First part of vacation-Cubs

I am finally getting around to telling stories about our vacation. You have seen the pictures that I emailed out the other day, hopefully. We went in 4 states, slept in 4 different places, made a 7 hour car trip into a 13 hour one, and spent countless hours having lots of fun making great memories! Some of us even kissed real fish(more later)!

The first leg of our journey was to stop in Chicago for a night and go see the CUBS play. Justin has been a huge cubs fan for about all his life and has never been to Wrigley field. We had to go since it is about a 5 hour drive from our house. We stayed in a hotel the night before the game and got to go swimming the next morning before heading to the "L" station to get the train to Wrigleyville. The kids loved riding the metro when we lived in MD and so they were excited to get to ride a train again. Will has asked me several times when Justin is on a trip if he is riding he "L". We had a great time at the game and the Cubs won so that meant we got to sing the Go Cubs Go song that the entire stadium sings after every win. The kids liked the singing best. Well Caroline liked the singing and Will liked his baseball.

The place was of course packed.
No TVs anywhere. We could see the people changing the scores on the big scoreboard. Made it kinda hard to follow sometimes without the live replays.
After the game we took our time getting back to our car. We did some shopping and had an early dinner before driving into Wisconsin for the night. Justin and I set the tent up in the dark so we didn't get to see how beautiful the park was where we were staying. The picture below is when we left the next morning.
Part 2 Bass Lake coming soon.

The coolest thing about the game was we were sitting behind the bullpen. If you know Wrigley you know the bullpen isn't out behind a fence in the outfield but right out in the open along the third base line. Caroline wanted a ball so I told her she would have to ask for one (I surely wasn't going to!). It took most of the game for her to find the right opportunity to go ask. Couldn't go while the ball was in play or the crowd management guy wasn't standing there. But she did and when she asked she got one!! Will saw what happened and went scurrying down the 2 steps and put his hand out for one. The crowd right around him had seen Caroline get one, knew they were brother and sister, and seeing his little hand go over the wall promptly went "awwwww". The player hearing the crowd turns, sees Will's hand and then gives him one too!! How crazy that they both end up with a ball from a baseball game! Ever since then Will has said he is going to be a baseball player and is all consumed with his baseball and mini bat we got him. He puts on his knight helmet saying it is to keep his face from breaking (small story of why catchers where the mask I might have told him!) and is ready to go. He even tells me I need to put the black under my eyes so I can play too. That boy cracks me up!

Tough Guy Will

A true and very funny story. Will has always been very rough and tumble. Justin and I try not to run and coddle him everytime he falls but tell him hop up, brush it off. some how Will started saying he was OK, he was tough after he got hurt and was asked if he was OK. It goes like this

me: (after I hear or see him fall) you OK Will bo?

will: yeah, I'm tough.

So the other morning he hurt his leg and came to me and got in my lap and I asked if he was OK (he wasn't crying). HE told me,"Yeah I'm tough. (then pointing to his belly said) I got lots of tough in here!" I told him that he sure does and it was a good thing he did as much as he falls down and he laughed at that. Hilarious! That boy cracks me up.

Today after nap we went to get Caroline and woke her up actually(rare for her to fall asleep these days) and she wanted 5 more minutes so Will and I went and cuddled on my bed. He decided that the deers were coming (again with the deer) and needed to get under the covers. So we did. I tried telling him that deer were very pretty animals and nice but we still had to hide from them.

Will and I hiding from the deers!

Will loves animals and REALLY loves Jakers (our cat). But Jake doesn't always love the way Will shows his love. Tackling, pulling tails, and chasing aren't the cats favorite expressions of love. There are times Will is very gentle and truly loving to Jake and the cat has never scratched or bitten Will so he keeps trying. Below is a picture of Will after a tackling, hold the cat close, roll back and forth session of lovin!
Will holding Jake after picking him up from being boarded. The cat sat in Will's lap most of the way home with out trying to escape. Must have missed Will's lovin!
Will way deep in the covers hiding from those pesky deers!
No matter what mischief Will gets into there are always laughs nearby too. You can't help but smile at that cute little face! As Susan says,"I could just eat him with a spoon!"

For Julianna

Julianna, these are all for you!! Caroline has had many different hair styles but by far the biggest issue in regards to Caroline's hair is brushing it!! She doesn't mind washing her hair but she isn't a fan of anyone brushing her hair. I have included several pictures of Caroline showing off her hair. Mimi gave Caroline her first haircut and since that one she has only had 3(I think).

When Caroline was born she had lots of black hair. IT quickly fell out and when she got hair again it was bright blonde and stuck up all over her head!! It wasn't that windy in the picture below!
Caroline also likes to wear her hair in pig tails and I have seen your hair done the same way!
These last two are the most recent pictures so you can see what her hair is like now. I trimmed it a few months ago to make it easier to brush.
Finally a view of the back of her hair. When I told her that you wanted to know all about her hair she wanted me to take lots of pictures right away! So that's what we did!
I hope you enjoyed looking at Caroline's hair Julianna. Hopefully one day you and Caroline will get to do each others hair!!

Flippin crazy

While some of you might think I am talking about myself with the title of this post, I am not! Caroline loves to flip and tumble. She even loves a good game of wrestle with either Will or her dad, mostly both of them.

So I had all good intentions of posting yesterday and was really productive getting the kitchen mopped, dinner in the crock pot, and the breakfast dishes all done before 8am! Then I had to teach 2 water fitness classes one at 9a and the other at 6p. In between I got my allergy shot, did lunch, read lots of stories that we got from the library, and took a little break to see what was happening with the Tour. The thing that got forgotten was the blog.

Below are pictures that I took with my phone. You can tell she loves to flip and while this was on a low bar at the playground she will flip on any bar and has even learned to climb our light post in the front yard.

Will of course tries to copy his big sister but he doesn't leave his hands on the bar so it makes it a little hard to do the flip. I was trying to help him that's why no pictures of him trying.

The other half of our weekend

After Justin left on Sunday the kids and I putzed around the house and I did get to the source of the nasty smell in our basement.  The rug!  Not ours thank goodness, it was one left at the house when we moved in.  And it will be in the trash Friday morning!

So during naps I got a call from a friend asking if we wanted to go out on their boat and have dinner.  Of course are you kidding me.  Lets see...stay home and wait for it to start raining or go out on a boat with friends and have a picnic dinner?  obvious choice even if Justin wasn't coming!  Sorry Justin!  We had a blast and Caroline wore herself out being so excited.  She could have powered the boat with her excitement.  This isn't the first time on a boat for the kids but it has been awhile.  She had a perma-grin the whole time.

Loved having the wind in her hair, but not me brushing it later!
We picked up Panera on the way to the marina.  The picture of Will is while we are anchored for dinner.  I don't have pictures of him because he sat in my lap while the boat was moving.
After dinner we headed back because of the clouds coming our way.  We had sun but the land didn't as you can see.  I love how the sun is shining on the water spray.
This is what we saw when we got home.  A perfect ending.  Will was actually the first to notice the rainbow.
Justin comes home tomorrow night and Caroline starts a new set of swim lessons in the morning.  In between is picking up the house!

Our weekend minus Justin for half

Yippee!!! I can see the pictures while typing!  This weekend was a blast.  Besides the fact that Justin had to leave at 10 Sunday morning.  Saturday we had a late breakfast at IHOP and headed down to the Henry Ford Greenfield Village.  They were having a Ragtime fair.  It included food, period dancing, shows (ie: Gershwin), and a baseball game played with rules form 1867!  Of course the kids loved riding the carousel.

Stylin in her princess shades!
Playing with dad's hat.  We also got to ride a steam locomotive around the village.
Some of the baseball players.
Sorry it is fuzzy but notice they don't have gloves.  The ball was a bit bigger than baseballs now but smaller than a softball.  The ball had to be pitched "underhand with a straight arm, and must be pitched, not jerked or thrown."  The batter was called a striker until he hit the ball and had to keep his foot on a line of base ( behind the plate) until he hit the ball.  There are other rules that are different but I won't bore you with all of them.  Very interesting to watch and with Will in his 'why' stage also very hard to explain.  Then we came back home all had naps and then had an early dinner and went bathing suit shopping at the mall.  Great day and thanks dad for the member passes, we really enjoy going!! 

Minor flooding

I feel somewhat like my cousin Laura. But on a much smaller scale thank goodness! From the pictures above you can see that Will and Caroline were playing in a stopped up sink. They had gotten apples that had fallen from the tree in our back yard and put them in a sink of water to make apple cider. They were stirring with spoons and all. That was not the issue and I was pleased with their creativity. Well of course I forgot to unplug the sink and so did the kids. Later in the day we were out front playing with some of the neighbor kids and I was the only adult outside so I didn't go inside with Will as he went to fill his water gun up. A few minutes later I go inside to get something and hear water splashing. Oh crap! Will didn't turn the water off after filling up his water gun and the half bath was under a few inches of water. I release the drain and turn off the water. I didn't clean it up since all the kids were still in the front yard and needed supervising. So I cleaned it up after dinner and when I went to the basement to get towels noticed that there was water in front of the washer. Since I had been doing laundry I thought the washer was leaking but realized later that it was form the bathroom above. A whole big box of arts and crafts stuff and empty photo albums got wet and I still haven't gotten the carpet to dry and that was about 4 days ago! So what am I going to do today....clean and dry the basement. It has started to smell like rotten bird and I have a sneaking suspisison that Jake has brought us another present. Yippie! Justin left this morning for another trip so I can't get him to pick it up if there is one there. Some how he is getting out of his husband duties again!