Penny For Your Thoughts?

David got a little pensive at Kenosha park, and Steven snapped a few shots of him deep in thought. What were you thinking about, Little Guy?

Kenosha Park

Lake Michigan is truly a magnificent thing to behold. Blue water as far as the eye can see, but with tiny, peaceful waves. Fresh water disguised as an ocean. We took a trip over to Kenosha Harbor Park and had a peek at the water.

David seems to be having a shouting contest with the water here.

The water itself was actually quite replusive---simply swimming with refuse--which Stevie insisted on picking up.

I was trying like mad to get a picturesque shot of Steven with the baby---but this RANDOM KID insisted on getting in every single shot. So I guess he'll forever be a part of our vacation memories.

I got so ticked at him after awhile, I started thinking about using this:
But I restrained myself.

Beginning Somewhere...

I'm becoming so overwhelmed at the enormous number of things I need to blog about that I'm almost frozen by writer's block. But I've decided that I need to start somewhere, and I have a billion pictures that really should be seen somewhere besides my memory card. So I'm going to blog every day until I'm finally caught up, begining with wrapping up our trip to Chicago.

We spent a lot of time running around with Phil and Jess on the trip and their new little baby boy. One day we headed up to Milwaukee to go to the Museum of Science and History--and it was suprisingly awesome! One of the highlights was the live Butterfly reserve. The boys tried very hard to be quiet and still enough to have a butterfly land on them.





They also had a cute little section where the kids could pretend to be butterfly sized---sitting inside a chrysalis and hanging out alongside a caterpillar.



The bug section in general was pretty interesting. Lots of real bugs to look at and compare, complete with a giant bug picture photo op at the end.


My favorite part of the museum was a little section called the European Village. They had a bunch of little rooms stocked with items from different countries. You could peer inside and see what life might have been like in Germany or Poland or Denmark. I absolutely loved it and could have spent all day there. So quaint and fun to see. Hopefully we'll be able to go for a return visit next time we visit.

A Few Things We Did

This....


is what a Chicago Polish looks like. Looks gross to me, but evidently it's quite a delicacy to the Grundberg brothers. We met up one afternoon at a famous little joint named "Dear Franks" in Deerfield, IL, where their double fried polish sausages are (supposedly) delicious, if not a tad notorious for causing heart failure (i.e. "Da Bears" guys from Saturday Night Live).


Steven and Phil raved on and on about the cheese sauce for the fries.

I got a lecture about how much better it was than just plain ole velveeta, and our nephew Nate almost lost a finger when he wanted to share with Phil. Anyway, I felt that it was definitely a quintessential "Chicago" experience.

We also stopped by the Jelly Belly factory in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. I've never been a huge fan of jelly beans, but going on the factory tour definitely had its draw.


They even gave us a little sample bag at the end of the tour. It was pretty fun tasting them one by one and trying to figure out the flavor. I found myself craving the buttered popcorn ones like crazy.



Anyway, I've decided I have to report on our vacation in little spurts, otherwise I'll just throw up my hands and give up. Yup, little spurts it is---kinda like how I approach housework of any kind (which explains a lot).

Wildflowers

We stayed with Aimee and Peter (Steven's older brother) for the duration of our stay up north. They have a beautiful home, and right next ot it is an empty lot filled with pretty little yellow wildflowers. Steve and I decided to snap a few shots of the boys playing in the little meadow.

What is it about wildflowers that makes you just want to go run and jump through them, Sound-of-Music style?



It was wonderfully idyllic, the way we could just sink into the flowers.


Here's Steve's "Great MidWest/Farmer Joe" shot.

Just kind of made you feel glad to be alive---beautiful day, surrounded by beautiful flowers and beautiful, perfect little boys...

Sure, I'll Be Blogging Chicago Soon.....

But in the meantime, here's some pics of J in his Sunday best (thanks, Sarah!!)