Day in Chicago, Part 2-Beach

We left our car at the zoo and walked to some painted trees just outside the zoo for a picnic lunch

Then we walked to the beach

Walking over Lake Shore Dr. Very cool bridge!

The Beach!

I think it is so cool to be playing on a real beach in the shadow of skyscrapers. The building behind us with the two antennaes is the Hancock Building!

As you can see...we pretty much have the beach to ourselves!

That water is was cold!

boys working hard

The finished sand castle!

We had so much fun! Thanks to the Arnolds for the pails and shovels for our sandcastle and if you ever ocme to visit us or Chicago-plan a day like this into the schedule!

The ride home.... :D

Chicago trip, fun surprise

We didn't plan our anniversary trip to Chicago to match up with the Hawks' Parade and Rally, but since we were there...

Chicago was all decked out!

So many people

HAHA!!

all the windows in that building were full of people

we were in a crowd of business men and reporters

Confetti and fireworks

We've seen the Stanley Cup in person...far away...but still!

A visit.

My Parents came to visit last weekend! We had a great time with "Grandpa" and "Grandma". It was just for a weekend visit, but we had some fun times in it. We went to the mall and played on Luke's rides, and then Luke got to go on the big Carousal for the first time-he did great. We walked around our neighborhood and played on the slide, Luke's favorite thing to do these days! Grandpa and Grandma also gave Luke something very exciting-a baseball bat, ball and glove! We were playing indoor baseball (check the pictures out below). Luke is a very good pitcher...when he is focused. And of course, no time with Luke is perfect without the watching of "O Little Joe" and Jonah, his Veggie Tales movies. lol.
Mom and Dad took us to Chicago one day (Luke hung out with the Arnolds-thanks!), we saw Wicked!! and went to a very nice Steak house-I had shrimp. It was so much fun.
Enjoy the pictures.

At the mall

Indoor baseball




watching movies and having fun!

Thanks for the visit Grandpa and Grandma! We love you.

Flat Stanley, Take 2

Our niece, Madison, sent her Flat Stanley to come visit us this past week, (don't worry Madison-he's on his way home!!). These are some of his adventures here:

First we went to Giordano's, where he not only ate with us, but he also got to go back in the kitchen and help make Chicago style deep dish pizzas!

Then we went into Chicago and took pictures with some landmarks: Aaron and Stanley are posing here with Michael Jordan's statue in front of the United Center; he and I are standing in front of Oprah's studios.

Vaguely here you can see the Sears Tower in the background!


Stanley was lucky enough this visit to go sledding with our youth group! We had a lot of fun:

Stanley even made his own Snow Angel!

Thanks Madison for sending him here! We had a great time. Love you!

P.S.-If you want to see our visit with our other niece, Hannah's Flat Stanley, Click Here.