Last Days with Visitors

Oct 14 - Sunday.  

We all made it to church!  Before church we all got baths and showers.  Mom and I made a danish pastry and eggs.  I made Sloppy Joes in the crockpot for dinner.

Here's Isak trying to sneak a snitch of the pastry. 

All done and ready to eat.  It was delicious and pretty fun to make.

Grandpa and Isak put a lego tractor together.

After church we took a few pictures.

Time to dance...

I saw these Minnie Mouse dresses and couldn't help myself...💕💕

Yep...that's Noah's mad face.

Oh Sofie!

Grandpa and Isak sure look handsome!!

And here's me and my mom!! 💗

After dinner we watched the movie Coco together.  Cute Disney movie.  Then off to bed for the kids. I got to stay up and talk with my parents.  I felt like it was the first time I actually got to talk to them because we were so busy and the kids were always around.  We talked about what we were learning in the Book of Mormon.  Then I showed them my Shutterfly book I'm working on, my coding projects and my blog.  I read the grandparents funeral blog to them.  It was a sweet moment.  Then off to bed.  

Oct. 15th - Monday.

We got all ready and went for breakfast at Buttermilk.  It was delicious once again!  I just love this place.

I ate all my food and the kids ate all of their pancakes.  Mmmmm.

I drove my parents down 3rd street, to the library and showed them the Fabayan Windmill.  Then we came back home.  Then dad and I planted 50 daffodils and 50 tulips!  Dad also dug out some plants that I didn't like.

Mom took care of the kids inside.  She finished the craft with the kids and took a cute video of Noah playing trains.  Mom and Noah really warmed up to each other.  Mom even snuggled him after he woke up from his nap!!

I loved my time planting and weeding with dad.  We just talked and talked.  The weather was chilly but sunny.  After resting/naps, we took the family to Giordano's for deep dish pizza.  We were able to place our order ahead of time, so we got our pizza right away.  So nice to not have to wait 45 minutes for the pizza!  We ate a ton.

Mmmmm.

Sofie was a happy girl eating pizza on her daddy's lap.

Cute Parents!!

That was our last outing.  The next day, Oct. 16th, we said our good byes.  😢  So sad.  I really enjoyed their visit.  Nels took them to the airport.  They had a long day of traveling back to Idaho.  Thanks for coming out Mom and Dad.  We loved having you and look forward to your next visit!! 😀

Chicago - Day 3

We got up early and made it to the train station for the 8:37 a.m. train to Chicago.

This picture kind of cracks me up.  Just as I took the picture little Kira fell over backwards and sat on the diaper bag.  She was not happy, but not hurt...she had a nice soft landing.

Waiting for the train.

Isak stayed close to grandpa.

Here we are on the train.  Nice and cozy.

I held both babies for a bit until they got used to the new environment.

We walked about 20-25 minutes to Millennium Station.  We passed some cool things along the way.  Here's the Civic Opera House along the river.

The giant Picasso sculpture.  We took a few minutes to slide down the sculpture.

So fun.

My Mom and I slid down it together.  :)

Then we went on the 11 a.m. train to the Museum of Science and Industry.  We arrived at 11:15 a.m.  We were all hungry and ate lunch right away.  See I can be funny sometimes...

My mom took this pic of Isak and Grandpa.  💙

And my girls.

Then we explored the three story building.  There were some huge exhibits.  Our first exhibit had two full size tractors in it.  The kids got pics on the wheel.

Another cool display was a train set that went around the city of Chicago and over and through mountains to Seattle.

An airplane hung from the ceiling.  There was a circus exhibit, an Eye Spy, an old city market place that played a funny old black and white movie.  There was an idea factory for the kids to play in that showed how to use gears, light, water, air and more.  Very interactive.  There was a how to make a toy exhibit, ships and race cars.  There was a beautiful display of a castle.  A huge earth rotated in the air during a presentation on global warming.  I loved seeing the weather exhibit with a tornado of  steam twisting around two stories high...the below pic is of the tornado.

Avalanches and light bending and wave exhibits.  At one point it was mom and me with all of the kids (grandpa and Nels got sucked into the ships/race car exhibit).  There was a little photo booth nearby so we got in and got four adorable pictures together.  

It was a huge place and kept us entertained until it closed at 4 p.m.  We only had a few meltdowns.  Okay, so one big meltdown by our dear Kira.  Whew, I didn't know if she would come out of it!  But thankfully she did and we had fun after we recovered from it.  :)  

We took a few pictures outside.

We tried to get us all in...

Our family...

Then we rode the train back to Millennium Station.  We showed my parents the Bean...they thought it was cool.  

It's always fun to play with the bean.

We got a ride on the bus to Gino's East.  But it was a long wait.  So we walked back to the train station.  We were worried about missing the train.  So we didn't stop to eat.  I carried Kira and then put her down at each intersection and she walked.  At one point, Nels carried Noah.  I pushed Isak and Kira in the stroller.  Sofie did not want grandpa to carry her so I put her on the cupholder/handles of the stroller and pushed all three kids.  It worked pretty well and at least no one was crying!!  Once we got settled in the station we had an hour until our 8:40 p.m train left.  We charged phones and changed diapers.  Mom and Dad went on a hunt for some food.  They came back with chips, dip and salsa.  Tasted so yummy!

We got on the train.  Noah and Kira fell asleep.  Isak played grandpa's phone with him.  Sofie stayed awake being Sofie.  We finally got home and everyone went right to bed!

Good bye Chicago.  Thanks for the great adventure!!

Day 2 - Around Geneva

We had a nice slow morning.   Isak and grandpa read scriptures together.  💕

This is the room my parents slept in.  I've been taping up the kids artwork.  We've filled up quite a bit of the room.  My mom liked it and took a picture.

After we all got ready we headed out on a little tour.  I showed them the neighborhood pool and parks, the kids's elementary school and then we spent some time at Peck Farm Park.

See the silo in the above picture.  We went up four flights of windy stairs to the observation deck.

Here's the stairs.

Sofie and Noah being cute.

It was a cold day.  In the 40's and windy.

There is a cool playground at this park.  All wood and different activities for the kids to do like a maze and musical instruments.  In the summer, there is a splash pad area too.

We walked down to the pond and someone took our pic for us.  I love this picture!

And these sisters melt my heart...holding hands.

The adventure continued with a trip to Costco.  haha.  Then we went home and ate some lunch.
Mom was so cute and crafted little tags and bags for Halloween with the kids.  We rested for a bit.

Then mom and I went grocery shopping.  We ate chicken pot pie from Costco and apple pie from Costco for dinner.  Thank you Costco.  It was delicious!

Mom gave the kids the game Spy It and so we played that game for a bit.  Each night they were here, we read scriptures and prayed and talked a bit.  It was nice.