Chicago Trip 2014

Our trip started with a stop at Devil's Tower in Wyoming...

  and a picnic lunch in the parkling lot. Multiple people commented (kind things only) as they walked by, and one little lady took our picture (hehe, it still make me laugh) because she thought it was just perfect to see us doing just what families should do. 

When the kids needed a break from the car we looked for scenic stops like this one at a beautiful river in South Dakota. 

Then we took the Wildlife Loop (added an extra 3 hours to our trip, but totally worth it) on our way to Mount Rushmore. 

 Fed the wild donkeys...

 and had buffalo stampeding by our car!

 It was a pretty amazing drive. The mountain tunnels were my favorite.

 The next day we went to Carthage and Nauvoo. Eric was a little disappointed that the kids weren't really interested in it, but he got over it and got to see almost everything he wanted to. He could have spent days there! 

 Then, off to Minonk. These guys got to see their first ever fireflies. The picture doesn't even begin to show their excitement, but our super non professional photography skills didn't allow us to capture it. Just trust me, it was magical! Eric and I were super excited about it too. It made me a little sad to think that my little babies had no idea what real fireflies looked like.

We played at the park

  The old guys (eric, curt, matt, and alan) played some b-ball with a bunch of 11 year olds...and won! (shocker! ;))

 Visited with Nana

 Then we were off to Chicago. Multiple people told us we needed to go to Lou Malnati's for pizza while we were in Chicago. It would have been fun to acutally GO there, but our kids had had enough adventure for the day, and so we all opted to eat in.

 We went to the Lincoln Park zoo! The kids (especially Jack) loved it!

 But it was very very hot! Addie and Ellie were ready to be done a long time before Jack was, but that's pretty much always how it goes.

 We visited a couple of Eric's cousins

 On our last day in Chicago, we headed to the beach.

 

 These kids were in heaven! Eric and I both felt like we could have stayed all day and watched them play! I'll have to upload a video of them playing later...sheer joy! It was very windy and a little chilly, but perfect for just running around.

 We stopped at Oz park on the way back to the hotel. VERY fun!

 Then we said goodbye! I know everyone LOOKS happy in this pic, but we were all sad to go.

After that, Eric got in a cab and headed to the airport. I got lost trying to drive my enormous car out of the city and had to have Amber talk me out of there, but after that it was smooth sailing! I would add more pics from the drive home, but blogger isn't letting me. The kids and I took it slow. We stopped at lots of beautiful rest stops on the way and played our hearts out (which means they caught as many bugs as they could) before getting back in the car. Addie left her blanket at one of the rest stops in Nebraska :( I thought maybe that would help her stop sucking her thumb, but when we got home she just chose a new blanket to be 'her' blankie. On the last day of the drive we were going to stop in Cheyenne just for fun to end our vacation right (which means swimming at a hotel and eating popcorn while watching disney channel). We were all super excited about it! When we got to Cheyenne we stopped in to get a room and the lady at the front desk informed me that all hotels there were booked because of a concert that night for frontier days (except for one sketchy hotel that she said she wouldn't even send her ex husband to). We decided to head on to Laramie and have our last night of fun there. They were 100% booked too! I couldn't see the point in stopping in Rawlins (which is 1 1/2 hours from Rock Springs) so we just headed home. We were all bummed about how it ended, but we had a blast while it lasted!

Our new home!! We took these pictures at the beginning of March, but I just found the cords to hook the camera up to the computer so we're putting them up now.

This is the front view of our house.

 When you walk in the front door, the study is on your right. We love the study. I wish this picture did it justice.

 This is looking from the front door down the entryway into the living room.

Entry down to basement.

This is taken from the living room looking back down the entry.

This is taken from the back corner of the dining room looking toward the entry and fireplace. The doorway on the right leads to the bathroom and kids bedrooms.

 The living room and dining room are basically one big room. The doors in the back right corner of the picture lead out to the deck. The Master bedroom, suite actually (we've never had one before, I'm pretty excited about it) is on the other side of that wall.

In the dining room looking back at the fireplace. You can see the kitchen in the left side of the picture.

I love the kitchen! There is so much more space than every other kitchen we have ever had. Even after moving in, we still have some empty space in the cupboards, and I pulled out dishes that we've had boxed up in storage since 2007!  The doorway in the back leads to the mudroom/laundry room.

This is the master bedroom. Its not enormous, but after getting our bed, dresser, and 2 nightstands in there, we still have plenty of space to walk around. 

 Master bathroom and closet

 This is the mudroom! Standing in the doorway from the kitchen. The door at the back leads to the garage.  Since taking these pics, Eric added hooks to the lockers and under the shelf on the wall opposite the lockers.

 

 This is the kids bathroom 

 Jack and Holden's room.

   

 Linen closet in the hallway between the kids bedrooms

Addie and Ellie's room.

 3 car garage

 Thats all of our stuff in the 4th car (if you want to call it that). Shelves will go in at the back and it will be used for storage and working with tools.

 Backyard from up on the deck. I don't know how to explain it, but the corner of our yard goes by the white fence and then goes to the front of our house at an angle.