Lake Time

We have finally arrived at the lake and are enjoying the balmy 55 degree highs. Gotta love Northern Minnesota!! Luckily it won't stay this cool for long, but today we are cold! Isabel has brought a friend this year to the lake, so I am going to update my blog more regularly so that Lacey's family can see and hear about all she is doing. Thanks for letting us have her around the next 2 weeks. To start, we have the famous Minnesota road construction....spent an hour going about a mile or two. And in the end, the hold up was one construction cone blocking a lane with a few construction workers looking in the ditch. Arrggg!!!

Right after the road construction we treated ourselves to Tobie's Bakery goodies...including the yummy cardamom bread.


Lacey and Isabel shivering on the dock

Their "dorm room" for the next 2 weeks.


Gotta love the view from their room!!

Chicago Again!

The girls and I just got back from our annual Girl's Trip to Chicago. We mainly go to visit the American Girl store for the little ones, and the big girls like to shop Michigan Avenue. This year we went with Trish and Ally and had a fantastic time as usual. The American Girl store has moved to Water Tower place which was new since last summer, and we thought the new store was fantastic. I know I had just been there in April, but it was new to Trish and Ally! We covered all of our usual favorites: Navy Pier and the ferris wheel, American Girl, Giordano's, Hershey's, and a carriage ride. We did add a new event though...having a tire repaired in a parking garage downtown. Happily it was fixed perfectly and we made it home safely, although just a bit later than we planned. And the repair was incredibly reasonable...I did have to pay in cash though...it is Chicago as you know.

At Navy Pier




Walking Michigan Avenue in the rain




American Girl Place

Camp Time

It's that time of the year for camp to start. Isabel has moved up into the Middle School camp now, which just left this morning. And the twins will go for the first time to camp right after Isabel gets back on Saturday. So I will have almost 2 weeks straight of having at least one child away from home. Not sure how I feel about that, but they always have such a great time at camp.

Isabel and friends leaving for camp



Ready for a hot, hot, hot, bus ride to Kansas



We just finished our VBS at church. Isabel was on the Power Team, which means she and other middle schoolers lead the worship, songs, and dancing for the 700+ kids that attend our VBS. Although she was tired by the end of the week, I do believe she would have done it all summer if she could have.

The Power Team

Taylor Swift Concert

This year we have tried to take each child out for a special evening with just one of us, or both parents. Tonight was Chloe's turn and if you know anything about cool music for the preteen and older crowd, it doesn't get much better than Taylor Swift. I was one of the lucky ones that got tickets to her concert before it sold out (which it did in about 5 minutes, I hear). I first took Chloe out to get our nails done and have dinner at Cheesecake Factory. I didn't tell Chloe about the main event until we were right at the door of the arena. Here is her precious reaction.



As if the concert wasn't exciting enough, we got a treat of a lifetime as Taylor Swift came into the crowd right where we were sitting to sing a song and say hello to many fans. Chloe got to give Taylor a high five and I do believe she walked out of there on cloud nine. It really was an amazing concert, but a very, very nice bonus to have such a special moment with Taylor. Here are the few pictures we had of that:

Chicago Finale

The last 2 days of the trip we spent getting in some of the other Chicago highlights. I really wanted to take the kids on a Lake Michigan cruise, but the weather was just too cold!!



When we first decided to go to Chicago, the highlight for the kids probably would have been the Shedd Aquarium. However, the greatest exhibit they have, in my opinion, is the one with the whales and dolphins, and unfortunately, they were off exhibit while due to construction of a new facility for them. We still did go and enjoyed it quite a bit, but we will definitely have to go back when the whales are back!

We went up in the Hancock Tower which I haven't done in many, many years. It was really neat and they have an excellent tour that you take, even one geared for kids.

































Poor Samuel had to endure a trip to American Girl...sorry about that, buddy! The dolls had their hair done while we shopped the new store (now in Water Tower place).




The last day we went to Navy Pier to walk around, ride the carousel and ride a few other rides. The trip was really amazing. It was fun to have the kids enjoy all the things I love about Chicago, and for me to have my Chicago "fix". Hopefully the girls and I will get to go back up in the summer for our annual trip to American Girl with friends of ours!!

Field Museum

The second day of spring break warmed up a bit...well at least the snow was gone, so we headed off to the Field Museum and the Planetarium. The Field Museum probably ended up being our favorite museum in Chicago. The kids just loved seeing Sue, the huge dinosaur right when we walked in.



And they also had a great time in the Ancient Egypt exhibit where they saw lots of mummies!


The Planetarium also had some really neat exhibits and shows the the kids enjoyed. And how can you not like the location of the Plantarium....right on the waterfront!

Spring Break

Sorry that I have been out of commission for awhile....life just gets busy, and we have been traveling quite a bit lately. I'll try to catch up gradually on what we have been doing. To do so, I have to go all the way back to Spring Break, so bear with me.

I took the kids to Chicago while Eric stayed back and worked. We left on a snowy, icy, sleeting day...yes, it's supposed to be spring break and stopped in to see some good friends of ours for the night. Then on to downtown and the museums! We started at the museum of Science and Industry where the kids really liked the submarine and the big John Deere tractors.






Later that evening, we went out to State Street so the kids could see the famous Marshall Field store (Macy's now). The annual flower show had just started, so the building was even more beautiful than it usually is.