My expert travelers....I was so impressed because they all insisted on carrying their own stuff, and man are they easy to spot in pink. Special thanks to Thomas for carrying my bags and his! Yes I know I'm spoiled.
Thomas' parents permanently moved from Colorado to Illinois the week before we got there! They invited all of the siblings to come and out of 8 children the 4 oldest families came. They moved to a grand kids paradise: a huge 3 acre property, complete with a huge barn (pictured above), pool and pool house, a dormitory on the top for all of the grand kids to sleep in, a pond for fishing, and all of the fireflies you could catch.
This is the cool 3 car garage on the property adjacent to the barn. 
It was such a shock, coming from ugly AZ (sorry to those of you who cherish the desert) to the beautiful greenery here. This is the pond and some of the beautiful trees on their property. Why I didn't take a picture of the house, and pool house, I don't know...use your imagination!
The 4th of July was spent swimming in the pool and having a yummy barbecue! Later on we went to the town park and listened to the town symphony and watched fireworks. (I unfortunately left my camera at home for that part, but I'm sure you know the gig, big pretty lights flashing in the air).
Ainsley is such a fish and could spend all day in the pool.
Claire is the master dare devil and is constantly doing flips, dives or anything else she can figure out to get her heart moving.
Alli loves to swim also, especially with all of her cousins!
Saturday we went to Wisconsin. I imagined it as a land of cheese, while we did get to taste some yummy cheese there were no huge cheese sculptures, at least that I saw. Thomas' parents have some friends with a lake house on Lake Genoa, they were nice enough to invite the whole Gearhart clan up and we had a great time!
A picture of the lake house from the dock.
Uncle Tristan throwing all of the cousins off of the dry dock.
Ainsley relaxing for a second, after some serious swimming and lake fun.
Thomas, Claire and Brody our nephew, enjoying the lake on the wave runner.
Alli and Thomas getting ready to go!
Thomas basking in the Wisconsin sun, taking a break from being the wave runner taxi.
The two Thomas'. (For those of you who don't know Thomas is a 3rd, and yes I have left it completely up to him to decide if our new baby boy will be a 4th, see I am a good wife) .
Ainsley and Graham are definitely two peas in a pod. They're about 6 months apart and enjoyed each other so much...well most of the time!
This is Ainsley and Graham after catching a bunch of worms. A funny side note about these two is when Ainsley was about 18 months and Graham was 1, Ainsley wanted nothing to do with him. We were visiting for Christmas and whenever he came into view she would scream, and scream and run away. About that time we started noticing strange 'marks' on the tops of her shoulders and couldn't figure out where they came from, we thought maybe some bug bites or something.... that is until we caught Graham taking a nice big bite of her one of the last nights we were there. Who could resist, Ainsley's so cute, don't you just want to eat her too?
This is Alli and her favorite cousin Payton, there is exactly 6 months difference in age between them also. They are inseparable whenever together, constantly talking Pokemon and playing Nintendo DS.
Loading the kids up in the boat for some tube riding.
Alli, Brody, the oldest grandchild on the Gearhart side, and Payton, brave enough to be the first ones to go.
Ainsley giving the thumbs up that shes ready to roll!
This is the only picture I got of Claire, it's blurry I know but I had to show that all of my girls showed no fear when it came to being whipped around on this thing in the middle of a huge lake. I think I would have been to scared to try it!
On Monday, the grand kids stayed behind with Grammy and went fishing in the pond, swimming, and went to see Walle (what a fun Grammy) we went to Chicago with Thomas' older sister Tamzen and her husband Lee.
This was our first stop: Navy Pier.
I was starving when we first got there so we decided to go to Bubba Gumps for lunch. We waited so long for our food, that Tommy started looking too delicious resist!
We were short on time so we all took a double decker bus tour through the city. Tommy was kind enough to let me borrow his sunglasses all day since I forgot mine....oooohhhh what a sweet heart....
This was our first tour guide, he had a fairly decent sense of humor and he didn't take his job too seriously.
We hopped off the tour to get some ice cream and hopped back on and this was our second tour guide. She couldn't remember her right from her left, which you would think would be a no brainer for being a tour guide... "If you look to your right you'll see...oh wait no I'm sorry your left." It was great.
This is the tree branch that nearly took off my head!
We got to see and learn about a ton of cool buildings, and hear who lived where etc. Those tours are my favorite, because you never really get to see all of the major sites unless you spend a week in the city you're visiting and do a ton of planning and research. This way you get to see it in a few hours or less.
For dinner we had to have the traditional Chicago Pizza. Apparently this was it, stuffed with I'm just going to guess here, at least 10 pounds of cheese! I could only handle one piece of that thing!
Look I'm happy happy happy! It must be because of that studly guy I'm sitting next too.
Tuesday all of the kids went to six flags with Thomas, Lee and GP (grandpa).
What would it take to land a job as a Robin impersonator?
I thought I was being smart in sending the camera to Six Flags with Thomas, thinking I'd get all of these great pictures with great stories to tell, but nope...I got the one above and this one on their way out in the parking lot...apparently they had SO much fun he even forgot to take pictures.
While the boys and kids were at Six Flag, my mother in law, sister in law and I went to see Wicked. It was alot of fun, and I really enjoyed the show.
Wednesday:The last of the crew went home and we stayed behind for one more great day of relaxation, shopping on main street with Grammy and swimming in the pool.
Thursday morning we took our flight home. The girls were anxious to get back to their pets, but I definately could have stayed away longer. We had such a great time and have so many fun memories from the trip. We all feel so fortunate to have been able to go and take a week long family trip and to spend time with the people we love so much. We wish we could see all of them more often because they truely are some of our favorite people ever.
5 comments:
Wow, what a great trip...I'm glad you have it all written down with pictures so I could get a real feel for it! And love the baby bedding too...now comes the real work, eh?!
Wow, what a great trip! Why did Thomas's parents move? It looks really beautiful--as is your whole family!
Thomas' parents moved because his dad has been traveling back and forth for about 2 to 3 years until the youngest graduated from HS. Now that he's graduated they figured it was time to live like a normal couple again. :)... By the way, the one that graduated, just go his mission call to the Baltics...what I know? He is going to speak latvian (sp?) and go to Latvia and 2 other wierd places I can quite remember right now.
Ugh...I knew I should not have read that post. I wish we could have gone. I am so sad. It looked like fun.
What an awesome vacation! We went to Nauvoo and Wisconsin and Chicago two years ago. Beautiful!
Post a Comment