Summer Fun!

The high temperatures we've been experiencing lately have required me to put a lot of thought into our daily activities.  Sometimes even hanging out in the driveway/garage is too exhausting.  On the hottest days we retreat to the lower level of our house.  We've built a lot of forts with the couch cushions and blankets.  On the days when the temperature is tolerable (less than 100 degrees) we head out.  Andrew loves the sprayground at Creekside Park.  It's a great place to take both of them.  Andrew gets good and wet and plays with all the other kids there.  Annabelle doesn't enjoy the water quite as much, but loves the swings in the park nearby. 

 We spend a lot of time just keeping it local.  Hanging out on the deck...

 Here we are waiting for the fireworks to start on the 4th of July.

 Pool time over at the Palmer pool.

 Evidence of our hot days.  This may possibly be the hottest temp I have ever experienced.  Maybe...

 Here's Andrew doing his little experiment.  Baking soda + vinegar + food coloring = fun explosions :)

 The kids get pretty creative with all the stuff in our garage. 

We venture out every Wednesday for storytime and then lunch at McDonalds. 

A weekend away...

Dave and I snuck away for a quick weekend trip to Chicago with our GE clan.  It was weird but in all the times we've been to Chicago we haven't taken the opportunity to be tourists until this trip.  We kicked back and soaked it all in.  The weather was AMAZING!  80 degrees all weekend.  We stayed at The Drake and ventured up and down Michigan Avenue all weekend.  We even saw some familiar faces.

This isn't what I mean by "familiar faces", Dave...

One nice thing about not traveling with your kids is you are able to act silly and just say "hey - it's a picture for the kids..."

Another familiar surprise while coming into town - Kroll's!  Yummy!  Fancier than the GB restaurants, but the same GREAT food.  Yum yum Yummy!!!  We walked 6.5 miles down Michigan Avenue to get there, but it was well worth it. 

Saturday night we had a great steak dinner at the Rosebud Steakhouse and went to see the musical "Rock of Ages".  It was so good, I don't know if I can bring myself to see the movie version.  Tom Cruise may ruin it for me.  I'd like to remember it as perfect as it was on stage.  Combined with a fun evening with friends, it topped off the weekend. 
The kiddos had a blast at home with Grandma and Grandpa R all weekend.  Annabelle didn't even notice we weren't there.  She did great with them all weekend.  Andrew, of course, couldn't wait for us to leave.  He was pretty excited when we returned though, probably because he knew we got him something. 

Fireworks!

We checked out a local fair a few weeks back and stayed to enjoy the fireworks.  Not the longest display ever, but it was more about enjoying them with friends.  Andrew and Jacob were so cute together, all their little "O-oooos" and "Ah-hhhhs" and "Wow - that was a big one".  We are very excited for the 4th of July!! 

Cave, man!

I can hardly believe I forgot to mention the cave in my last round of posts.  We made a pit stop on the way back from the wedding in May.  We stopped off at the Hidden River cave in the middle of no where Kentucky.  I thought it would make for a nice pit stop.  Andrew thoroughly enjoyed it.  Dad and me, not so much.  492 steps later and each carrying a child, we were exhausted and still had driving to do.  Andrew has been talking about the caves ever since.  We have checked out every book at the library about caves. 

He is definitely a future Spelunker (look that up if you don't know what it means).  The cave would be a great place to retreat to today.  It's 56 degrees in the cave year round!  That's sounds good compared to our 109 degree days.  Here's Andrew's funny comment after exploring the cave... "Mommy, the walls looked like they were made out of peanut butter. We should have brought some bread and made sandwiches!"  Silly boy!

Wedding Weekend!

This past weekend we made our way to Nashville for Katie and Duffey's wedding.  The day before the wedding we stopped off at The Aquarium Restaurant.  The food was good and the kids loved the HUGE aquarium in the middle of the restaurant.  It was very cool!

We probably walked around it about 10 times, at least.

The wedding was at Front Porch Farms about 30 minutes outside of Nashville and about 4 miles from Katie and Duffey house.  It was a beautiful setting up on a hill in the TN countryside. 

Here's the girls:  Kim (Katie's friend), me, Katie and Natalie (Duffey's sister).

We had a great time and the wedding was beautiful. 

The next day we made our way into Dickson and found this silly statue in the park.  Andrew seems to fit right in with the other characters.  I love the expression on his face here!  haha

Here's the 3 silly kids.  Maelee was home with Grandma and she's still wayyyy too normal to hang around with these monkeys.  Don't worry - we'll get her good and weird so she'll fit in with these three soon enough!