Another year older

Today was my birthday, and it was a wonderful day. I'm not going to dwell too much on it since we didn't take any pictures and since I'm getting older, it's really not as exciting as the younger years (hehe.. that evens sounds old!). I will tell you that my boys let me sleep in until 8:30 (when I woke up on my own!). Steve made me chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Jack pushed up into a sit (supported with his hands) for the first time today too! (Dad helped him practice before I woke up). My family came over for bbq and dessert in the afternoon. We actually got to enjoy the yard, which was awesome! The yard fogger works pretty well.

Now, on to some other fun news. First up, Jack. So last week I was holding him and drinking water at the same time. He started grabbing for the glass. So, I thought I would let him try to drink from it to show him what he was grabbing for. Much to my surprise, he drank from the glass! He actually drank a few sips from the glass; he also dribbled water down his front, but that's all I expected to happen! So tomorrow, when we go on our Target trip, we're picking up a sippy cup for fun. Since that first time, he's taken sips from cups at least three other times, so I don't think it's a fluke.

In the meantime, Steve and I, along with our friends Kurt and Amanda, are really getting started on The Summer of Jeff. I haven't written about this before, and I probably won't go into all of the details in this post, but this is something we've been trying to get started since May. The Summer of Jeff is a list of activities we are trying to accomplish this summer in honor of our friend Jeff Lollar. Jeff passed away unexpectedly in May. Steve, Kurt and Amanda made a list of things Jeff did, liked to do, etc. There are about 30 things on the list. These things include playing Crazy Taxi (a video game), taking a road trip based on a coin toss, going to a Cub's game, and brewing beer. Last weekend, we started the beer brewing. Oh, and I should mention that we are doing all of the Summer of Jeff activities dressed in our Lollar shirts. You'll see what I mean when you see the pictures. Jeff liked these shirts, along with jean jackets, but we all have our limits.











Tonight, Steve and I (mostly Steve) siphoned the beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary fermenter. We're brewing and IPA, and the liquid we siphoned actually smelled like beer, so I think we're on the right track. Our beer will be ready to drink in about 2 more weeks, so look for the update on taste then. Now when Jeff did this, he had about 50/50 success. The guys describe it as Russian Roulette; you opened the bottle and hoped it was a good one. You knew pretty quick if you got lucky or not. I'm hoping we have better luck with this batch. I think not using a bathtub and not brewing in a basement in DeKalb might bode well for us.

In an attempt to practice what I teach, I'm going to end this post back where I began - my birthday. On Friday night, the Unger women descended on Ravinia Festival to celebrate my birthday and Vita's birthday. Hootie and the Blowfish was playing. It was such a fabulous time. There was plenty of wine, food, and foolishness to keep us the hit of the lawn all night long. I have plenty of photos, some appropriate for the net, some not (Auntie Smegma?). Look for the appropriate ones in the next post!