CHICAGO

I can hardly believe I caught up over 8 months of blogging in 2 days...Phew

 

Our last adventure as a family for the summer was a trip to Chicago. 

 

 I had known about the first surprise for awhile and we kept it secret from the kids.  They are well versed in the rigors of air travel and so when we went to the airport and went to a different building at the airport I thought for sure the questions would start flying but they didn't.  Even as we waited and our plane landed and we pointed it out to them they didn't say anything.  They just didn't quite get it until we were sitting there and David said,  "Where are all the other people going to sit?"  and one of the grownups said no it is just us and then he said, "Oh we must be on a private jet." Yes we were on a private jet as a special treat from Grandpa and I tell you this is the way to travel with children.  No security, no waiting, no checking bags, no having to take shoes off and back on again, none of it and it was fabulous!!!

 

 

When we arrived at our hotel room the kids were surprised by this:

 

 

They each had their own bath robe, coloring book, and  a bedtime treat for them.  We thought it was a first night at the hotel treat but just wait to see what was waiting for them the next night.

 

 We went to Shedd Aquarium here we are waiting

for the dolphin and whale show to start.



 

It was spectacular and the kids loved it and the jellyfish exhibit

 

Jensen as soon as he saw this turtle he laid right down on top of it like this..he is my funny guy.

 

And I am realizing right now David is the one who took

most of the pictures at the aquarium so this is about what i got of the aquarium.

 

 

Our second night treat...someone stole a gummi bear????

 

 

We shopped on Michigan Ave. and if you have a little girl it is almost a must to go to the American Girl doll store.  Julianna was on a mission to get Julie as soon as we stepped foot in the store.  She loves Julie and the main reason is" She loves Julie's style."

 

 

and if you have a boy don't fear there is a Lego store too and the boys were in heaven!!!

 

The only said thing is the only store Christian wanted to go to was the

 3 story Nike store...guess what closed for renovation BOO HISS!!!!  Sorry C2!

 

I did however get to go and ooogle at 4 stories of

Crate and Barrel and try to hunt down an antique store to no avail.

 

Off to Navy Pier we headed and our first order of business was the Ferris Wheel...well no it wasn't, the kids were so excited about the Ferris Wheel they wanted it to be the first order of business.  The first thing we needed to do was go see Beauty and the Beast this was a bit of a bummer to them they wanted to go on that Ferris Wheel I had shown them a picture of on-line and I had kept Beauty and the Beast a surprise this back fired until it started they all loved it absolutely loved it!!!

 

After sitting through a play and lunch The Childrens Museum was just the thing they needed.  So while Christian and the grandparents shopped and designed hats and tshirts and went on the beloved Ferris Wheel,  David and I took the younger kids and climbed, played, crafted, took an art class, built airplanes, and other inventions too.

 

We meet up for dinner on the Pier and then departed from each other again..

we wore them out I think and we went on the Ferris Wheel.

 

For anyone that knows me well knows at this point my heart was beating out of my chest and my hands were dripping with sweat.  I felt near a panic attack actually.  I am not a fan of heights at all.  SO for me to be on this Ferris Wheel was a huge deal and once we quit going up it wasn't so bad.

 

Treat for night number three

 

Julianna and Julie in their matching jammies.

 

Christian also gave us a huge gift this trip we actually had 2 rooms on 2 different floors and all of us could have stayed in one room but he really wanted to take the kids and sleep in the other room so he could spend some time with them before he left for college and to give myself and David a break.  It was wonderful to have peace and quiet every night and morning at a huge sacrifice of Christian's beauty sleep.  Thank you Christian!!!

 

The view from our room at night it was awesome...

 and during the day

We went to The Field Museum

 

Here they are in the Egyptian exhibit

 



 

I forget exactly what this exhibit is called but

 we were shrunk to the size smaller than pennies

 

and worms

 

and katydid(I think that is right) skins

 

We went into other exhibits too but no photography was allowed..bummer but we loved them too!

 

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for our fun fun trip to the Windy City!!!

 

Happy Tenth D4

For his Birthday I had been working on redoing his room.  I had a couple of more projects to finish up the morning of so while Christian kept them occupied I went to finish  up the few things and hurt my back lifting a sign to hang onto the wall.  Not just a little hurt like uncontrollable tears hurt and since I had been spending so much time on his room I had left any party prep to do that day. 

 

As I spent the rest of the day in bed with ice on my back I felt horrible his birthday party was not going to be like I like them to be but I knew I had to do something.  I did manage to take them to their swim lessons and after I thought if I can have them carry everything at the store I can do something and so I made this cake for him out of his favorite round ice cream sandwiches and as you can see by the look on his face he loved it!!!

 

 

When will we have his party hmmm...I am still working on

that one but it is going to be a huge surprise when I do!!!

Camping 2012

We love this campground...if we asked our children if there was only one thing we could do all summer they would say camp here without question across the board.

 

This year we moved our campsite from our usual area to the area that backs up to the creek that runs through the middle of the park and this was awesome.  They spent hours finding these guys...red striped salamanders and they are fast little buggers I tell you that..it was hard to get a picture of them.

 

 

We took a walk down to see the sunset and it was gorgeous

 {I shoudl have waited a bit longer ot take this picture}

 

They have these fabulous classes 2-3 times a day, this one happens to be on ladybugs and the kids enjoyed the craft after the class.

 

This class happens to be on turtles and they brought out all kinds of turtles to see.

Just before this class started they fed a snake a frog and during this class Christian videoed the whole process..yuck but soooo cool at the same time.

 

Here is my most favorite place again and they had a blast building castles and motes this one was huge and a couple of levels too utilizing the log.

 

Here's Jensen taking a break from the action

 

 

Still working on getting that first level high enough to reach the top of the log.

 

Dad and Julianna building too!

 

Christian relaxing in the inlet.

 

Julianna with her frog she caught.

 

Christian going in for a death roll

{they love watching alligator shows together}

so this was a riot to see them be so playful with each other

 

And now you will see why everyone was taking a rest see that half black circle to the right of the log that is Christian's head and he is roughly 15 feet away from shore and standing up. Those waves were huge and  powerful and so fun to play in but exhausting. 

 

You would walk out about waste high and then let the waves bring you in

 and then get out of the lake and walk back down to in front of our

blanket and do it all over again and after 10 or

so times your legs were like jelly so we would rest and then go back out.

I was just glad that this time when we were here it was not

 54 degrees like it was a few weeks prior.

 

Another must when we camp is go to the drive in.  They love the drive in and this time it was extra exciting.  During the first movie Christian is like is that a skunk.  Sure enough about 25 ft away from us was a skunk and once we shined our light on it he went back to his bushes

 

Well in the middle of hte 2 movies Julianna needed to go to the bathroom and who does she run into the skunk, tail raised and all.  Luckily for her as she pointed him out to her dad he just grabbed her hand and ran the other way and avoided the doom that could have ensued.