go with this week’s summary. Despite my ankle, we had a mostly normal week of school, except for the part where we did all of our subjects downstairs, because I couldn’t make it upstairs to the school room!

Turkey and Bunny have had all kinds of fun in math. They learned about Paschal’s Triangle, factorials, and binomial theorem. In chemistry, they learned about molecular geometry and non polar and polar covalent bonds. Their creative writing assignment had them writing a scene from a play, which went nicely with their continued study of Romeo and Juliet. In history, they studied Justinian, among other things (I think…it’s been a very long week!).

Ladybug got to learn about horses’ hooves and teeth in science. In math, she has been working with decimals. Her history lessons focused on medieval England…Edward the Confessor, the Norman conquest, the development of the English language, and the history of English castles. So basically all my favorite stuff! She’s almost done with Misty of Chincoteague…had it not been for the topsy-turvy week thanks to my broken ankle, she probably would have finished it already, and started her next horse literature selection, Justin Morgan Had a Horse.

Chickadee continued to work on subtraction in math. She practiced reading words that begin with blended sounds. She also enjoyed learning about English castles…she would like to play hide and seek in one! We finished Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic, and she’s a little sad at how quickly the books are going. We get to start Treasures from Grandma next, which I’m really looking forward to, because it contains some of my favorite stories to share!

We’ve also been trying to remember to do a thankful leaf every day. That’s been a little challenging, because the tree is upstairs, and we’ve been doing school downstairs, but I’m sure we’ll catch up. I always love seeing what the children are thankful for, and how that reflects what we’ve been doing!

 

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Quote of the Day

This was basically the status of our home this week, as everybody tried to take over the jobs I’m pretty sure that they hadn’t really even noticed that I usually do. Fortunately, I’m getting a little better at moving around every day, so they won’t have to pick up all the slack for me too much longer!

“It took 15,000 men to take my place!” Mary Wickes as Emma Allen in White Christmas

Thirteen!

Today is Moose’s 13th birthday!!! Yes, we now have three teenagers in the house!

He starts school a little later this year than he has in previous years, so he had plenty of time to open his gifts this morning. The humor in him receiving a Lego City hospital from us (which I purchased months ago) was not lost on me, considering the events of the last week.

Things were even more fortuitous than that, though. He told me a few weeks ago that he wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. He didn’t require a cake with a special shape (that would require fancy frosting), or complicated fillings or anything. So it was an easy cake to make, even with a broken ankle, and it looked really fun thanks to the Funfetti frosting! As always for a 13th birthday, I bought candles that spell out “Happy Birthday” because there are exactly 13 letters in the saying:

It was a more low-key birthday than we usually have around here (well, except for the unexpected snow showers, which he was very excited about…I don’t think he’s ever had birthday snow before!), but he didn’t seem to mind, and I was just happy to be able to celebrate with him!

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Quote of the Day

This broken ankle is quite an adventure. Obviously, the ankle hurts. But I was not anticipating all the other aches that would come along with it. My hands (not to mention my armpits!) hurt from using the crutches. My right leg is sore from being the only weight-bearing leg I have at the moment. My tailbone is sore, from doing nothing but sitting around all day. Even my hip and my abs hurt! I seriously had no idea how painful a broken ankle would be…for the whole body. Frankly, this quote from Apollo 13 pretty much sums up how I feel about myself right now!

“Let’s look at this thing from a… um, from a standpoint of status. What do we got on the spacecraft that’s good?” Ed Harris as Gene Kranz in Apollo 13