"The Big Trip" (post by Henry)

On July 12th, my Grandpa and I went on a trip down to Chattanooga, Tennessee. This is me next to a bat near the Slugger museum. 

 This is called The Big Bat. It's a recreation of the bat that Babe Ruth had made in his honor. It leans against the Slugger museum.

 Here is Grandpa standing next to a statue of Derek Jeter, a Yankees player. At one part of the museum I got to hold Mickey Mantle's very own bat.

 At the Slugger museum we got a personalized bat that had my name on it.

 This is a picture of us at Mammoth Cave, outside, waiting for the tour to begin.

 This is inside Mammoth Cave, where the tour guide was showing us some parts where people dug for stuff to use to make things to live. It was completely dark, and it's so big that explorers have still not found an ending to the cave.

 Here is an old locomotive that we rode one day all the way from Chattanooga to Summerville, Georgia and back.

 They did a runway and I got quite a few good pictures.

 Here is Grandpa on the train. He looks kind of funny.

 Here is a cannon in front of a civil war museum. I hope it doesn't blast me!

 This is over Lookout Mountain, and I got a really good view. The river in the picture is the Tennessee River that goes right near Chattanooga.

 This is me and Grandpa next to a cannon that was over Lookout Mountain. I told Grandpa not to get right in front of the hole, 'cuz then he would fall off Lookout Mountain.

 Here is a gravestone of the Great Train Chase at the National Cemetery in Chattanooga.

 Here is on the Southern Belle, which we had a river cruise and had dinner on.

 Here is Grandpa in front of a fountain in front of the Tennessee Aquarium.

 Here is a macaw (I think, but I'm not sure) in the Tennessee Aquarium.

 Here is a butterfly in an exhibit at the aquarium.

 Here is a penguin that swam right by me.

 Here I am in a shark tank, completely oblivious to the shark coming up behind me.

 Here is a shark that was swimming right above me.

 Here are some crabs that were right inside this little tube and one was coming right at me.

 Here is a fish that I thought was pretty cool because it was pretty much all black except for the fish that was completely standing out.

 Here are some turtles that I found sitting right next to each other. One of them was looking at me. The other was trying to crawl away.

 Here is our hotel room with me on the bed. It was an old train car. We were in Chattanooga because we were going to see a Lionel train convention. The hotel had its own train set, which was smaller, well, the train gauge was smaller, but the whole set was still very very big.

 After our whole trip Grandpa got me a Penn Flyer, a model train set, that I am sitting next to here. It is an old locomotive that goes around in an oval. It has a billboard, and some telephone poles to go with it.

That was the greatest trip ever! I feel so happy and I'm going to say thank you to Grandpa about a million times the next time I see him!

Missing Henry

It's been almost a week now that Henry's been on his trip. He should be home on Sunday. We miss him quite a bit and are very much looking forward to his return. He may even get a cake. Maybe you've followed along as Dad has blogged their trip. I also promised Henry that he could do a blog post when he returns. He's been taking photos with one of our old digital cameras. 

In the meantime, we've been having lots of special time with Clara. We've taken a few evening swims with this hot hot heat. And we may have visited DQ a couple evenings as well. Clara really had a swimming breakthrough a couple of nights ago. She's putting her head in the water and swimming like a little mermaid! 

Clara's favorite summer activity, though, is probably catching lightning bugs. After swimming and eating ice cream the other night, she stayed outside to do some catching. She loves to put them in her bug house and then, immediately, let them out again. I do seem to have gotten one blurry photo with an actual lightning bug in it!

Liz and the girls are here this week. We were able to celebrate her birthday with her, which was also the day Bampa came home from the nursing home where he had been staying for about 2 months. We were all very pleased to have him come home! Unfortunately, we were so busy eating cake and chasing babies that we didn't get any photos.
The girls did come over for a little playtime yesterday, though, and I caught a few shots. Here are Mae and Frederick being generally busy.

And here are Clara and Vivi, in coordinating dresses, refusing to coordinate smiles for a picture. Oh well, they still look cute. 

Last week and this week Clara has been in a Y day-camp, 3 mornings a week, with her pals Emily and Emily. Today they had a mini performance that was quite cute.

After her 'show,' Clara and I went out for lunch and a haircut. She always says she wants her hair short short. I always resist. I also always feel a little guilty, because it is her hair, after all. I've been letting Henry wear his a little longer, so I let Clara cut hers a little shorter. It's hard to tell in this picture, because of the braids, but it's a pretty dramatic difference. It will grow back. It will grow back.

We ended our day with leaving Frederick and Pete at home and going for a movie. We may have had popcorn and frozen yogurt for dinner. The report is that Henry has been to see Despicable Me 2 and Turbo with Grandpa, so we thought we should at least try to keep up. We saw Despicable Me 2 in 3d, which was pretty fun. We may have also made a quick stop at Claire's (Hello Kitty headband) and at Macy's (Origins face wash).

Oh...I almost forgot! Our week started out with Frederick and I getting rear-ended in the van. That kind of sucked. We were on our way back from the grocery store and stopped at a red light when the car behind us just popped on forward. It jolted us pretty well, and I immediately jumped out to check on Fritz, but he pretty much fell right back to sleep. We then had to pull over into the Techny drive and sit for an hour or so, waiting for a police officer and then waiting for him to fill out all of the paperwork. I was pretty shaken up, but we were both fine. The car, however...

 So now we're driving this beauty of a rental. It's a little fun having something different, but it will be a tight squeeze as soon as Henry's home and we have to try to fit 3 seats in the back! It does sound like the van will be ready for us to go camping and up to Dad's next week though, so that's good.

Independence Day, JazzFest and Millennium Park

We started out our 4th of July bright and early with a walk to the park for pancakes. It's been several years since we've been in town on the actual 4th, and able to enjoy this event. 

After pancakes and coffee in the hot sun, we played for a bit in the park. I'm  including this picture because the kids were making patriotic sand sculptures. Henry made the White House. I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the history of this blog there's a photo of Henry with a sand Mount Rushmore as well. 

After a swim and lunch we headed up town for the parade. Despite the annoyingness of all the chairs and tarps that had been set up for days beforehand, we were still able to find a nice spot to watch. Northbrook does a very nice 4th of July parade. The best band we saw this year was actually from Dubuque, Iowa! 

It was hot. Clara thought she was pretty spiffy wearing her dad's hat and drinking my mocha (actually just the melting ice.)

There was some nice porch time after the parade, while we got ready for dinner. 

Mary and Peter joined us for hamburgers. Frederick kicked back for a bit after lots of hard work. 

Henry and Clara ate their dinner up in the little house. Clara had changed into her new dance clothes, for some reason. 

Henry and Bampa showed off their crazy hair. 

Later, Clara and Pete had some quiet time in the hammock. 

Then we took off to get ready for the fireworks.

Frederick was all 'whatever.' But once the fireworks started up he was completely mesmerized. He just stared, and didn't cry a bit.

The next morning we drove to Iowa City (again!) Our first stop was to Amber's to celebrate Jeff's 5th of July birthday. Matt and Lisa were still in town, so it was fun to hang out with them.

All 3 days were great for JazzFest. Eleanor went down with us on Friday night for a little dancing and fireworks later. The IC fireworks were MUCH more crowded and loud. Our view was slightly obstructed by a tree, but it didn't bother us. The kids had much fun naming the fireworks, especially as we were all a little slap-happy on our way back to the car. Eleanor had names like "Drunken Rainbow" while Clara's were named things like "Sparkly Flower" and Henry's were all something like "I Think My Hair's On Fire!"

On Saturday Dad grilled out and we picnicked some more and had water play time.






Several of us also took napping opportunities at different points throughout the day. Dad and Kathie's new-ish porch is a fabulous napping spot. Rob made the mistake of falling asleep while Pete and I were there to put things on his head.


Later on Saturday we went back to the Pentacrest for more music. I took the two big kids in to the Capitol building, which they hadn't been in before. We got a sneak peek at the back of the stage from inside. Someone help me remember, when the time comes to paint a room in my house, that I really love the reds and blues on the walls of the Capitol.

Here are the kids going up the famous reverse-spiral staircase.

We enjoyed checking out this crazy, sweaty juggler guy later in the day.

Sunday we had lunch with Rob and Carrie and the girls. Pete and Penny have a special relationship. Here they are making silly faces for the camera.

Penny also seems to be a fan of Henry's. She was 'reading' his new (used) Harry Potter books with him.

JazzFest is certainly one of our favorite times of year, and makes us wish we lived in Iowa City. But Monday night helped us remember how much we love living near Chicago as well. Pete had taken the day off, thinking we might still be in ICIA (but Clara had to get back for her summer camp dance class) and we took advantage of the extra time to go downtown and enjoy Millennium Park. Here we are dining at the Parkside Grill (or whatever it's called) in the shadow of the Cloudgate 'Bean' sculpture.

We took a little time to play in the fountains, which seem to need a little bit of adjusting. The water isn't shooting straight out from the middle of the pursed lips right now. It really bothers me the more I look at the picture...

Then we wandered around the bean for a while and took all of the requisite silly reflective photos.

Frederick liked looking around from underneath the bean, where everything is shiny.

Then we went over to the lawn of Pritzker Pavilion. Dawes was playing that night, and they're one of our favorite new(er) bands. It was such a beautiful night to be in the city. We only got sprinkled on a tiny bit.

Clara wanted to take a picture of me and Pete. It turned out pretty well, I think.

Walking back after the show was quite lovely. The kids even stopped to catch fireflies for a while in the grass near the Bean.

In a couple of days Henry and (my) Dad will leave for their big model train convention trip to Tennessee. I imagine Dad will do lots of blogging about the event (I hope) so you can check in over there for updates. Clara and Frederick and I should be able to find some ways to keep ourselves entertained during the week as well...