Illinois 2017

After a busy week or so of unpacking, we headed to Illinois for our annual summer trip. 

Grandma requested to keep the kids overnight so Mom and I dropped them off in Morton early Saturday morning. Mom and I spent the weekend in Bloomington shopping, eating our favorite foods, getting pedicures and having some wonderful mother/daughter time!  

The kids had a blast with grandma making birdhouses, gardening, going to the playground, going out to eat a bunch of times, going to church and even celebrating Rowan's birthday a bit early! 

Thanks Grandma! 

We came back to Grammy and Grampy's for a couple of days.

We had some fun cousin park time with Jade and Jemma! 

Jemma really wanted to be one of the big girls this time! I can't believe she's almost three.

The most handsome brothers ever! 

We also made an ice cream stop! 

The boys loved "watching" Jemma and made sure that one of them was never far behind her at the park or walking to the car.

The kids have been begging to ice skating for months. We surprised them with a trip to the ice rink in London but when we got there, the rink was being rented out for a private party. They were super disappointed and the item remained top of their summer bucket list. Grammy was kind enough to help them check that off.

He was so excited although admitted that skating was a lot harder than it looked. 

All three kids spent some time using this skate aid to help them to stay on their feet.

By then end though, all three were skating on their own. Grammy and I even got on skates. Haha.

Grampy and the boys generally play hours worth of games when they're together. Usually its Monopoly but this trip Grampy introduced them to a game called Stock Market and they loved it. Grammy and Coco played a lot of dollhouse and dress up.

Everyone got convertible rides.

The kids requested that we pick some berries so we went to a local farm to do that.

These kids are so funny when it comes to bugs. They are all terrified of them. They haven't grown up around bugs so far. So what may seem typical to a kid from IL or even TN is foreign to them. Patience was needed every time they saw a big bug. 

Pretty sure this girl ate more than she got in her basket.

We picked black raspberries (not blackberries) and they were so so tasty.

When we got back, Coco and Grammy snuck in some baking time.

Mom and Dad cashed in on their Christmas gift from us while we were there too. The pictures turned out so beautifully despite the humidity and thousands of mosquitoes. 

Love this picture of the cousins! 

Rog and I got to slip away for the night and celebrate our anniversary in Chicago. We stayed overnight, had breakfast and did some shopping. It was quick but so nice to spend a little time alone with my favorite guy.

We celebrated our almost 9 year old.

SUPER excited about his jersey! 

Cruz also got a Cubs shirt for Rowan's birthday. 

We went to dinner at Nick's (Rowan's choice).

And had Cub's cookies, which turned out not to taste very good. Oops.

My grandma, who the kids call GeeGee, had her 90th birthday party while we were in Illinois and we all got together to celebrate! This is Grandma and her original grandchildren.

GeeGee got the kids special shirts. I love all these precious faces! 

It was such a blessing to have everyone together. We had such a beautiful weekend of family time, fun and fellowship.

On our last night, there were some really bad storms that ended up knocking out power in my parents neighborhood. The kids were so excited for a "blackout" and had fun playing in the dark and going to sleep with flashlights as we learned that the power wouldn't be on til the next morning. Mom and I ran to a laundromat to finish washing the laundry I'd started and we dropped Roger off at a Starbucks to charge all our electronics. Thanks so much for making this experience such an adventure for the kids, Grammy and Grampy! They had a ridiculous amount of fun! 

Moving Adventures

Our move was a lot of challenges mixed with even more blessings. 

So, our packers arrived to pack us on Wednesday the 21st, the movers came to load up the stuff on Thursday the 22nd and we closed on our FL house on Friday the 23rd. Thank goodness for air mattresses! We rented a mini van again for our drive since neither of our cars are super equipped for 5 peoples, 2 animals and a weeks worth of stuff. Our movers were so nice, they let the kids on the moving truck and even let the honk the big horn.

Peace out, Florida! 

We had an entire week before we could close on our Tennessee house so we had to make a 10 hours drive take a lot longer. Before we even left Lakewood Ranch we stopped to see Cars 3. Rowan's face was amazing. As a preschooler, he loved Lightning McQueen and even though he's getting to be so big, you could tell he absolutely loved this movie too.

We only drove an hour and a half Friday night to Cape Canaveral, FL. On Saturday, we visited the Kennedy Space Center.

Sitting in this little Gemini capsule, the kids learned that two astronauts were in there for 14 days. There wasn't even enough room to stand up and stretch their legs.

There was a fun playground.

Sweet brothers

Waiting to get on the bus for our tour.

We saw an enormous building where space craft are made. We learned that its the largest one story building.

One of the launching sites. The safest distance away to sit during a rocket launch is three and a half miles.

Our tour stopped so that we could have a look at the Apollo Saturn shuttle.

And have a little lunch at the Moon Rock Cafe

You can see the launch site way off in the distance.

We got to touch an actual piece of the moon.

Then we got back on the bus to visit the space shuttle Atlantis.

This was my favorite. SO SO SO super cool! Atlantis flew 33 missions over the course of 23 years. We learned that the shuttle launched as a rocket, flew like a spacecraft and landed like a glider making it reusable.

We all got to taste astronaut ice cream.

Then we went back to our little pet friendly motel, swam and ate pizza by the pool.

She's become a little fish this summer.

The next morning we headed out. Both Cooper and Elsa were amazing travelers. They were so good in the hotel rooms and amazing in the car. I'm so thankful for that.

Daytona Speedway

Our destination for the day was only an hour away in historic St. Augustine, FL. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States and also served as the original capital of Florida.

Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the U.S.

Rowan made a new friend at the park and the two of them chatted while they pushed Coco on the tire swing. 

We had delicious BBQ for dinner and just walked around the historical part of town.

We all thought it was interesting how they used seashells in the masonry work in the city.

On Monday we drove the six-ish hours to Atlanta.

Traditional road trip treats from the gas station.

Georgia had these super pretty pink trees everywhere. The rest of my car was unimpressed but I thought they were gorgeous.

Roger dropped the kids and I off at a Dairy Queen while he sat in the car with the animals and made some work calls. I think we got the better end of the deal.

We ate dinner at the original Chick Fil A. This was so cool. The original name of S. Truett Cathy's chicken restaurants was The Dwarf House. The restaurants all had a Snow White/dwarfs kind of theme. While his restaurant chain eventually evolved into Chick Fil A, the Dwarf Houses are labeled with both names.

There was a tiny dwarf sized door

that you could actually go through! The kids loved it.

Such a fun stop.

We spent our day in Atlanta at The World of Coca Cola.

The kiddos met the Coke polar bear.

We went in the vault where the secret recipe of Coca Cola is kept.

We saw a fun 4D show.

The kids favorite part, however, was sampling Coca Cola from around the world.

We found a playground at Olympic Park and let the kids burn off some energy there.

We finished the night at Top Golf. Both boys love golf so this was a really fun treat for them.

Getting pointers from Daddy.

On the road again

Our new home state!!! 

So pretty!!! It's only Wednesday at this point however and for some reason, I stopped taking pictures. Maybe thats because this is the point in the trip where God was growing and stretching us. We were all tired, sick of sleeping in pet friendly hotels and ready for a little bit of space. Wednesday and Thursday kind of dragged on although we swam, drove past the new house and the kids' new school. Finally Friday came and our new house was ours! 

Our neighborhood is so pretty but honestly unlike anywhere I've ever lived. It's in a valley, surrounded by hills and trees. It's a little bit of a drive to everything.

Our patience was tested a tiny bit more as we waited for the moving truck which wouldn't arrive until Monday. The kids spent a lot of time in the pool and we made another visit to the movies. I was so so so happy to see that United truck pull up on Monday morning. We are so thankful to God for the blessing of this new house, for the blessing of family time as we made our trek here, for safety and for the ways that he grew us.