Our trip west began with a black cat running across the road in front of us as we drive out of town, and now this line of storms. We're stuck in a bit of rain, wind and lightning at Dekalb right now.

Catching up on June

I figured I should do a little catch up before we go on our big adventure. 

Last weekend was fun, with Amber's family in town for a wedding. They didn't stay with us, but we did get to see them a few times. We had hot dogs in the back yard and played some games on Friday night. Then on Saturday I had the pleasure of hanging out with little Louisa while everyone else attended a wedding reception. She wasn't very happy about going to bed for me, but Amber gave me the green light to put her in the car if needed, and that did the trick immediately. 

This past week has been busy. It feels like someone in the family has had a medical/pre-natal/dental appointment every day this summer. Monday was Pete's turn for a fun procedure at the hospital to try to figure out some of his gut issues. He rallied that night, though, and we met up with his parents and Liz and Vivian for a night at Ravinia. I didn't take too many photos, but this one captures the coolness of the evening. We were there for Esperanza Spalding. It was a great show, but both kids cashed out. 

 Tuesday night was Henry's last baseball game of the season. He got some good hits and did some fine fielding. I was most proud of him when he got out at second base and handled it well. Pete and I could see him taking some deep breaths- but there were no tears!

Vivian came to watch the game for a bit too. She was pretty okay with Pete...until she wasn't. 

 

Clara did lots of loving on her cousin. Hugging babies and toddlers is her specialty.

 Mostly Vivian was just go-go-go!

Last night was great fun as Kevin and Beth were in town from Belize. We only get to see them about once a year now. Unfortunately, with our packing and craziness we were just able to spend an afternoon with them, but we tried to make the most of it. It was hot, so while we waited for Pete to come home the kids played in the pool and then we dragged the little one over so adults could cool their feet while chatting. The kids wanted in on that action too...and Henry shared his Garfield books. 

Once Pete got home we all went out for sushi. It was delicious. 

Even though we had plenty to eat at dinner, I felt like the night called for ice cream....so we ended the evening with a stop at Baskin Robbins and a little playing at the Village Green. That should tide us over until we get to see them again next year! 

And now, stay tuned for short mobile posts from the road!

Backseat ice cream pajama princess

More Father's Day...

Yesterday we celebrated Father's Day with Pete's parents. They had wanted to take the kids on the train to Kenosha to a dinosaur museum they had heard of. After getting off the train to a sudden downpour, we walked in a bit of rain, but then dried off in the museum and ate the Subway sandwiches we had taken along. The museum was mostly one big room of bones and then a basement area with some kids activities and a working paleontology room which is affiliated with the local college. 

 Here are the kids doing a dinosaur dig. There was a really helpful guy down there who was happy to answer a lot of our questions. He told the kids that this fossil formation that they were digging up was a replica of a real pair of dinosaurs that had been found in a fighting position. Henry had actually read about this fossil, so it was pretty cool for him to get to 'work' on it.

 Here was a real bone they got to touch. It was inside the special kind of cast they put them in in the field when they dig them up. I guess this is so they can be transported without falling apart.

 We took the outside picture after we were done in the museum, because on our way in it was still pretty rainy.

After the museum we walked around Kenosha a bit. We saw some cool stuff in the Kenosha Public museum as well. Later we had a delicious dinner at a local Italian restaurant. This photo was taken by a very enthusiastic museum volunteer.

 This morning we tried to celebrate Pete in style. He didn't sleep in long enough for us to get him breakfast in bed, but we did have a nice breakfast never-the-less. You can still see some chocolate on the kids' faces from the chocolate babka buns I made.

 After breakfast we drove down to Oakton to a fun mini-golf spot. We were there early before the day heated up too much.

 We aren't exactly a family of golfers, but we had a pretty good time. I'm still trying to work out uploading video from our new small camera. We got some good footage of Clara's put-put style and some of a typical Henry-Clara squabble.

After mini-golf Pete wanted to go down into the city to check out a drum store he knew of but hadn't been to yet. He was pretty happy browsing this wall of sticks and picked out a couple new sets for himself. 

 We were close to a restaurant we had driven past before with the kids- The Twisted Spoke. They liked the rotating skeleton on the motorcycle, so we decided to stop there for lunch. It was sort of a biker bar, with the bathrooms classily labeled "chicks" and "dicks". We sat on the rooftop deck, which got pretty hot after a bit, so we were all fairly worn out by the time we got home. We had some nap and rest time and now we're letting the kids watch a movie.

I hope Pete had a fun father's day weekend. He certainly deserves it for being such a good Dad!

Happy Father's Day!

Living it up on Father's Day! Happy day to my best husband and my Pop...two of the greatest guys I could hope to have in my life.

Summer Library Time

New Bike?

Pete just texted me this picture from Play It Again Sports. Looks like Henry's getting a new bike! His knees have been sticking out quite a bit with his current blue one. I think this means we'll need to get Clara riding!

Beach Day!!

We are determined to get to the beach more than once this summer. Today was an awesome kick-off with sandy peanut butter and jelly, super-cold water and lots of sunblock.

First day of summer?

Sounds like the perfect day for lunch in the treehouse! Also-a few library books, as we just signed up for our summer reading programs!

Last days of school...

It's been an interesting last few days around these parts. Last week at Henry's school they had a "coffee house" to celebrate the end of school. The students all sang a few songs, including This Land is Your Land. The hat photo is from some other song where they all traded hats and I thought about how my co-teacher would have been having a fit about lice. I think Henry wears a cowboy hat pretty well, though! 

They also each wrote something about a buddy in the class and got up to read it. 

Here's the acrostic poem Henry's buddy wrote about him. 

They shared a few of the special things they'd been working on all year. Henry was pretty proud of this US scrapbook from their recent social studies unit. There may also have been an incident in which I spilled hot coffee on Henry's hand while he reached across for a donut. At least it was my own kid I did it to...

At the beginning of this week, while it was field day at my own school, Henry's class was having an end-of-year picnic. I was able to run over for a little bit and got this cute picture of him with some of his pals. 

Monday night I came down with a stomach bug and ended up too sick to go to school Tuesday morning. This was bad news all around, as the 2nd grade team had been planning a staff shower for me that day, my class was planning a 'surprise' shower for me that day, and my co-teacher and I had lots of packing to do- since neither of us will be using that classroom next year. I did not particularly enjoy staying home, as I spent much of the day throwing up or just moaning on the couch, but more than anything I felt guilty about not being at school. 

Fortunately, my colleagues are amazing. They rescheduled the shower for yesterday- our last full day of school. I didn't feel great, was pretty exhausted, but I knew I had to be at school. All of the 2nd graders had written advice to Henry and Clara to decorate the tables for the shower. Here are a couple of my favorites: 

"Henry, never upset the baby, she or he will cry and cray and cry. Trust me. I am the oldest in my family. My two sisters have bin bugging me sins I was born." 

And this one from a student in another class who came into the school year speaking no English at all: "Dear Henry You are help new baby. So I think you are play with baby. And baby are very happy!" 

The mom who was organizing the kid party rescheduled too. Here are the monkeys in my class. I wonder if they were wearing pink and blue on purpose, now that I look...? 

There were these adorable cupcakes. They also had ice cream cups and pickles- which some of the kids actually tried together! They played that game where they had to cut a piece of ribbon to the circumference of my belly and each child decorated a onesie for the baby! It was very sweet. 

And then we come to today...our last day of school! It was an extra day for Clara at Poko Loko this week, but we needed her to be able to be somewhere. Henry and I left early. He didn't have kidcare today, so he came to help me at school for a bit- then I drove him over to his school and still managed to get back in time for my students to come in. 

Clara wanted to wear her fancy dress for her last day. Here she is outside the place we've given lots of money to over the last 5 or 6 years. She is holding Ellie (of course) and some cards she made for her teachers. She was also excited to take in some Munchkins to share. ("Mom- I got to have two! I had one with sprinkles and one with powder.")

Henry and I each had a half day of school. Pete took time off work to pick Henry up and then they celebrated with lunch at Beinlich's. They rounded out the day with some basketball in the driveway while I drove myself crazy trying to get to the Target that actually had a maternity swimsuit left in my size. 

 Summer officially starts tomorrow! I think we'll kick it off with a trip to the library to sign up for the summer reading program. And I'm hoping for a trip to the beach this weekend! 

Grocery List

I was just describing this scene to Aunt Joyce...
Here's Clara with her grocery list. On it: bananas, oatmeal, apples, strawberries, yogurt, peanut butter, bread.