Several weeks ago, I announced to Dave that I wanted to drive to Chicago to spend either Thanksgiving or Christmas with my family. We haven't been back to Chicago since last year and, although my parents have been out here to visit us, it was important to me that my kids see their Aunts, Uncles and Cousins on my side at least once during the 2011 calendar year! We decided on Thanksgiving and pulled out of the driveway at 6:15am last Saturday. A little over 12 hours later, we pulled into my sister's driveway! We really tried to make it a vacation for the kids, and took them out to do something fun every day. Tanner started calling my sister's house our "vacation home" which made us all laugh! Here we are at the Cosley Zoo, a local zoo in Wheaton. My dad took the day off work and came with us. Cousins Jace and Eli joined us too!
The following day, we took the kids to the DuPage Children's Museum. They all had an absolute blast!
Lacey's cousin is named Jace, so they are "Lace and Jace." And, since they are both 4 and both have fun, spirited personalities, they were instant pals! They played together every single day we were there and Lacey cried when we came home because she missed him so much.
Tanner had fun with his 2-year old cousin, Eli.
And even Riley joined in the fun on the play train.
Last year, we took the kids to a place in Oswego called BounceTown. They LOVED it, so we decided to head back this year. It has 3 huge rooms FULL of various moon-bounce type contraptions with slides, obstacle courses and such. Being a year older, they had even more fun this year, so we ended up taking them twice! Here's Lacey going down the Batman slide...
No trip to Naperville is complete without a trip into Chicago! So, we packed up the kids the day after Thanksgiving and headed for Lincoln Park Zoo!
They had a great Children's exhibit with this fabulous piece of art that came down from the ceiling that the kids could climb through. And at the bottom, were cages of turtles, toads, etc.
Didis!!!! Lacey grew attached to a pink flamingo stuffed animal as a baby and by 6 months, wanted it with her constantly. She is almost 5 and she still LOVES that stuffed animal. She named it "Didi" and that is what we have called flamingos ever since. By default, I suppose, that is now her favorite animal. So when we saw a group of them at Lincoln Park, Lacey was THRILLED!
Despite all the fun outings we had, the best part of the trip by far was spending time with family. Here is my sweet mother making her famous sugared almonds.
And here is my brother Ryan with my favorite 1-year old!
And the whole gang! My parents have 7 grandchildren and we had them all together for Thanksgiving this year! From left to right, Jace, Riley, Reagan, Eli, Lacey, Tanner and Parker.
I am thankful for many things this year. But I am especially thankful for my sister and her husband, Kevin for hosting my crazy clan of 3 young and rowdy kids for 8 NIGHTS (3 of which one of us spent throwing up and passed on to her daughter!) Despite the short bouts of flu that we dealt with (and Riley's refusal to sleep at night), we had a fantastic trip! And one more thing I'm thankful for.... this blog. I have loved being able to chronicle the lives of my family. I started this blog when Lacey was a baby. She is now almost 5 and this is my 300th post.
