Yea! Aunt Joy came to visit us this weekend. Just for fun!
Aunt Joy came in on Friday afternoon. Art stayed w/ the boys while I went to the airport to get her. We switched sitter nights and got one for tonight so we could go out to dinner w/ Joy. We dropped the boys off at Morgan's and headed downtown for CHI-style pizza. We found parking, no problem, for about $3.50 about 1/2 way between our two intended destinations: Duo pizza & then the Drake Hotel. The line was out the building for dinner, uggh, the hostess said over 30 min wait. It was Friday night! We gave our pizza order and settled in for the long wait. About 2 minutes later, we were sitting down - score! After veggie appetizer, we got our pizza (pepperroni deep dish) very quickly. So so so good.
Joy and I post dinner - so full!
Then off to the Drake Hotel for drinks & dessert. We had never been to the Drake, and it's a seriously famous place, and we've been wanting to. So charming! They had a live band, a married couple, the husband played piano, flute, & sax and the wife sang. I had the world's best hot chocolate in the cutest little pot. I was in pain from drinking so much hot chocolate. I wanted so badly to ask for a to-go cup for the part I could not finish. We also split a chocolate mousse which of course was exqusite. Too rich, but yummy. The wife band leader called Art out a bit for being with two women, which of course was horrifying to Joy. :) It was getting late, so we went back to get the kids and off to bed.
Saturday's big outing was to the beach. The M. family came w/ us too. Glorious weather for the beach, even if we got a bit of a late start. Water was cold cold cold, as usual, even at the end of August.
Wyatt in a hole full of water he helped build, and Wyatt our little cutie standing on the water.
Zachary enjoying the sand castle building
Shayna w/ two unwilling picture participants
Counts and partial M. family
After the beach we all headed back to our house and the M. family stayed for lunch. Nap time for everyone afterwards!
We had some low-key plans after naps, but then decided to blow those up and head downtown, check out Navy Pier, etc. We packed a picnic dinner and took off on the train w/ 2 strollers. Unfortunately we did not know that there was a big festival on Navy Pier and it was PACKED. Art and Joy went on the Architecture boat tour while the boys and I hung out.
We braved the crowd (strickly because Zach had to go potty), went into Navy Pier, upstairs at the water/plant garden and hung out for a bit. Then outside to watch some boats, carnival rides, etc. By then the hour was up and we moseyed over to get Art and Joy. Then picnic dinner (itallian pasta + sides) and walk to Millenium Park...the wrong way. We thought we were finding a way that avoided stairs that we once found, but alas, not this time. We made it to the Park, and they were having a tribute to American Dance program, which we watched and listened to until about 9pm, then decided we needed to hit Bean before going to the train and heading home. Wyatt fell asleep on the train, and Zachary very nearly did. Late night, and off to bed.
Sunday starts early as usual and we decide to brave walking to church. A bit warm and sweaty, but enjoyable - and necessary because of all the EATING! :) After church, Joy wanted to stop by the ice cream store for treat. The store hours were that it was to open at noon, and we waited and waited and waited, and it never did, so we went into a small convenience store and bought some bars. Not as exciting as getting a cone or cup of ice cream, but good enough. So we though. Until the melting started.
Boys with messy shirts! They ended up riding the rest of the way with no shirts on. Fun for them.
Back home for a bit of lunch, then naps. Then time to take Joy to the airport. Too fast!
On Art's actual birthday, we were in NC at the Counts family reunion. Then, thanks to traveling and the boys being in ATL, we were not together as a family again, at home, until early August. I kept putting it off, and putting it off, and today we finally had a belated birthday celebration for Art. After breakfast in bed (cinnamon rolls & bananas) - all 4 of us in bed, and after Art looked at the cards everyone made for him, we moved to the table to open presents. Zachary specifically picked out something he thought Art would like. A monster truck named El Toro Loco. Great job by Zach, as Art did love it. Here are the boys, attempting to pose w/ their DaU, and then sharing the responsibility of opening the present.
Fun morning! And yes, it was a bit chilly that morning, odd for end of August, but it did warm up. We had all the windows open still, and the breeze was a bit chilly - causing the boys to ask for sweatshirts.
Art likes to make fun of me for wanting the playroom to stay tidy. He says it's a lost cause, it's for the boys, and we should just leave it. So I go back and forth, and endless battle, with keeping it clean and letting it get destroyed. The boys are pretty good at cleaning up, as long as they are specifically directed on what to do.
There is a time, however, when even Art agrees that it's time to clean it: whenever anyone is coming to spend the night. This is why I like having company! :) This weekend, Aunt Joy is coming to visit, so the playroom must be shoveled out.
Before - rt hand side: poor Buster, left on his face
Playroom After - rt hand side
Playroom Before - left side
Playroom After - left side
Ahhh, chaos gone, order reins supreme...at least until morning. :)
Slept great last night. Was not thrilled when the boy next door awoke at 6:30, but was very happy that our boys slept until 7:15! Having gotten enough sleep, I was not grumpy, and we had such a sweet fun time in the tent. So lovely to be all together and close. We lasted about 45 minutes before the wrestling got a tad out of hand, and the call of the bathroom was too great. Breakfast went quite smoothly this time - we heated water and milk up at the Kamping Kitchen and made oatmeal. Huge hit, along with OJ, and apples. Once breakfast was over, word on the street was that the jumping pillow opened early. Off we went, complete with another round of French Vanilla cappuccino. We found out that check-out was not until 1pm, so we were not in a huge rush. I did spend some time packing up things, rolling up sleeping bags (except mine - Art is way better than me, and able to roll it super tight), and getting stuff ready for another swim. While the kids played around the site, we leisurely packed up a bit, but not completely. Short bout on the jumping pillow, then the kids were begging for the pool. It was a bit warm today, with the sun out, which made the pool SO LOVELY! Still cold, but in the sun, it felt great. We were in the pool for nearly 2 hours before getting out to shower (oops, I forgot Art's shorts, and he had to wear his wet suit back to the tent). Back to the site. Art tearing down the tent and packing up while I fixed lunch for the boys. Got everything totally packed up and Art and the boys went to the playground while I got stuff loaded into the car. Art and I ate lunch while the boys played. One last bout on the jumping pillow (finally Wyatt was excited by it, until other kids came), and into the car. Tired and sweaty. Art wanted to drive the 1 mile into "downtown" Lena which did not take long - very small town. We got gas - it was over $0.25 cheaper here - and headed home. Wyatt slept like a champ, but Zach never did fall asleep. We made him be quiet and rest for 1 hour, then let him watch a video. Traffic into CHI was a bear and it felt like it took forever to get home. However, thanks to bad traffic, we discovered a new route to the highway - Devon. Very fast and deserted (on a Sunday at 5pm). Back home, unpacking, and eating pizza. Lovely trip! The surprise end occurred when we took the kids to the playground behind the house to play just a bit before bed, and ran into a couple w/ 2 girls (2 &5) that had flown in from London that day to visit one of our neighbors. So wonderful to chat with them, enjoying their British accent. We had planned on staying at the playground for about 15 minutes, and stayed nearly an hour - putting the kids to bed at normal time instead of early. Fun little ending. Made us miss our friends Jake & Maddy. A great vacation - we were quite glad we did it! We'll try a different KOA next time, but we did love Lena, IL, and would recommend it! Things to not forget: the Lexus C2 parked by the RV with the license plate "R NEW C2", the posted speed limit sign of 4 1/2 miles per hour (must have something to do w/ golf cart speeds), the golf cart pimped out with off-road tires (WHY no pics of this??), to put a screen tent (for over the picnic table) on our wish list, as well as coffee percolator.
Since no pictures were taken today, here are some random pics of Wyatt I have hanging around my "not processed" folder.
July - Wyatt being happy in the camper in WI
July - Wyatt asked me to take a picture of him with the cat toy. Took 3 attempts before he was satisfied.
A most full day indeed. First off, I did not sleep well at all. I spent many hours awake, for no apparent reason (perhaps a need to go to the bathroom, which I finally did at 4am, then went immediately back to sleep). So when Zachary woke up at 6:15 AM (despite going to bed 2.5 hours later than his bedtime), I was not pleased. I made him lie there until about 6:45 when he finally said he needed to go to the bathroom, which woke Wyatt up. We were all pretty grumpy and tired. Not the best start to the day. Plus, the jumping pillow was not to open until 10am, nor the pool. The playground however was available at 7am, wet with dew. So at the playground we started, Art and I both dragging big time. We finally get around to starting breakfast - pancakes & bacon. Unfortunately, about 7 matches, and a lot of frustration later, the camp stove was not working properly. User error for sure. I was getting all irritated at Art for insisting that we cook on our camp stove instead of going up to the Kamping Kitchen and using the stove burners there. After our stove went out after only 2 pancakes got cooked, I finally went and cooked the rest of the meal - pancakes and bacon - on the stove burners. We of course apologized for our irritability. Rescue came next in the form of a French Vanilla cappuccino for me and a black coffee for Art - thanks to the open Kamp store. We enjoyed our liquid good mood (which made us realized we'd better buy a camp coffee percolator - we can't deal w/ the instant stuff - for our camping equip!!), while watching Zach test out the jumping pillow.
Boys showing off the arm bands they got this morning. An orange one for Zach to show he's allowed to go on the jumping pillow ($5/day), and a white one w/ green feet on it for both Zachary and Wyatt, to show that they are allowed to go into the pool w/ parents present. They were both pretty excited about the whole arm band thing, though this picture does not accurate portray it.
Zachary in middle, mid-air jump
Zach on the bottom, sitting. He liked to sit down and let the big kids bounce him down to the bottom
Zachary by himself on the jumping pillow when it first opened
Wyatt was not a fan of the jumping pillow. He went on it once or twice, but only with Mommy or DaU.
Zachary jumping on the jumping pillow - first one of the day
After Zachary was tired of the jumping pillow, he was begging for the pool. Art and I were reluctant, because it was overcast and we expected the water to be cold. We tried to postpone the pool a bit by hitting the playground.
A great playground!
Wyatt was so happy - a "big swing" that he could get into himself!
But alas, it was time to go to the pool. Which was WAY colder than I imagined. Along the lines of Lake Michigan I think. Numbing to be in.
Wy getting a hand from DaU to get into the chilly pool
Zach climbing out of the deep end - doing a great job swimming and jumping, etc. Loving the pool.
Zach -amazingly- going down the slide at the pool
Zachary had talked up going on this slide for days. I had shown him pictures of the pool & slide online at Lena's KOA site. He was plenty excited about it. Art and I never thought he would go through with it - too scary, and the possibility he'd go under water (a hated thing!). He was swimming around with us, walked out of the pool, and walked over to the slide. I quickly swam over to the end of the pool to make sure he'd be ok at the bottom - never thinking he'd go through with it. What a surprise! After that he did it many many times.
Much to the boy's chagrin, we had to go back to the campsite for lunch. Even worse, we all took a shower first - oh the horror! We got lunch (pb&j, granola bar, fruit gummies, apples, goldfish, etc) into the boys, went back to the jumping pillow for just a bit. Then into the tent! They were plenty tired, so it was not a major struggle for them to go to sleep. The grandparents at the site next to us, once they saw our boys were going to bed, tried to convince their grandson that a nap was a good idea - he (age 5) did not buy it. I too, was plenty tired. I played (creamed) Art in 3 games of Gin Rummy before retiring to bed too. We had gotten the boys settled onto their sleeping bags at the far edges of the tent. This is what I saw when I climbed into the tent
I was left to try and fit in between them for my nap - not wanting to disturb them by moving them (and risk them waking up!)
I retired for a fitful (wy awoke a few times, trying to get comfy though he was sweating) hour before waking to the feel of two feet in my back and two feet in my stomach. Lovely. I gave up and went back outside to chat with Art (who was talking LOUDLY on the phone). As I was leaving the tent, I snapped a picture of what I was leaving
Neither boy on their own sleeping bags!
After a seriously good nap, likely only ruined b/c it was a bit sweaty in there, it was time for - you guessed it - more jumping pillow and playground. We stayed in the pool, debating how to organize our dinner around wagon ride & ice cream social, both starting at 7. We bought some firewood earlier ($5) and wanted to cook hotdogs over the fire for dinner. It was 5pm and we were still in the pool. What to do, what to do. We finally decided to just boil the boys' hotdogs, and Art and I would eat ours, over the campfire, after the wagon ride. Out of the pool and back into the showers. I played with the boys at the playground while Art took the dirty dishes to the Kamping Kitchen sinks to wash them (so convenient!). Then we fed the boys their dinner of hotdogs, veggie chips, tomatoes, cucumber...pushing them to eat faster and faster to get to the wagon ride. Wyatt refused to eat, so Art dealt with him while I took the speedy eater Zach up to the jumping pillow to wait for festivities to start. Turns out we were in the wrong place and missed the start of it all, but no loss. While the boys and I waited in line for the next wagon ride, Art got his ice cream w/ caramel topping.
Tractor and wagon - we had to wait for the 3rd load
Boys waiting patiently in line for their turn - an attempt to pose nicely for the picture
Art & Wy on the wagon; Zach's head & the KOA song leader at the front of the wagon
The only picture I have of our campsite (taken on the wagon ride) - big dummy for not taking pictures!
After the wagon ride, which the boys loved, time for ice cream ($1/ea). Zach was READY for ice cream, but Wyatt found a big box of basketballs and kept saying he did not want ice cream. He had to test out every one of the basketballs first.
Wyatt finally deciding he wanted ice cream - with minutes to spare
After ice cream, it was getting late and dusky. We needed to head back to the campsite and get our raging campfire started. Unfortunately that did not occur. We had some major errors getting it started. Art even resorted to using camp fuel (which singed all the hair on his leg), but that didn't give a sustained fire. A nightmare. The boys were asking about s'mores, which we didn't bring of course, and being generally annoying (since we were frustrated) until the grandparents next to us finally brought over s'more ingredients and roasting sticks. After a pitiful attempt at roasting the marshmallows, Zach ate his whole smore, loved it, and Wyatt put the s'more together and then gave me the graham cracker and marshmallow and ate the chocolate, then another piece. By that time it was pretty late, after 9, and Wyatt was crashing. I took the boys up to the bathroom for Zach to use it, and me to brush their teeth. The fire was a bit better when we got back, but nothing like we'd hoped. sigh. We were total campfire failures this weekend. Makes me sad. Got the kids into jammies and into their sleeping bags. Art and I finally roasted our hotdogs and ate dinner by about 9:30. Disaster. We were disappointed in ourselves for our bad attitudes and getting so frustrated, as well as sad about the fire. We stayed up and chatted for 45 minutes or so, then went to bed too. My camp pad (pool float) broke the night before, so I slept right on the sand, which wasn't too bad actually. Over all a great day, with a few kinks in it. One thing, we forgot about the kids craft time because we were in the pool at 11am. Zach asked about it later, and I felt badly that we'd missed it. We also missed the wine and cheese tasting...too busy with having fun elsewhere.
We realized that it has been since Feb 2009 since we've taken a trip with just the 4 of us. So this weekend, we remedied that. We decided to go camping (cheap, fun). I insisted we stay at a KOA site. While more expensive than a national park site, it also has more amenities. The KOA site we chose, in Lena, IL, had crafts for the kids (which we did not do), ice cream social (which we did), wagon ride (yes), wine & cheese tasting (I had some cheese in passing), pool (oh yes), playground (yes), jumping pillow (yes), nice showers and bathrooms (yes and yes), fun bike rentals (nope), a Kamping Kitchen (pavilion w/ sinks and several burners for cooking - YES!), plus a handy camp store which sold a variety of things to us including firewood, cappuccino, coffee, ping pong balls, and ice.
So Day 1. We left the house around 4pm on Friday afternoon, leaving Chicago. Bad idea. Everyone else is also leaving. Traffic city. Forever. I think it took us about 3 hours or more to get there, but arrive we did. We got the tent set up and everything situated while there was still plenty of daylight. As dusk approached, the boys played on the (GREAT!) playground, and checked out the jumping pillow (Zach loved, Wy skeptical), while I put ice in our coolers and brought the car around. Then off to a surprise...Thunder Valley Raceway in Pearl City, IL. After 2 wrong turns (and 2+ extra miles of driving), we finally arrived at the raceway around 9pm. This is basically a locals-only buy-in racing every Friday night. Racing go-carts. Basically in someone's front yard. A 1/4m track of mud. There were some small grandstands, which no one sat at. Best part - FREE!
Zachary staring at the track, waiting for the race
Blurry race cars
Race car
Wy not thrilled at first - he did warm up to it once he got used to the noise
Two adults racing
The Junior class racing
It started getting late, and the Jr. class racing had lots of problems that the adults did not. Several chains coming off, cars stopping for some reason, etc. At least 4 times, adults had to go onto the track to fix something on a car. I was getting tired and bored, and the kids were losing interest (well, sort of, it was more ME that was ready to go to sleep!).
Zach getting cold and silly
We left around 10pm and headed back to the campsite (with no wrong turns this time!) and we were all asleep by 10:30.
It was definitely a fun surprise for the boys. I'm glad we found this place and went. Thank the Lord that the rain passed by and didn't ruin our evening!
Today was the big day. Months in the making. I'm so proud of Art. He had this idea that our church, EBF, should play a game of soccer with a local Congolese church that EBF occasionally does stuff with. This idea blossomed from an informal pick-up game into a massive Together for the Gospel (the yearly get-together) event. Complete with hundreds of hot dogs, 40lbs of watermelon, etc. Over 100 people showed up. There were over 30 adults that wanted to play on the EBF team, and a handful of older kids that wanted to play with the adults (instead of waiting for the kid game). Art started it all, and organized most of the day. It never would have been pulled off without the help of many many people. Turned out to be a huge success. Art had people from the Congolese church asking to do it again, and if they could do other social stuff together (movies, bowling, etc). Fun!
The day started off at church where Art had to go on stage! I was SO looking forward to that.
Pastor Jason interviewing Landu (from the Congolese church), then Art getting up on stage to "challenge" their church to a soccer match
Art showing off the used/refurbed trophy that was at stake
The crowd during the game
Game time!! Very serious players out there!
After some CUTE warm ups by TC, the kids divide into teams
And start to play amoeba ball
Finally people get wise to the unfairness of the game, and first make the field MUCH smaller, then finally, split the game into two games, one for the bigger kids that know what they are doing, and one for the little kids just having fun kicking the ball. The adults played another game, after moving the kids to a different field. Everyone was happy!
Zach and his friend CJ - also 4 - mostly just tackling each other, but occasionally touching the ball.
It was a great day for us. Art was very happy at the turnout and the success of the day. A lot of people helped with the logistics, set-up, tear down, etc. We ended up with 50+ hot dogs and over 100 baby carrots at our house. I parceled them out into small servings and unloaded them on the people at the church office.
Art *might* have mentioned that had he not been "in charge" of when the players subbed, etc, that he might have gotten to play a bit more. But now that everyone in church knows how many soccer players there are, perhaps something more formal can be formed!
I got some great pictures from Steph M. If I get some time later, I'll add a picture dump of some of the best ones.
