WI Dells Vacation: Family Picture

This is the one, and only, entire family picture we were able to take on vacation this weekend. All 17 1/2 of us (Baby Bunky J. is less than 1 month from his expected arrival date and still managed to make the 6 hour car ride)! Like our matching shirts? More on the vacation to come...

Hiatus is over.

The blog hiatus is officially over. I tried to recruit a guest blogger, but I guess he was too busy chasing after a certain 1 1/2 year old to add any posts. I cannot blame him.

I feel like a lot has happened in the past (almost) month, and yet I don't really remember what. I need to go through what pictures we do have and get some updates going. Something to look forward to.

In the meantime, we have a super fun summer planned and I cannot wait! A baby shower this weekend for Baby Jones, a vacation to the Dells to celebrate my parent's 40th wedding anniversary later this month, swimming in the pool with Ellie (which reminds me I need to see if we can still sign up for swimming lessons in August), Baby Jones' arrival in July, the State Fair in August and then we are already into fall! And getting the house ready to put on the market. Busy, busy, busy. I cannot wait!

What Happens in Vegas Gets Posted on This Blog

A month later! Here is a belated run-down of our vacation adventures from last month:

• Nick mountain biked through McDowell Sonoran Preserve, while I attended a few board meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather was beautiful and I think he had a great time (my meetings went well, so I had a good time as well).

• While in Scottsdale we had the chance to have dinner with an old college roommate, Elissa, and her husband, Ed. We enjoyed visiting with them and wish we could see them more often (it had been 4+ years).

Then it was a road trip onto Vegas via the Hoover Dam. The view across the dessert was amazing. What a gorgeous structure the Dam is! And the new bridge over the Dam area--- very neat.

• Getting to the Strip in Vegas was actually pretty easy. Getting into our hotel was a little more difficult. After about 3 times of driving down the Strip we made it into the parking garage. We also got lost a number of times IN the hotels. Those places are huge, and at times we felt like the signs telling us where to go were put there by 'mistake' in order to take us through the entire casino part. Either way, it was fun and we got to see more of the hotels/casinos. We were greeted by this beautiful scenery inside our hotel, The Venetian. The picture does not do it justice- it is beautiful.
  

• We walked a lot! My feet were hurting by the end (OK, middle) of the trip. For anyone familiar with the Strip, we walked from our hotel to MGM in order to see these guys:
  

• We saw Zumanity at New York New York. It is a Cirque Due Soleil show and I really wanted to see a Cirque show. Here is the description: http://promo-www.cirquedusoleil.com/las-vegas/zumanity-shows.html It was interesting. A little (or a lot) more provocative than Nick or I expected going into it... but we can now say we have been to a Cirque show, and overall we did enjoy it. I am still amazed at how big everything is. This picture is of one hotel and there are how many of them on the Strip. Even if you don't gamble- taking a trip just to see the hotels is worth it.
  

• The food was good. We ate at Pink Hot Dogs at the Magnificent Mile mall at Planet Hollywood. I had never imagined all the things you could put on a hot dog! I would definitely recommend to anyone traveling to Vegas- neither Nick nor I finished our dogs.
  

• In general, Nick and I are not gamblers. But being in Vegas we wanted the full experience. We had trouble finding a simple black jack table (they were all some different version of it that confused us) so we settled on the Big Six game where you bet on a number, they spin a wheel and you get paid out (or not paid out) based on the number. I liked it because we kept our bets conservative and thus spent more time at the table (without losing much money). I think the first night we had 4+ hours of gambling entertainment for $20 between the two of us. Our favorite casino was at the Bellagio. It was clean, didn't smell like smoke, had a great dealer (Linda, who had been to Iowa before) and the waitresses visited our table frequently.

• My favorite part was the Bellagio Water Show. We saw it a number of times and enjoyed it each time. If you want to see more pictures check out the Shutterfly Family Share Site--- we took a lot.
  

• Since my feet hurt from walking we took the monorail down the end of the strip in order to see the Stratosphere.

• We have never been to Paris and it will be a while before we get there (maybe once Ellie is out of college?). We settled for second best and took a ride up in the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower.

This is what we saw from the top… a great summary of our vacation.

While Mommy and Daddy Were Away...

I played... with Grandma and Grandpa!

While Mommy and Daddy were down south, I took my very own vacation to Grandma and Grandpa's house!

Here are a pictures from my vacation:

One of my favorite places to go was the Mall.
Grandma (and Grandpa on Saturday) would push me in the stroller past all the stores,
then I got to visit the kids play area. It was fun!

Sometimes I created my own 'play equipment'. I really liked going places....and knew exactly where my coat was located.
I was a little impatient if Grandma wasn't ready to go when I was.

I even got a workout in!
Sometimes I had to help Grandma and Grandpa.The top toy wouldn't work on the carpet, so we had to use it in the store room.
There were lots of things to do at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Grandpa even put up a tent for me to play in!
Grandma took me lots of places in the mornings.
We went to the library for story time.
We went to PlayPals (kiddie gym) at the community center.
Here are some pictures from PlayPals:

Look at all those toys!
I could push them.
I could ride on them.
This emergency car even had a remote radio.

There were blocks and lots of balls too.
Grandma let me stay until all the toys were put away and the other kids had left.
She knew I wouldn't be happy if I thought I'd miss out of something.

Back at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Grandpa let me wear his work name badge!
And I can make this toy move now!
Best of all--- having a second lunch with Grandpa.
I did lots more things during my stay....
like helping Grandma get the mail,
going for rides in the stroller because the weather was so nice,
meeting some of the neighbors with Grandpa,
and looking out the windows to see the dogs walk by.

It was a very busy five days and lots of fun.

Thanks for letting me vacation with you, Grandma and Grandpa!

Apple Picking

The other week we went to the Happy Apple Orchard in Cumming. What beautiful weather we had for our adventure. Ellie has not been a fan of applesauce, but she loved eating the whole apples! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:

Daddy and Eleanor checking out the apples
Lots and lots of apples to pick from.
Having a little snack while Daddy collects apples
Ellie helping herself to a treat
" Hey Daddy, what are you eating down there?"

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa

Last month Nick took a long weekend and went to a biking festival in Wisconsin. Ellie and I decided it would be fun to go and spend the night with Grandma & Grandpa while Daddy was gone.

It just so happened that our visit was the same weekend as the ISU vs. Iowa game, so two Hawks fans entered Cyclone Country decked out in their Hawk gear and all. Sorry, I don’t have a picture to show of us from Saturday, only pictures from Sunday. But we did wear out Hawks gear to church, and one gentleman did bow down to Ellie as we walked in (since Iowa was really handing it to ISU at the time). Anyway…

We had a great time. Aunt Megan came to visit on Sunday and Ellie had lots of playing time with Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Megan.
Grandpa also taught Ellie to clap! She was very proud and clapped for herself a lot.
And of course, Eleanor had to help Grandma empty the dishwasher! She still loves to do that (I hope this continues!)
It has taken me a while to get this posted, I apologize. We had a great time and it was wonderful to have a couple extra hands to help with Eleanor while Daddy was gone.

Oh, and Ellie and I slept in the same room (my choice, as there were other open rooms I could have slept in). I think Eleanor thought it was pretty neat to wake up and see Mommy sleeping in a bed a few feet away from her!

Spontaneous Adventure

This past weekend Nick was going to compete in a mountain bike race near Iowa City. We decided to extend the trip and spend time with my brother, Eric, and his family in Iowa City. Unfortunately, Nick had back problems early in the week and was unable to do the race. Not a problem, we would still go for a visit and I would get a little shopping done at the outlet mall.

Around 7:30AM Saturday I get a call and Eric asked if we wanted to meet at Adventureland instead, and invite any other family members that wanted to join us.

Adventureland... I was TOTALLY in! So the calls began, and by 11:15AM we had everyone headed into Adventureland (minus Mike who was in MN and my parents who were in WI). I can only speak for Nick, Ellie and myself, but we had a BLAST! I haven’t been to Adventureland in ages, it had definitely changed. I loved having fearless nieces that would ride the ‘scary’ rides with me (Tornado, Dragon, Sidewinder), and seeing the younger kids enjoy the kiddie rides. There was so much to do, and so little time to get it done. We could have easily spent another day there.

Ellie was an angel the entire day; she is such a great baby. From reaching for Ally to hold her… to sitting on Sammy’s lap… to playing grab the ‘paci’ with Ruby… Ellie had a great time with her cousins. Daddy even managed to win her a stuffed animal in Skee Ball. Aunt Jess won bigger stuffed animals for her girls. Yes, Jess is a Skee Ball champ.

Here are some pictures from the day:

All of us as we went into the park.

Ellie reaching for cousin Ally to hold her. Ally was hanging out by whoever had Ellie.

Super cute!

Ellie's first amusement park ride: the Giant Sky Wheel.
Eric, Sammy, Megan and Ally on Lady Luck.

A picnic lunch out by the car- beautiful weather.

The Iowa City Greving's on the Raging River!
The rest of the Raging River crew. Looks like Alex is having a blast.

The Sidewinder. Look in the very top right corner. Brian is in the red hat, Eric is the bald one and I am wearing 'blue'. Megan and Sammy are hidden.

Eric, Sammy, Megan and Nick on the way down from the Space Shot.

Ally really wanted to ride this ride, but wasn't tall enough. Next year, Ally.

Ruby and Izzy at the end of the day. They were troopers and lasted the entire time!

*We have to plan family pictures 5 months in advance, but we can get almost the entire crew together in less than 4 hours. Crazy!