My Kind of Town

Tide Pool...see below for interesting Audrey commentary.
Sawyer trying to rip the plastic duck off the ground at Shedd Aquarium.
Audrey checking out the sea dragons.
Riding the tortoise at Shedd.
Audrey with her goods from American Girl Place.
Riding the boat on the Chicago River.
Audrey making a friend on a ride at Navy Pier.
Riding the hippos at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Running out of the ant hill.
Checking out the view from our 10th floor hotel room.
Riding the carousel at Navy Pier with Aunt Emily.

Checking out the monkeys from the floor.
Playing with Abby at Aunt Emily's apartment.
Riding the ferris wheel at Navy Pier.

This weekend we headed out for the west side of the state to visit Ben's parents and then drove on to Chicago. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about taking the kids to a big city. The logistics are a little different. All I could think about was timing, packing, taxi cabs, hotel sleeping arrangements, Sawyer screaming in the car for hours on end and Sawyer running into the middle of Michigan Avenue. He did scream in the car for hours and also did come close to escaping on MI Ave. but we'll revisit that incident a little later. Other than those two things it actually was much easier than I thought it would be.

When we first arrived in Chicago we met Emily at the Lincoln Park Zoo. It's a really old zoo and fairly compact so you could really get up close a personal with the animals. The kids enjoyed the monkeys because they were so active. Sawyer lay on the ground at numerous exhibits, just to make me cringe. I think he enjoyed seeing the animals from a different angle, who knows.

After the zoo we headed out to Emily and Rodney's apartment where we spent Friday night. For Audrey, this was the highlight of the whole trip. She couldn't get enough of the 3 cats. She keeps saying Abby was the nicest because she's the girl and the other two are boys. Mackie, one of the boy cats, hissed at her. Yesterday she got mad at me and hissed, she then went straight to the rug for a time out. Hopefully we won't have any more hissing. Audrey loved sleeping on Aunt Emily's floor with the cats. She only woke up Rod and Em once with her sleep talking.

Another interesting thing about staying at Emily's apartment was Sawyer and the pack and play. We put him down for a nap and we kept hearing him making noises for about 20 minutes. Ben went in the room and he was trying to climb back INTO the pack and play. I was surprised he got out of it since there really isn't anything for him to boost himself up with. He then climbed out at 6:00 am, we obviously threw him right back in. No way were we going to get up at 6 on our vacation. He climbed out again at 8:30, a much better hour. I'm waiting for him to climb out of his crib at home. I know the crib days are numbered and I'm not liking that.

On Saturday morning we headed to our hotel in the middle of downtown. After checking in we walked to Navy Pier and went on all the rides. Of course, Sawyer did not want to sit through even the short carousel ride without switching horses 3 times. We should have known that he would not sit through the 7 minute ferris wheel ride. Luckily, Ben had the job of restraining him and I got to sit with Audrey. Audrey went on one ride without us and made a little boyfriend. They talked the whole ride and then Audrey told us she made a new friend. It was pretty cute. We took the water taxi back on the Chicago River which I thought was really cool. I love looking at the buildings from the river.

After Navy Pier Mr. Ginger needed a nap which leads us to the Michigan Avenue escape. While Ben and Rodney were crossing MI Ave. Sawyer decided it would be a good idea to arch his back and escape out of the bottom of the stroller, in the MIDDLE of the busiest street in Chicago. Luckily, the guys grabbed him before he could get too far, which then led Sawyer to throw his LEGO car into the middle of the street, breaking it into 2 pieces. Screaming then followed. Fortunately for myself and Emily, we were in the peaceful, girly heaven of the American Girl store. Audrey wanted matching pajamas and slippers for herself and her Bitty Baby. It was expensive but worth it. She wore the pajamas for 24 straight hours and is carrying her doll everywhere.

We had a relaxing Saturday night with some deep dish pizza and a swim in the hotel pool. We had a suite so we put the kids to bed and then hung out with Em and Rod in the other room. Suite hotel rooms are the best invention when you have little kids. In the morning we headed out to Shedd Aquarium, which I highly recommend for little ones. Sawyer was even interested in doing more than running around. That doesn't happen too frequently. One funny thing at Shedd - They had a small tide pool for the little kids to put their hands in so they could touch a starfish and a sea urchin. Audrey informed the lady that you aren't supposed to touch sea urchins because they are poisonous. The lady told her that the kind they had was OK but Audrey wasn't buying that. Audrey then told her that they needed to make the water warmer because starfish didn't like cold water. I guess all that time spent reading the fish books with Ben is paying off.

After Shedd we headed out to South Bend to visit Amy and her precious new baby boy, Reed. It was great to see the whole family! Ben and I are now over the trauma of Sawyer crying in the car for over 5 hours total. Although, I wouldn't say we're over it enough to travel more than a half hour from home for quite some time. Time heals all wounds so we'll see. It was a whirlwind weekend but so much fun to see our family, friends and such an awesome city!

Elkow

The glorious Elkow

Ben driving the Elkow in the tractor parade

Jeff's Mater tractor

Nick's Zamboni tractor

Andy's awesome tank tractor.

Brad as Teen Wolf in his NHS letter jacket!

The kids ditching their bikes in the middle of the bike parade to pick up candy from the dads on tractors!

Tyler in the bike parade.

Sawyer enjoying his loot.

Abby and Audrey waiting for the parade to start.

We are fortunate to live in an awesome neighborhood that does cool stuff for the kids. Basically every house in the sub has kids elementary aged and younger. It is such an awesome place to live!

We had our sub block party on August 8th. After much concern over the weather it actually turned into a great afternoon. The 3 inches of rain that down poured on us earlier in the day cleared out and we could enjoy the party. Good thing, since about 70 people were coming and we didn't really have a back up plan, PHEW!

As you can see, the highlight of the pictures is Ben's Elkow, at least if you ask Ben it is. Our sub is called The Heights at Elkow Farms, hence the elk-cow. Our developer's last name is Elkow, he must be a little conceited if you ask me. The men decided that a tractor parade would be fun for the kids. I think the dads had as much fun, or more, than the kids did! It took Ben about 10 hours of work to construct the Elkow. First he sculpted the elk with chicken wire and used a box for the cow body. Then he attached the two with bungee cords and paper mached over the chicken wire and the boxes. Who knew that paper mache was just another one of Ben's obscure talents? The Elkow was given his namesake by Sawyer. Every time he would go to the garage and see the scary thing he would say, "Goodness!" as in, "Oh my goodness," one of the phrases I use all of the time with him when he gets into trouble - which happens to be multiple times in a day.

The parade was a success and is sure to happen again next year. I wonder what crazy idea Ben will come up with. It's sure to be entertaining and messy, whatever it is.

They say you can't go back...

Audrey in front of the log cabin. Notice Sawyer is doing his mowing duty, of course.

Daddy getting down to business.

The joys of eating campfire marshmallows.

Audrey looking for skippers in Otsego Lake.

Eating Jiffy Pop.

Davy Crockett

Putt-Putt at Call of the Wild.

In heaven with his bulldozer in the sand.

Fishing with Daddy.

Audrey giving Sawyer a hug, or a head lock depending on how you look at it.

Audrey's bunk. Sawyer wanted to sleep there too but we restrict this dare devil to a pack and play.

Al's Market=Candy Heaven

Candy necklaces were a fave.

but we did! Last week we spent our vacation up north at Arbutus Beach. Every summer when I was a kid we would go to Arbutus for a week to a "resort" (more like camping), until some rich doctor bought the place out and turned it into his house. BOO! My brother, Megan and I would count down the days for months before going and save our money to buy pounds of candy at the corner store. Northern MI had much cheaper candy prices than Novi so we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. I thought I would never see my childhood paradise again. However, one day I was browsing for cabins on line and to my surprise I found a listing for a log cabin on Arbutus Beach. I felt like a kid again!!

I was a little worried that it wouldn't seem like such a great place as an adult, our parents did call the place "ArPUKEus" instead of Arbutus when we were little. I was also worried that Ben would think I was crazy for wanting to rough it for a week in a log cabin while we could have been in our nice, clean house.

As it turned out I had nothing to worry about. Although the cabin was rustic, complete with a shower in the bedroom instead of in the bathroom and we did also kill our fair share of hornets and earwigs, we ended up having a wonderful week. Since Northern MI is stuck in a time warp, lagging about 20 years behind the rest of Michigan, I got to watch my kids enjoy Arbutus Beach just as I had.

The weather was crappy, big surprise, this summer has sucked in that regard. The kids did not mind the chill though. They went in the lake without any complaints while I sat in the sand in layers for half of the week. It warmed up toward the end though. We went to all of my old favorite spots. They discovered the joys of Al's Market and the cheap candy. Their favorites were candy necklaces, blow pops, and push up pops. Sawyer would stand in front of the store and chant, "candy, candy, candy". We also went to Call of the Wild, a cheesy go-cart and mini-golf place, dubbed Call of the Wallet by my dad when we were kids. That kind of sucked because Ben and I had to spend our own money this time. We had a camp fire every night The kids quickly learned about marshmallows and Jiffy Pop. We built lots of sand castles and went on many stick adventures looking for kindling for the fire.

It was an awesome week for us to relax, decompress and just spend time as a family. Maybe we'll even go back next year and carry on the tradition to the next generation.