Saturday, August 10, 2013

Chicago, Day 1

We spent 2 days in Chicago this week visiting my sister.  We were disappointed that Juan couldn't be there as well.  His mom passed away a couple weeks ago, and he is still in Mexico with his family. 

We had beautiful weather and a great time doing some our favorite activities, this time as a whole family!  We drove there Thursday morning and we very happy to find a parking spot almost right in front of Karen's building... no small feat!  We hung out for a bit and then hopped on the bus to Lincoln Park Zoo.  We had lunch there and explored the zoo.

Waiting for the bus


We really enjoyed watching the gorillas and chimps



The polar bear was diving for fish and eating them!

A flower as big as Miriam's head!

Climbing in the children's zoo

Carousel ride!





The beautiful gardens outside the zoo

 We went back to Karen's apartment and then Casey and I went to check into our hotel, which was a few blocks from Karen's apartment.  We also explored the Trader Joe's across the street!  We went back to get the rest of the gang and then walked to a local pizza place, Renaldi's, for supper.  The pizza was delicious!
We went back and hung out for a while and then walked to a gelato place.  From there, Casey, Peter, Miriam and I walked to the hotel for the night and Esther got to stay at Aunt Karen's.

Thumbs up for pizza!

It's hard to see in the picture, but we had fun
playing hangman on the paper tablecloth while
we waited for our pizza.

This is how Ella the Bunny explores Chicago

Gelato--yum!!





Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Elliptical: 1, Esther: 0

Monday night after dinner Esther was in the basement getting a little workout on the elliptical machine.  Somehow the handle came up and caught her elbow, forcing her hand to bend backwards at the wrist.  She was in some major pain, so we iced it and gave her some Motrin.  We figured we'd rest it overnight and see how it was in the morning.

Tuesday morning it still hurt her quite a bit, especially if she tried to move it at all.  My Dad kindly drove over on a moment's notice so that I could get her in to our pediatrician's office during the early walk-in hours without having to drag Peter and Miriam along.  The doctor we saw said that she didn't think it was broken, but that we could get an x-ray if it would help reassure us.  Since we had a similar situation when Miriam fractured her arm, we decided to get the x-ray.  Off we went to the x-ray/lab place, and good thing we did, because she has a slight fracture of the radius at her wrist.  We went back to the pediatrician's office in the afternoon to get a splint.  She has to wear the splint for 4 weeks, which is quite a bummer.  She handled the whole thing very well and is trying to stay positive, although she's feeling pretty frustrated since it's her dominant (right) hand.

The fact that Sweet Mellisa's is directly across the street from the office just seemed too convenient.  Ice cream makes everything better, right?  Plus, Casey had given Miriam a Frosty when she broke her arm, so it only seemed fair.



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Birthday Bike Ride

Monday was my Dad's birthday.  Karen came for the weekend, so Sunday we went to church, had lunch and celebrated our awesome Dad/Grandpa!




The girls went to the park in the afternoon
while the boys stayed home and watched
Tiger baseball and NASCAR


We thought this was a pretty cool cloud formation!


This was Miriam's card for Grandpa.
Grandpa is in the middle with the party hat,
which says "Are you happy?" on it.
The people are our family, Grandpa and Grandma,
Aunt Karen and Uncle Juan, and Aunt Elaine.
It was so cute and she worked so hard on it, that I had
to take a picture to remember it!


On Monday (Dad's actual birthday), we went to Rockford to ride the White Pine Trail.  We try to do this at least once a year, and it's always so much fun.  We rode a few miles on the trail, played on the playground and then had lunch by the dam.  We had hot dogs from Corner Bar and then got ice cream after lunch.  It was a great day and we're so thankful that we could spend the day with Grandpa and Grandma!
 













 

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Church Festival

Today we went to a car/tractor show at Casey's parents' church.  They had a lot of old cars and tractors on display.  They also had games, bounce houses, treats, and a puppet show.  We had fun looking at the cars, playing, watching the puppet show and having dinner with Casey's parents, Nick, and the McCauls.