Kayaking in Chicago

Jeff and I had a fun adventure in Chicago - kayaking down the Chicago River in the evening to watch the fireworks at Navy Pier.  It was great fun and a lot of work!  Three hours of paddling!  But it was totally worth it for the fireworks. 

Petting zoo

Kyle & Emily had a blast at the petting zoo near Papa's house. Though we didn't do too much petting of the animals, the kids had fun feeding the animals. They each had a bag of animal feed and were happily feeding the goats, deer, sheep, ducks, peacocks and cows. Unfortunately, the deer were a little hungry and grabbed the entire bag of feed right out of Emily's hands! And that deer ate the feed, bag and all!! Needless to say, Emily wasn't too happy about that. Thankfully, Kyle was very sweet to share the rest of his feed with Emily so they could both continue to feed the animals.

Emily also got to ride a horse. She seems a natural riding a horse. Kyle didn't care for riding and preferred to watch and cheer on his cowgirl sister.

Little butterfly

I love how the kids check out this butterfly that you can't really see on the video. And how Emily is so excited how beautiful it is and flaps her wings too. They even wanted to feed the butterfly some bark. How thoughtful. :-)

Playing on the seesaw

Push me up again! Kyle & Emily love this song, especially how Grandma Beth would sing it. They always get a laugh out of this song.

Concentration

On the way home to Chicago from Ohio, we stopped at Cracker Barrel. We can't not stop at one! First, it's pretty much tradition and second, there aren't any CB's in California. The closest is in Arizona. Anyhow, I love this video of Kyle and how he is concentrating on using the knife to get his jam out perfectly and his big chomp on the biscuit, but not before thinking about licking the knife and deciding otherwise.

Family reunion at the farm

It's that time of year again! Family reunion at the farm in Ohio!! Once again, we had a great time!

Great-Grandpa receiving his photos from his Honor Flight and his WWII medals.

Great Grandpa driving the tractor, getting ready for the hay ride

Cat or dog food for the fish!

The fish loved it!

Kyle, Emily & Ryan

Kyle with Aunt Kristin & Ryan

Great Grandpa, Jeff & David, Kyle & Ryan - 3 generations with another between Jeff & David with Great Grandpa

Great Grandpa, Grandma & baby Evan

Great Grandma and baby Evan

Emily and Grandma

Chicago

Guess where we went? Chicago! Surprised? Didn't think so! We had a full itinerary of places to go, people to see, things do to and had loads of fun! Lots of posts to be done from the trip.

Kyle taking a nice airplane nap

Sleeping at grandma's house. Kyle rolled off the bed in the middle of the night and didn't seem to mind at all! I moved him back onto his bed and he didn't wake! He sure can sleep!

Happy birthday Grandma!!

These carseat pictures are from when we returned to San Diego, but apparently after flying for 4.5 hours, the kids felt they needed to sit again while we waited for Jeff to pick us up with our car.

Oyster girl

Emily is our adventurous eater. While Kyle's adventures in eating include spicy foods, Emily will try all kinds of different foods. And here she is eating an oyster.

Rockets!

Kyle and Emily have had a blast playing with their rocket. Nothing like shouting 3, 2, 1 blastoff and then making the rocket take off!

Testing the rocket out inside


Kyle takes his turn


Emily's turn

Happy 4 years home Kyle!

Happy 4 years home Kyle! Born on July 9th, you were able to come home two weeks later on July 23rd. And what fun we have had!

Summer fun

Summer has been a lot of fun so far. A few recent highlights:

Pancake breakfast playdate with Dax & Rowan

Tree climbing

Movie night in the park. They were showing Shrek 2

Sea World fun

Flamingos on parade

Giant bounce house!