Chicago - Day 3

More info to come....

Chicago - Day 2

We took a morning stroll to Einstein's Bagels and bought enough bagels for two days of breakfast.  After breakfast we headed out to Navy Pier.  Our first stop was the Chicago Children's Museum where we spent a couple of hours doing lots of "hands on" things.  The kids really enjoyed it!

Blake & Cora in front of the dinasour

Blake climbing from one floor of the museum to the next!

Blake and Cora getting all suited up for some construction work!

Cora making dams and playing in the water.

Cora "driving" the fire truck

It looks like a scale, but when you stand on it, it actually measures your height.  My kind of "scale"!! 

Here's Cora!

Cora working with some tools

Blake's final project

We all worked together to build a skyscraper.  It's tougher than it looks!

Cora's dominos

Here they go!

Next we walked around Navy Pier.  In my opinion, it was nice but basically a big money pit!  We took a ride on the Ferris Wheel and it only went around one time and cost us $32 for the four of us!

Swings on the Pier

The Big Ferris Wheel

Blake and Cora riding the Ferris Wheel

Tom and I on the Ferris Wheel (photo by Blake!)

After resting at the hotel for a couple hours, we later ventured out to the Disney Store and a few other stores on Michigan Avenue.  For dinner we ate at a fast food Mexican restaurant off the strip and then got ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Day 2 was a little more relaxing than day 1.  We were really looking forward to Day 3 and seeing our Tigers at Wrigley Field!!

Chicago - day 1

We left last Saturday, 8/15 and went to Todd and Kristin's for the day.  We got to celebrate Braden's birthday and relax in the pool!

Quite honestly I didn't get a lot of pictures because I spent most of the time relaxing in the pool!!  Hey - it was Day 1 of our vacation, so it's ok!!

We left the next morning before 9am to head to Chicago and arrived at our hotel around 11am.  Fortunately we were able to check in immediately.  We stayed at Mile North hotel which was just a block of Michigan aka "Miracle Mile."  It was a fantastic location!

 Blake and Cora checking out the view from our hotel room.  They thought the tall buildings were pretty darned impressive!

Our hotel

 Fortunately our hotel was located right next to Gino's!  Needless to say, that was our first stop for lunch!  The kids were pretty excited to be able to write their names on the walls, and Tom and I were pretty excited to try some hard root beer for the first time! (It was delicious!)

Me and my girl

Next stop was the American Girl Doll store.  Cora was lucky enough to have Christmas money saved up from Grandma Sue so she could buy her very first American Doll!  She picked out the one she wanted right away.  It's amazing the resemblance they share!  She was SOOOO excited!

 Cora named her "Gracie"

While Cora and I were at American Girl, Tom and Blake checked out the Lego store and Blake spent some of his birthday and Christmas money there!

Next stop was Millenium Park which was about a mile walk.  It was a little tough on the kids because it was close to 90 degrees that day.  The kids weren't overly impressed with the "Bean", they just wanted to find that ice cream truck and get some ice cream.

The Bean

Our reflection in the Bean 

We took the LONG way back to the hotel to do some sight-seeing.  Apparently I was the only one who was excited about that.  Oh well, we saw some beautiful sights!

Trump Tower

Tom & I - photo by Blake

 And....we finally found the ice cream truck!

No Chicago trip is complete without some Garrett's popcorn!

No, we didn't buy these, but we did stop by the Hershey store!

We went back to the hotel and ate leftover Gino's pizza (it was still delicious!).  Then we waited until closer to dusk to go to Chicago 360/John Hancock Observatory to see the city from above.

 The kids checking out the view

Gorgeous!

Phew, Day 1 was a busy day and we were all very exhausted that night!! 

Prayers

It warms my heart so, to go in and check on my children a few minutes after putting them to bed, to hear them both whispering their prayers....without even being told to!  I'm so proud of these kiddos.

Summer is quickly passing us by and school will be starting before we know it.  I did some online school shopping (I may never visit a retail store again for school shopping!) and so far, so good.  Most things fit, but a few have to be exchanged.  It was like Christmas in August for Cora.  That girl just loves fashion and matching up tops, bottoms and shoes, too.  Blake...well as long as it involves anything sports related, he's good with it. :-)

We are looking forward to our trip to Chicago next week to go see the Tigers play at Wrigley Field and to take Miss Cora to go to the American Girl doll store.  Of course, we are going to see many other landmarks and maybe some museums, too.

Blake turned 8 last month, as crazy as that seems.  We had some friends over for a day of outside fun - playing baseball, kickball, squirt gun fight and baseball waterslides.  Boys are pretty easy to entertain.  His guests included Tyler Bush, Logan Trepokowski, Peyton Bowerman, Brendyn Essenmacher and Bryce Reinke.

Grandma Regentin broke her hip over the weekend and went in for surgery today.  Everything went well, so we are hoping for a speedy recovery.

Ball season

I'm going to pretend like I'm not months behind and just continue on with my post!!

I don't want to forget tonight and if I don't take notes, I just might...although I don't think Blake will forget anytime soon!  Blake had a baseball game tonight and not only did he hit the snot out of the ball every time he was up, he also made a triple play!!! Technically it was a double play because there was already one out, but he still made the play.  There was a runner on first and second.  Blake was playing second base.  A pop fly was hit over the first basemans head, Blake ran over, snagged the fly ball, tagged the runner who was headed to second, then ran and tagged second base to get the runner who had ran to third base out!!  I'm so proud of his quick thinking and skills.  At seven years old, I think we have many years of baseball in our future!!  Tom and I are coaching his team (ok, actually Tom is - I just keep the book and give him my opinion on who should play where, etc). 😊. 

Cora is playing Tball again this year and I am her coach.  Luckily Tom, Jessie and Rob are all helping out.  It's amazing how many people it takes to keep the attention of nine 4-5year olds!!  Cora is doing a great job hitting the ball without a tee!

I'm really going to miss baseball season when it's over.  I truly do enjoy it.  However, I'm sure Blake will want to continue playing in the yard until the snow flies!

Cora graduated preschool from Peace Lutheran a couple weeks ago.  This was bitter sweet for us.  It's hard to believe she will be starting kindergarten soon, but she is so ready for it, it makes it a little easier.  Plus I won't miss the running back and forth to school twice a day, three times a week!!

Summer vacation is almost here for the kids!!  Blake will be done with school on June 9th.  We don't have a lot for summer plans except a trip to Chicago.  We are going to see the Tigers play at Wrigley Field and take the kids to the American Girl doll store and the Lego store.  

Thankful

We had a nice Thanksgiving at John and Florence's today.  We celebrated both Christmas and Thanksgiving.  By the time we got home, the kids were sleepy and ready for bed.  As I was tucking Blake in, I gave him a hug and kiss and told him to remember to say his prayers and to thank God for all the things he is thankful for.  His response, "That will take awhile, momma."  Such a sweetheart he is!!

From the mouth of my babes....

Tom picked Blake up from catechism the other day and his teacher stopped him and told him that she needed to talk to him about Blake.  Of course, Tom was thinking, "uh-oh...what has he done?"  Here's how the story went:

Mrs. H was teaching the class about some saints and how some of them were from Peru.  She asked the class if anyone knew where Peru is?  Blake raises his hand and she calls on him.

"I know about Peru!!!  They played Michigan State last week!!!" says my son who is apparently watching way too much sports lately!

***

The other night Tom, Cora and I were out for dinner at the Stone Lodge (Blake was at a friend's house).  We were starting to get a bit impatient waiting for our food, so as we sometimes do, we try to figure out who's order takes the longest to cook.  Cora was quick with the solution this time, "I know it's your's momma.  You ordered the Cowboy burger...so now the cook has to go WAY out to the wild, wild west, find a cowboy, bring him back, and cook him up." (all while rolling her eyes) :-)