a boy. his sister.: Hey Chicago, what do you say?!

This has certainly been the month of traveling... first a week at the beach with our families, then home for a week, and then THE midwest trip. We covered Raleigh to Cincinnati to Chicago and everywhere in between! We were gone for 11 days total.

Day 1 - Leave at 7am and drive to Cincinnati. We did not count on the MASSIVE amount of delays that we were going to encounter on the way up, but we still made it in time for dinner and a visit with the Foley Family. Shellie and Todd played club soccer together at Marquette. They have 2 girls, Lauren and Kelsey. Lauren is going into 1st grade and Kelsey is just a few weeks younger than Brett. Kate LOVED their very GIRL toy room! Brett loved that he got to sleep in Lauren's room while she shared a room with Kelsey.

Day 2 - Drive from Cincinnati to Rockford, IL - no traffic issues this time. Yay!
Day 3 - Magic Waters Park in Rockford, IL

Kate LOVED the kiddie pool section - there were tons of things for her to run through, climb on, and slide down all by herself. She was technically tall enough to ride some of the bigger slides, but she was NOT interested!

Brett liked this section too, but he was more easily bored with it

He was really excited about the wave pool though

Kate thought the waves were pretty fun too

Brett's first time down the tube slide... here is is at the very top, moment of truth, which slide to go down???

Almost their turn!

Chillaxin' on the Lazy River

Sprinklers are fun

I can bribe this girl to do anything as long as I offer Cheetos!

Touchdown dance, I think

The friendly Octopus... as Kate will remind you this is not the mean Ursula octopus from "The Little Mermaid"

Back to the kiddie pool... playing while Mom and Dad wait in the LONG line for the new ride. Trust me, Kate, the ride was worth the wait

Sleepy girl

Day 4 - Rainy day... Todd and I had some errands to do, so Grandma and Grandpa took the kiddos to the "inside park" (aka the play area in the mall)

This is the new favorite activity... find the tallest point and jump!

Day 5 - CUBS game! Todd, Brett, Sandy, and I left Rockford fairly early and headed into Chicago. We parked near Gino's East (our dinner stop for that night), rode the train to Wrigley, watched the game, and took the train back. We had GREAT seats (9th row, behind the visitor's dugout) that Todd sort of lucked into through Ebay, even getting them at less than face value! Brett will tell you that his favorite part of the entire day was the train ride and singing "GO CUBS GO" because the Cubs stomped the Brewers that day - 15 to 3!

About 30 seconds before the rain started... in the 2nd inning and all the way through the game. We got lucky. It never downpoured, so the game never got delayed!

One of the rooftop spots to watch the game... these sausages are apparently at all of the Brewers home games!

Home Run!

Don't be fooled... this only lasted about 30 seconds, tops!

At Gino's East, leaving his mark... B-R-E-T-T

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Proud of his graffiti

Mom's turn!

Dad using this as an opportunity to makea political statement

Are you surprised!?

De-li-cious!

Brett agreed

Day 6 - Discovery Center in Rockford... for those of you not from the area, it is very similar to Life and Science here in NC, even with some of the exact same exhibits!

Learning the physics behind the pulleys

She can baaaarely reach!

Milking the cows... which Kate will tell you is milk for the cows to drink

Learning about the parts of the pig... oink!

Kate's on TV!

Trying to see how high I can make my own bubble

I think that Brett's was more impressive!

What kid doesn't love a water table... I mean, seriously!

Making their "pizza"

Kate wanted to eat her pizza in the doghouse

This was, by far, Brett's favorite part of the whole center

Mr. Mechanic

Kate's checking the oil perhaps

Operating heavy machinery

There was this crazy spiral staircase in the middle... you could climb up it like Todd is doing

or climb through these little holes in the ground like the kids convinced me to do

Another water table... this one was much bigger and outside

That night we went over to the Molina's to eat dinner and meet their new baby, Lucas. The Beard family joined us and we had a nice (not quiet) dinner outside on the deck while the kids all ran around the yard. Yes, for those of you in NC, the weather was nice enough to eat outside.... that's unheard of down here in August!

The boys... Todd, Manuel, and Kerry

Day 7 - We were supposed to go up to Milwaukee to visit our friends, the Mularski's, but we just couldn't get the schedules coordinated this time. Instead, we hung out in Rockford that day and went to Festa Italiana at Boylan High School (Todd's school) that night with Grandma and Grandpa and the Beard family. It worked out well since they weren't going on the WPWTW trip this year that we got to spend a little extra time with them and their 2 girls at Festa instead.