Happy Birthday Don

We celebrated Don's birthday with Sean's favorite meal, salmon cakes. 

Khloe reading a book with Grandpa.

Sean and David beating each other up with blow up hammers. 

The pond

Dave and Linda live on a pond. We've gone out in the paddle boat before but Sean's never actually swam in the pond before. The mosquitos are vicious.



 

Don and Sean swam. I stayed on shore. Pond water grosses me out. There is so much goose poop around the pond I can only imagine how much is in the water. They took showers as soon as they got inside.

They had a lot of fun. There's a little floating dive deck that they jumped off.

Me and Nova

Don and his dad getting ready to pull the boat in. They had to dump out the water and clean it before we could take it out. Dava used it about 3 weeks ago but they've had a lot of rain so the seats were full.  We left it off shore and upside down because it's supposed to rain again this weekend.

Lightening bugs and the Brady's

We had dinner at the Brady's house. Mary is back from Dubai for a couple of weeks.

Nova will be 3 in August but she is the size of a 4 year old and has the vocabulary of a 4 year old. At first she would call Sean "that boy", now she calls him Sean or friend. She is a cute little girl. She follows Sean around and worries him like crazy. She won't let up. "I want to sit on your lap Sean." "I want to put this on your head Sean." It's funny.

All the times we've gone to Illinois and we've never gone in the summer. Sean had never seen a lightening bug. He caught a bunch.

Nova caught some too. She loved hers until they had a permanent glow and no wings. Sean said "your lightening bug is dead." She said "no, it's not!" Then a few minutes later she screams "my lightening bug is dead!"

Hunting lightening bugs.

Day in Chicago

We spent the day exploring Chicago. We road the bus into downtown. We started at the museum of Science and Industry. They had some new displays from the last time we were there. And they had displays that were the same as from when Don went there as a kid.

You can't tell but there is a submarine behind us.

We were all waiting for the pendulum to knock down one of the spears. We all cheered. After the museum we ate some Chicago deep dish pizza at Giordano's. We were going to go to the top of the Sears's Tower (but it's not called that anymore) but there was a 90 minute line. We decided it wasn't that exciting so we moved on to something different.

We took a pedi bike ride through the city. That was a lot more fun than riding an elevator. Our driver was really nice. Very strong. He drove us to the Millennial Park and waited for us while we walked around. There was a splash pad and some cool sculptures.

I was standing in the park and these young adults came up to me, they were doing a scavenger hunt and one of the things on their list was find someone wearing a fanny pack and ask to take a picture. Ha, that made me laugh. They said they had been looking all day for a fanny pack. How un-cool am I? OK, no one needs to answer that I get teased about my fanny packs all the time but I still wear them. It was nice that my silly unfashionable self could make their day. They said "really, you'll let us take your picture?" So we all pointed at my fanny pack and stood together for a selfie.

The bean is a really cool huge stainless steal bean sculpture. It reflects everything, the city, the sky, the people.

A picture from inside the bean.

A picture from outside the bean.

City picture taken from our bike ride.

The bike driver dropped us off at Union Station. We payed $30 so we could stay in the VIP lounge and get early seating on the train. It was very pleasant they had nice couches. Don and Sean played chess and we ate snacks.

The building has changed a lot since we were there last. There was a restaurant we ate at with Sean when he was a baby and it was gone.

Sitting on one of the old benches in the great hall. That was before Don staked out the VIP lounge. It was a 2 hour train ride to Rantoul where Don's dad picked us up. Then we met up with Dan, Nova and Linda at a Mexican restaurant.

Trip to Chicago

We flew to Chicago on Frontier. I'd never flown Frontier before. They add a new layer of cheap to cheap. 

The seats don't recline. The chairs have next to know cushion. You have to pay for a drink. All said, it was a 2 and a half hour flight so it wasn't too bad but I wouldn't want to spend six hours on a flight. AJ and Steph have flown to Costa Rica with them. Maybe they have nicer planes for international travel.

We got to the Chicago airport at 11 and we took the train to our hotel. We didn't get off the train fast enough and the doors shut. We had to get off at the next stop and then wait ten minutes for a train to take us back to our stop. We were ready that time. We stood right next to the door and jumped off as soon as the doors opened. The hotel was within very short walking distance from the train station. We got to the hotel about midnight. It was nice room, a suite with a huge shower. We didn't spend any time there we went to bed, slept well,  got up early ate a $50 breakfast at the hotel and then hit the town.

More fun in the sun

Khloe's second trip on the boat. She's a pro now. It was a nice day but the lake water was a little cooler than last time. It was still a fun day. Not to hot, not to cold.

Steph buried AJ in the sand. It made me claustrophobic just watching.

We went to the Oaks afterwards and they had live music. Khloe was sitting right in front of them clapping. The singer said "you are such a pretty little girl." Yes, she is. They were cute. Sean gave them a $5 tip then found a $20 in my purse he wanted to give them. Glad to know he's a good tipper.