New niece and lots of sports

The good news is that we have a new baby niece, Kennedy Hale, who was born on Wednesday and weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces and she is a doll. It is times like these that we momentarily miss being in Utah, but then we remember that Chicago is the best place for us now and we couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Here's a picture of Brandon's brother, Chris, and then the whole happy family. We are excited to hear about the funny big brother, Cannon stories! Note: No one should look as good as Kacie does after having a baby...it's just not fair to all of the other women out there! :)

This week has also been full of sports! Brandon and I played soccer in the rain on Monday night with my co-workers in a park downtown. It was the second soccer match in one week and I didn't think it would make any sense to leave Brandon out while I play sports with a bunch of guys from work (and you may be wondering why I even go - our group is big into team events and when your boss and the CIO are going and they encourage you to come, then you wouldn't make excuses either). It was so fun with Brandon there and he did awesome! He is really fast! Brandon also plays ultimate frisbee every Saturday morning. This week, he dove for the frisbee and whacked his head on the ground while wearing a hat. It left a pretty funny mark, but he loves going and playing with the guys from the ward. In addition to playing sports, there has been plenty to watch/listen this week. First of all, we don't have cable anymore (long story), so if the Cubs games aren't on TV, Brandon will try to listen to them on the radio. The Cubs are playing for 20 days in a row (crazy if you ask me), so the radio has been on almost every night this week. The funniest thing happened during one of the games this week. It was 8:46pm and all of a sudden, Brandon starts changing his clothes and getting into his Cubs jersey and hat. When I inquired about what the heck he was doing, he informed me that the Cubbies were not playing well and that he needed to get on his gear for good luck. Hilarious! I laughed so hard and took some pictures of my superstitious husband.

Hooray for weekend trips - we are going to Boston Friday-Sunday and will be going to a Red Sox game and seeing all the Boston sights; we've never been before and are looking forward to it!

Nauvoo, the beautiful

Brandon and I went to Nauvoo for the weekend and had a spectacular time. I was devastated when I realized that I had left my camera at home :( so we stopped on the way and bought a disposable camera, but I'm guessing it will be a much longer process to get the pics posted on the web. I included a picture of the temple that I found online.
We were going down to see the Pageant (closing night), the Nauvoo sights, and to go to the temple. The drive is about 4 and a half hours from Chicago and it was a nice opportunity to get out of the city. We wanted to go "cheap" so we booked a hotel 15 minutes outside of Nauvoo in Fort Madison. We got to "Budget Host" and I couldn't help but laugh and duck my head because it was so ghetto (hey, this is what you get for $50 a night) and when Brandon went to check in (I refused and stayed in the car) there was a slight problem and their system had not recognized our reservation online and they were all full. Thank you for that, but we still didn't have a place to stay, so we drove around Fort Madison to find a hotel. "Santa Fe" had vacancies (wa hoo) but I was sure that they would rip us off since we were looking for a hotel that very night. The owners were the some of the most humble people and in Brandon's words, they were not business-saavy enough to know to charge us more, so we got a night's stay in Fort Madison for $42. Brandon is all about the one-star hotels (he claims that Budget Host was a 2 star online, but there is no way)...me, I'm a little more high maintenance than one star, but it makes for hilarious stories.
The pageant was a great production and the sights were very impressive. It gave me a great appreciation for all the the early Saints and all they did in the early days of the Church. It was a great experience! We also got to attend the Nauvoo Temple - it is so beautiful and very meaningful to think of the Saints and all that they sacrificed. All in all, a great weekend!