Eva's 4th Birthday

 Eva's 4th Birthday was lovely.  We were at The Farm.  She insisted on wearing her cowgirl boots.  She was all tuckered out on the way home.  :)

Eva's Cowgirl/My Little Pony/Hello Kitty/Brave/Strawberry Shortcake Birthday
Party

First Day of School, 2012

 

Patrick's first day of school, 1st grade this year.

 

 

First Day of School Pics

Eva's first day of 3 year old pre-school.

Sweet Vacation Alabama

Sam and I took the kids to Gulf Shores in July for vacation.  It's a 13 hour drive, so on the way down, we split the drive into two days.  We stopped on the way out of Illinois in Metropolis to see Superman.  Once we arrived, we found our condo: a cozy one-bedroom across the street from the beach.  I was super excited to take the kids to see the beach for the first time.  We made our way over and they thought it was cool, but were a little hesitant at first.  By the end of the week, we had to literally drag them off the beach crying.

While we were there, we also went go-cart driving.  The track was wooden and circled up and up and up.  Sam even rescued a dolphin (stuffed) that someone had lost on the track.  Speaking of dolphins, we took a boat ride around the bay and saw real dolphins.  You can see the fins in the photos (near a small fishing boat).  It was nearly impossible to get a good pic of them. 

We went to a place called The Hangout.  Super fun place!  Other than it being a little pricey, I highly recommend it for kids and/or adults.  We went one morning for the pirates and princess breakfast.  Eva declared she'd be a Pirate Princess-that's my girl, maybe she can have it both ways.  We was rocking the eye patch and head wrap, along with a wand.  She and Patrick went on a treasure hunt and came back with gold and lots of fun memories.  On another night, we went back to The Hangout for a late dinner.  We had a 45 minute wait, so we went out to the beach in the dark with glow bracelets.  It was fun for the kids to run around and fling those bracelets hither and yon.  We went back in for dinner and dancing at the table.  Fun fun!

Another highlight was the pier.  Gulf Shores Pier goes about a quarter mile in to the ocean and was very cool.  It was my favorite part of the trip.  Despite a LOT of fisherman and fish guts, the walk was beautiful.  We went at sunset and got some great photos of the family.

I can't forget to mention that on the way down, we drove through Huntsville, Alabama.  In case you didn't know, like me, this is where NASA Space Camp is located.  We found it and Sam was in heaven.  We even took a photo of him to show that he finally made after 25 years of dreaming about it!  We tried to show the kids the cool space ships and rockets, but they were wholly uninterested.

We made the trip in one day; we left at 10a and arrived home around 11:30p.  Phew!  The kids were really great in the car.  All in all, we had a great trip!  To see all of the pics of our trip, follow me.

Spring Break 2012

This past week, Sam, Patrick, Eva, and I went on a wild and crazy Spring Break. 
We went to Chicago (Oswego) first.  We stayed at Jaime and Rob's home there.  The kids had SO much fun playing together: Patrick and Eva, along with Sophia (7) and William (2).   Izzy, the dog, was also tons of fun (I really wanted to steal her!).  On Tuesday, we all went to LegoLand.  The kids had a blast...and the grown up boys had a good time too!  There are some pretty cool builds there (check out the pics).  Then we went to Rain Forest Cafe.  All the kids had a good time exploring the animals and special effects. Eva and William did NOT like the storm effects that happend from time to time.

From there, Sam, Patrick, Eva and I met up with the Hatfield crew for a visit.  We met at Portillo's (shocker-Sam's fav place).  We saw Peggy, Rob, Michael, Teri and baby Lexi!  She is beautiful and growing up so fast. Eva was in love with Rob-they played magic games for at least 30 minutes.  Patrick thought Michael was pretty cool since he let him play with him iPhone and showed him a new app.

We had lots of fun staying up late with Jaime and Rob Z. catching up on everything and discussing the dirty/fun details of current events and politics.  ;)

We packed up on Wednesday morning and headed north to Wisconsin Dells/Great Wolf Lodge.  On the way, we stopped at an A&W for lunch and they had cheese curds!  Only in Wisconsin baby!  Once we arrived, we changed into our swim gear and headed down for a swoosh down the water park slides.  The kids LOVED the ginormous indoor water park there.  It was very little kid centric.  On Thursday, after several hours at the water park, we had lunch and a nap and then went to Knuckleheads Indoor Amusement Park.  We all got wristbands and proceeded to have a great time!  Sam and I, along with the kids, were totally exhausted after much climbing, jumping, sliding, bouncing, flying, riding, eating, bowling, playing, etc.  Friday morning, we squeezed in an few more hours at the water park and hit the road for home.  Eva and Patrick literally had to be dragged out crying from the water park...because you know 10 hours just wasn't enough.

Overall, we had a great time.  It was nice to be able to spend time with the kids that wasn't running errands, doing homework, or other chores.  Just lots of fun!  Check out all 183 of our pics here!

Easter 2012

ad brWe had a great Easter this year!  The kids looked great!  Patrick wore a green sweater vest with brown argyle over a white polo shirt, with brown, green, yellow and white plaid shorts, by Gymboree.  Eva wore a blue and yellow butterflies and daisies, from The Grapvine.  Ha! 

Anyway, we had brunch with Gwen, Tom, Gigi, Emily and Steve at Mac's.  It was tasty and great to get together with everyone!  Aftewards, the kids hunted for Easter eggs at Nana's house.  Man, if those kids could clean their rooms as fast as they picked up all those eggs...!

The kids and I went up to my mom and dad's for a visit.  Grandma Colleen and PawPaw Fordy were there too.  The kids changed out of their fancy clothes, then played and ran around like crazy people most of the afternoon.  They were exhausted, dirty and happy at the end of the day.

The kids got WAY, WAY too much candy...but are so loved and everyone wanted to give them an Easter basket.  Enjoy the pics of our day!

Patrick Loves Horses!

I am working on getting us caught up on our photos and activity posting.  I'm not much of a scrapbooker, so maybe someday I'll print this blog with photos...

Anyway, so last year Patrick took a horseback riding lesson.  He LOVED it.  Below are a few pictures of Patrick with his horse, Chippy.  Chippy was not the most cooperative horse, but Patrick eventually got him to trot, slow down, and stop.  We're hoping to get him into another class soon.

Great Wolf Lodge 2011

This May the Hooligans made the voyage to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City.  Gwen went with us and we had lots of fun.  Lots of swimming, eating yummy food, howling with the wolves, and zooming down the slides.  We'll let the photos do the talking here...

Great Wolf Lodge 2011 - make sure you view in full screen, comments in bottom left corner.  :)