Heather Time

After our time in Chicago, we made the drive up to West Michigan to visit Auntie Heather.  After the fantastic frenzy that is being a part of a group of 16 for a week (half of those under the age of 10), we really loved having some peace and down time at Heather's (though we may have overwhelmed her pristine new house and the quiet she's used to with our load of stuff and energetic children!).  Heather cooked us some amazing meals, planned some fun outings and provided us with many trips down memory lane.

When Heather and I were growing up, it was tradition to go to the Wisconsin State Fair with our grandpa.  Heather found the Ionia Free Fair for us to attend this week.  We saw and petted each animal in the livestock barns, watched a little horse judging, fell in love with some bunnies and laughed over the roosters trying to out-perform one another.  

Where else can you enjoy the fine art of pig racing than at the county fair?  The girls got a real kick out of the potbelly pigs, who could hardly be bribed to even complete their lap, let alone run!

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Probably the best part of the Free Fair was the half hour circus act.  It definitely had its corny moments (unicycle tricks, anyone?), but some of the animal acts were incredible!  A cage full of lions and tigers all leaping over each other and elephants stomping around the ring showing off!  There were some cool trapeze stunts too.  
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Another day, we went to Millennium Park and rented some boats for the afternoon.  It was blazing hot again, but still fun to row around and explore the lake in our rowboat and kayak.  Rowing and sweating, Dave definitely got his workout on this day. (Not a bad thing after the week of Chicago food!)

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Yet another outing was to the beach at Holland State Park, a summer destination we hit every year as kids.  This was our best day in Michigan, weather-wise.  We were finally given some breezes, which took the edge off the heat and created some great waves in the lake.  Most of the time Lake Michigan is too cold to swim in, but one good thing about a heat wave is that it warms the water to a bath-like 76 degrees!  We spent a good amount of the day actually swimming!
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Heather has moved since the last time we visited her, so another treat was just to see her gorgeous new home and get to know her new town.  She lives on a river with a super cute downtown area, which we took a couple walks and convertible Mustang rides into.  It seems like a great place to live and Heather's been happy here.

It's always lovely to take trips and see new places, but some good memories were made just hanging out at home too.  Ella and Delia loved Heather's pets (almost too much) and made it their mission to hunt down the hiding cat or teach the dog Wrestle Mania.  We also played things with the girls that Heather and I grew up playing-- "School" on the steps, Lite Brite (a birthday gift for Delia from Auntie Heather), Fashion Plates and Pass the Pigs.  Every night we'd put the girls to bed and start the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman marathon.  Fun to see the DVDs and remember the show we always watched together as a family. 

For some new experiences and for some old nostalgic ones, thank you, Heather, for the wonderful hospitality you showed us in Michigan!  You made it very hard to leave and had Ella asking through tears on the drive back to Chicago, "Why can't we live closer?"  A sentiment we're all feeling coming off this great family vacation! 

Brio

On our last night in Chicago, Chris treated us once again.  He wanted to take the whole family out to one of their favorite restaurants, Brio.  This was quite the Italian feast!  The risotto I ordered for dinner on this night inspired me to try making my own risotto for the first time.  Unfortunately, it didn't come anywhere near to being as delicious as Brio's.

(Mom and Dad)

(Kris and Eric)

(Karen and Chris)

For being fine dining, the restaurant was pretty welcoming to families.  The kids each got their own chef hat and when the boys ordered pizza, they got to go in the kitchen, make it themselves and watch it get loaded into the brick oven.  The kids had a ton of fun visiting with each other around our long table and taking wacky pictures.

Fabulous food became a bit of a theme this week-- and no, we're not all accustomed to eating out this much! There really couldn't have been a better way to end our week with the VM Family than with some more good food and good people.

In Good Company

Here are just a few more odds and ends about the Chicago leg of our trip that I wanted to jot down.  We loved staying with Karen (Dave's sister) and her family.  They had plenty of rooms and beds for us and endless entertainment for the kids.  Calvin, Aidan and Theoren were such good friends to the girls and their house had so many cool and different toys. The girls could hardly take the time to stop playing to eat or sleep, at first!  When you're living with someone, I love all that extra quality time you get.  Some of our good times included late night game playing, silly dance parties, sampling Christopher's crazy Mexican candy, rearranging furniture and watching Arrested Development.  

The girls are still talking about the night they had a sleepover at their grandparents' house.  Grandpa and Grandma wanted some of their own special quality time with the girls, so they took them in the afternoon and gave Dave and I the whole night and morning off.  We went on a lovely date, reminiscent of the ones we took as high schoolers and college students, home for the summer.  Ella and Delia got to go out too, to the Rainforest Cafe.  They had a great time and were spoiled with stuffed animals, exotic dessert and staying up late to watch a new Tinkerbell movie.  Do they have the best Grandpa and Grandma or what?

Kyle spoiled all of us when he brought home a dozen Georgetown Cupcakes.  This is the bakery featured in the TLC show DC Cupcakes.  It's also located in the building Kyle works at in Washington DC.  We cut all the famous cupcakes into fourths, so we could sample a whole bunch-- lemon, red velvet, chocolate volcano, strawberry, mint, birthday cake, etc.  Yep, they were amazing. 
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Karen and Chris were such wonderful hosts.  They made us feel totally welcome, gave us their minivan to use for the two weeks, treated us to one fantastic meal after the next and loaded up on fun and goofy goodies for the kids. 

For taking time off work, a loaned minivan, Cubs tickets, rides to the airport, planning a whole birthday party, fabulous meals from Giordanos, Portillos, Gullivers and Adelles, zoo passes, fancy cupcakes, little gifts, love and attention for the girls and so much more-- thanks to every single one of our family members for making our time in Chicago so easy, indulgent and memorable!

Important People

Thanks to the ease of Facebook, we were able to set up lots of other fun meetings with good friends from our old Chicago and West Michigan homes.

Melissa, Steph and Shannon were my best friends all through high school.  My memories of those 4 years consist of things like trips to the mall, sleepovers, riding around in Shannon's convertible, the Bible Study we formed together, after-basketball game gatherings at Houlihans, youth group trips and outings downtown.  God gave me a great gift when we placed these girls in my life during those formative years.  What fun it was to reunite and catch up!  I'm delighted that my friends are happy and have jobs and families that reward and give them purpose.  I love how everyone is in a completely different place in life, yet in many ways they are the same girls, with the same personalities and passions, I was so drawn to in high school. 

We were also blessed to spend time with both of Dave's grandmas.  They were interested in our girls and hearing about what our life and ministry is like.  I'm thanking God that these women of God raised children (Dave's parents) to love and serve him and that now that legacy continues. 
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I didn't get a picture, but another wonderful visit was with my old neighbors.  I grew up in the same house my whole life and we had a wonderful couple, Michael and Debbie, with their son, Rob, who lived next door and always helped my single mom in any way they could.  They were good friends for decades and it warmed my heart to reconnect with them and hear all about the lovely young family who now reside in the home I grew up in.  They are taking good care of this new family now too!  Fun to show the girls my old house too-- "There's the tree Mommy and Daddy took pictures in front of before prom!" or "That's the driveway I learned to ride my bike down!" or "The bushes your grandma planted are HUGE now!"

In Michigan we were able to see our very dear friends, Nick and Amy and their son Benjamin (Baby Sister is due Aug. 24).  How do I summarize the friendship we've had with Nick and Amy over the years?  Dave's good friends from Trinity, his classmates at seminary, the couple we did nothing without for the last years of school, our move-across-the-country partners, ministry confidants, crazy mail senders and some of the best people we know.  Nick and Amy will always hold a special place in our hearts, even if we get to see them very rarely.  We visited their home, saw Nick's latest home projects, shared lunch and spent the afternoon at the beach.  When I snapped the picture below, they said it's for when the kids are at Trinity together!

Starting with our travels to LA in May, then Mount Hermon and ending with this trip full of friends and family in the Midwest: I was reflecting on how this summer has been one full of good visits with each of our most important people.

Meeting Miles

I have a new guy in my life.  I've always known I loved him, but he won my heart completely when I met him for the first time last week.  I'm talking about my newest nephew, Miles.

Miles, doing his crazy crawl over to me and lifting his arms to be held.  Miles, giving me one of his 17 different smiles.  Miles, trying hard not to be left out, getting right in the middle of wrestling matches and dance parties.  Miles, pulling the book down from the other side because he wants to see what we are reading.  Miles, turned around in the church pew in front of me, showing me his blocks and grabbing my bulletin with a squeal.  Miles, eyes wide and dizzy as we play motorboat in the pool. 

These are some of the memories that marched through my mind during that long flight home.  I'll miss this little guy a lot.

Keeping Cool

It wouldn't be a true trip to the Midwest without experiencing a little "weather."  In our two weeks, we saw the car's thermostat hit everything from 60 degrees to 100.  We had two thunderstorms, a tornado watch, a brown-out and some pretty major heat.  Now, we're pretty tough when it comes to hot weather, but add 100% humidity to that soaring mercury and we were melting with everyone else.  My nephews took great delight in reminding me that Chicago was having a HEAT WAVE the week we were there and a HEAT WAVE was in their 100 Most Dangerous Things on the Planet book!

So we kept cool by doing lots of water activities.  We visited the splash pad and frolicked in Navy Pier's fountain.  We went to a water park with Kris and Eric and the boys (above) and took Great Grandma up on her offer to come swim in her pool (below).

It was exciting to stay awake from midnight to two in the morning watching lighting streak the skies.  It was fun to play hide-and-go seek when the power went out because everyone in the area had their A/C cranked.  It made me laugh to hear Ella say, "Looks cloudy, I need a sweatshirt" or "It's raining and I'm not even cold!"  But I'd still much prefer our Central Valley weather to live in!

Day Downtown

This day was our big outing into the city.  We did so many awesome things and took so many pictures, it will be my longest post.  You may want to grab a snack before you start scrolling! :)

We wanted to plan a day in downtown Chicago that would make everyone in our big group happy.  It had to show us a lot of the city, keep us cool, be easy enough to manage with lots of kids and not be too expensive.  We came up with a perfect plan and had a wonderful time!  We started with the 20 minute train ride into the city.
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Watching train-loving Cole was the best part of this portion of the day.  He was SO EXCITED and his eyes were just lit up with the wonder of train horns, tunnels and conductors taking our tickets.

Right outside Union Station, we caught a water taxi.  This boat ride took us through the city on the Chicago River.

Just riding a boat with the kids was fun, but I loved this view of the city from the river.  We passed all the familiar buildings and went under each famous street.  This was a treat for all of us!

The train and the boat were fun in and of themselves (which was why we planned to get into this city this way), but our big destination was Navy Pier, specifically, the Children's Museum.

We've been to a lot of different children's museums and this one was fantastic!  It was not so big that we felt we have to leave it unexplored, yet the exhibits were so creative and well-done.  One of the best rooms was the Fort Room, which was full of furniture with hooks on it and blankets and sheets with loops.  Our kids used a backless wardrobe to make their own Narnia out of chairs, cushions and sheets.  Something like that is kid heaven!  In the Firefighter Room, the kids could dress up, slide down the pole, practice escaping a smokey bedroom, drive a firetruck and put out fires with laser hoses.

Each of the kids was brave enough to climb the two story rope tunnel to the top of a ship mast.

It was super neat how the museum tried to be intentionally Chicago-themed in some areas.  In a room filled with every kind of building material you can think of, we took The Skyscraper Challenge.  We broke into teams and tried to get a sturdy skyscraper built before our timer ran out.  When we were done, we told our story and what we learned about building and teamwork to a computer, which then gave us a building permit to look up what we recoded online.  So cool!

The Water Room had the kids adorably dress in raincoats and then taught them about Lake Michigan's Locks, water pressure, flow and pumps.

The Dinosaur Room had a dinosaur skeleton to excavate!  I love this picture of the boys and I love that my girls are absent from it because they spent most of the time in this room, not sweeping dirt from buried bones, but getting the paleontologist dress-up clothes on!
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We adults couldn't resist jumping in and playing in some of these inviting rooms, but we also took some time to just sit and chat and enjoy the views of the city while the kids kept busy.

After the museum and before the boat and train ride home, we stopped to let the kids run around in Navy Pier's big fountain.  This day was another hot and humid one, so the water play was perfect.

It was a great day to treat our kids to some of their favorite things, indulge in some playtime together and be a little nostalgic about our favorite city.