Week 7

We left for Chicago on Friday July 1st.  I woke up at 3:45 and started getting out last minute things together and the car loaded.  As soon as we were ready with all of that, we woke up the kids, took them to the potty, and then put them in the car in their jammies with a pillow.  And we were off.  We left just slightly after 4:30am. I was hoping the kids would go back to sleep, but I wasn't as lucky.  I drove first, Reid slept a bit, and for most the part all three kids were awake until about 6:30am.  Our goal was to get as far as we could before we needed to stop for breakfast.  And it worked, mostly.  We had to make a stop in Denver for gas and a bathroom trip for Finn (we didn't really need the gas but I didn't want to stop later since we were stopping for the bathroom).  And then we were able to get all the way to North Platte, Nebraska before our breakfast stop.  We had breakfast at a gas station/McDonald's combo and the kids were doing so good.  We were able to order a big breakfast and few other side items and split them among everyone and they all loved their breakfast.  From there we headed over to Fort Cody.  Reid grew up driving to Utah every summer and Fort Cody was a family tradition.  So, we made sure to stop.

In our jammies, heading into Fort Cody.

After our stop in North Platte, we kept on going with as few stops as possible.  We skipped lunch, since breakfast was so late.  We had lots of snacks in the car as well as lots of activities.  Everyone did really well with the trip.  Dinner came at a Wendy's in Iowa City right before we crossed into Illinois.  We ate in the car so that we didn't lose anytime.  We finally arrived in Elgin around 10:30pm.  We went right to work getting the kids to bed and then visited with Reid's mom before calling it a night.

The next day we went to lunch with Reid's parents.  We ate at Portillo's for the first time and then when we got home, we beat the other car so I had the kids pose for this last picture of them at Grammy and Papa's house.

As you can imagine, we were all tired and "car-lagged".  Is that a thing?  

One of the best parts of Grammy and Papa's house is the backyard.  There are two apple and two pear trees in the back and lots of room to run and play.  I sent the kids out there frequently.

We did not make it to church on Sunday morning.  The ward meets at 9am and my kids had not yet made the transition to Illinois time.  They didn't even get out of bed until 9am.  We spent the day lounging around for the most part.  In the afternoon we decided to take a walk.  We ended up walking over to Reid's elementary school where we let the kids play for a bit on the playground and then we took the nature trail back to the outskirts of the neighborhood and then back to the house.  I was still so tired from our trip that it all wore me out!

For the 4th of July we spent the day at the house, again.

For the 4th of July I made this yummy watermelon fruit pizzas for an afternoon treat.

Kai drew this on the sliding door with our window crayons that I brought to use in the car.

Reid got smoke bombs, poppers, and sparklers to play with that night.

The next day, Tuesday the 5th, we headed into Chicago.  We didn't have a real plan, which was unfortunate, and our time was limited (the kids were still sleeping in and it takes us a while to get through our morning routine, especially when there is cable television available!), but we parked in an underground lot and headed straight to the "Bean".  First off, the underground area of Chicago is so interesting.  There are "upper" and "lower" roads and it really is the same road (and I'm talking full-on road) underneath the road above it.  Our phones weren't getting reception underground and so we were having a hard time finding the lot we were looking for.  We eventually just decided to park in the next lot we saw and it was for a hotel.  So we entered the parking lot through a very narrow tunnel.  And by narrow I mean, NARROW.  The tunnel was barely wide enough for our mini-van and only had a 6 ft 6 inch clearance.  The kids were crying and I didn't blame them.  It was very unnerving.  It eventually opened up into a larger parking area, but gosh it was disturbing.  We got into the hotel and then out to the street and walked our way to the "bean".  I have to say, emerging from that parking garage to the business of this street was such a contrast. And it's been so long since I've been to be a big city that I felt very out of my element.

Street view

Bree and Kai holding up one side of the bean.

I tried to get all of my kids to actually stand still and pose for a picture but that proved futile.

See us in the middle of that reflection of the bean?  Reid is holding up his phone to take a picture.

More of the street view

My kids so desperately wanted to play in this water and I forgot a change of clothes so they had to stand and watch.

We grabbed lunch at Panera before heading out to Willis Tower.  That was the only thing Kai wanted to see and since we didn't have a plan, we decided to go for it.  It was not quite a mile walk from where we were.

When we got to Willis Tower the line was about 2 1/2 hours of a wait to go up and see the observation deck.  So, we passed on that and took a picture with this Lego model of it instead.  We also went to the gift shop and got Kai an ornament for his Christmas tree.

After that we decided to grab some cupcakes on the walk back.  I looked up cupcake shop recommendations and we found this hole in the wall location.  I was very disappointed by the small selection of flavors (about 6) but we made do and gave it a try.  To tell you how small this shop was, this was the only sitting and that green on the right of the picture is the other wall.  It was a tiny place, but the cupcakes were good.

After that we headed back to our car and decided to head back to Elgin.  We had gotten a good feel of the city and if we ever go back I have some ideas of how to better use and organize our time.  But the point of the trip was to say goodbye to Chicago, so who knows if we will ever get that chance.

The next day, Wednesday the 6th, I took the kids over to visit my mission trainer.  She lives in the area and I hadn't seen her in 12 years.  It was so fun to see her family and talk about the mission.  She even bought some Italian cookies for us to have cookies and milk while we were visiting.  I'm so grateful for my mission and for getting to serve with Nadia!

Finally it was time to go home.  We tried to use the same schedule going home that we did on the way out.  We got the kids up and out at the same time, which was 5:30am Chicago time (4:30 Colorado time).  We actually ended up leaving around 5:50am, but that was still good time.  Reid drove first this time and I tried to rest.  Bree had no trouble sleeping this time.  We were all very tired.

We stopped at a rest stop in Iowa mid-morning for Finn to use the potty and they had a fun area for the kids to climb on so I let them have about 5 minutes to get out some wiggles.

The kids were excited to see a toad hopping around in the grass.

He was little!

That day we skipped stopping for dinner and just headed straight home.  We did all of our eating in the car and tried to minimize stops.  We got home around 8:45 and were exhausted.  It seriously took me the whole next week to recover from the trip!  As much as we were glad to visit Elgin one more time, we were just as glad to be home in Monument.