Summer Vacation 2

After our week in Chicago, we got to spend a week in Ohio. We had a blast just relaxing and spending time with family.

Dan loves and misses the thunderstorms in Ohio. While there, we got to enjoy a wonderful rain/thunderstorm.

Dave, Patricia, Gavin, Ken, Dan, Eli and I went to the Indians game.Two baseball games in eight days. Wow! At least this game wasn't as hot as the Cubs game. We had a fun time hanging out with family. The game was amazing and we won! If you want details you will have to ask Dan. All I can remember is that we won.

Dan was excited to be able to take Eli to an Indians game. Eli looks pretty excited too!

Silly boy.

A walk-off win!

The grill was out of propane and we needed a quick fix!

Another silly boy!

It had been many, many years since Dan was home for his birthday (9 years - 2002, to be exact). This year, he was home. Happy Birthday Love!

We enjoyed an ice-cream cake. Poor Eli wanted it for himself.

Adorable Gavin!

Eli was being a stinker during the pictures. He was going through a phase where if he saw me he wanted me to hold him. So during these pictures I was hiding in the other room. It was hard to get him to smile.

Pretty cute picture!

I just loved this picture so I put it on.

Summer Vacation 1

This summer we had the opportunity to go to Chicago, sure it was for Dan's job, but we still had fun. Getting from the plane to our hotel was a challenge. We had to get on a train, travel down a lot of stairs, get on bus, and then walk up a hill (only about a block long) to finally arrive at our hotel. Not so bad you say, except we had our luggage (2 suitcases), a stroller, and a car seat. I was luckily enough to have Dan's co-workers help with the stroller, but Dan had to juggle the two suitcases, the stairs were the hard part. I admit I got annoyed at some people behind us making some rude comments about how slow we were. I wanted to turn around and tell them we were more than willing to accept help, but if they didn't want to offer then please keep your thoughts to yourself. Too bad I am not gutsy enough to actually say anything. Once we got on the bus we ran into some every nice people who were more than willing to help those with strollers get on and off the bus, I was very grateful to see some kindness. Once we got to the hotel, everything was better. Our hotel was close to the Magnificent Mile, (a long strip of shopping), Navy Pier, the Bean, and a free zoo. Unfortunately it was too hot for Eli and I too explore for too long. We played in the pool and went for some short walks. We were able to go to a Cubs game. It was fun, but extremely hot. Here are some pictures from our week in Chicago.

This is Eli's first attempts at crawling. He would get up on all fours and then try to move and would eventually flatten out.

He was faster to do his army crawl, but he did try very hard to crawl.

We waited for Dan's coworkers so we could all go to the zoo together, unfortunately they took long with their other activities and we got to the zoo about 4:50, when we learned that the zoo was closing early that day because of a concert going on there. We had 10 minutes to see everything that we could.

The Bean

Sweaty boy at the Cub's game.

Poor little guy!

Note the "Feels Like" temperature.

Found a cool breeze at the top of the stadium.

4th of July

This fourth of July really started on the third with sleeping outside in my parents yard. BJ (my brother-in-law) and Dan set up the tents outside. Since Eli goes to sleep so early he went to bed inside and then when we were ready for bed we carried him outside. He did awesome! Slept through the whole night. We woke up early the next morning. One of my families traditions is to enjoy a yummy breakfast before we hit the parade. It was quite warm at the parade and it seemed to last a long time. Eli was not very interested in it this year, maybe next year will be more fun. After the parade we went back to my parents' to relax before the BBQ. After the BBQ my dad flooded the lawn with water for kids to play on. Even the big kids seemed to enjoy it. This year Dan and I didn't go to the fireworks. We were tired, Eli was tired, and Dan had to be to work by 7 the next day, so we went home and enjoyed a evening together.

Sound asleep.

Woke up happy, as usual.

Seemed to enjoy being in the tent.

At the parade

A little boy who is done with the parade

BJ made this "car wash," the kids loved it.

Dan took Eli through it...

Eli did not love it.

You can see how wet he got by the water drops on his face.

Eli had fun just playing on the lawn.

Josh and Bryn also love playing in the water.

He was just content to sit and play.

I do have to mention that the water was freezing and he sat in it.

The boys thought it would be fun to run and slide on the grass.

This one is BJ.

All in all we had a great fourth. Dan and I are so grateful for those who sacrifice so that we may have our freedom, simple words but truly meant.