Fun with the Olsens!

A few weeks ago, we were excited to welcome our good friends, the Olsens, to come see us for a weekend! Jeremy was Jaxon's best buddy in Ohio, and the girls were the most awesome dance students for me and babysitters for my kids! Plus Alinda and Rich just plain rock :) It was so fun to have them here and play in the city together! We had a great time, and packed in a lot of fun stuff!

First, of course, we had to take a ride on the subway. The boys felt very privileged to sit in the very front of the train.

First stop, Shedd Aquarium, where we were able to view a sneak peak of a dress rehearsal of the new dolphin show! That was a great bonus! We love that place!

Then we took the water taxi over to Navy Pier. Araleigh loves "her girls" :)

The kids all had a great time in the Fun House at Navy Pier! I love this picture! Those boys are so cute!

Then we headed up to Michigan Ave for a little souvenir shopping and a trip to the Hershey factory. They wore these hats for the rest of the night!

Thanks, Olsen clan, for visiting, we love you and had a great time!

Camping

Our first camping trip alone as a family! We learned a lot of lessons to make it a lot easier next time!!!

Lesson 1 - reserve a site in advance! Now this wasn't totally our fault - like everything else in our life, it was kind of a last-minute thing! We didn't know for sure that we were going until that morning, and since it was Labor Day weekend, the place was pretty full! We ended up not having our own site, but sharing a large grassy area usually reserved for youth groups! It was fine, just a little difficult to find a spot!

Lesson 2 - leave earlier! We didn't get out of the house until after 4 pm and hit some awesome Chicago traffic - apparently we weren't the only ones heading north on Labor Day weekend. Weird, huh? It took us well over 2 hours to get there, and by the time we got to the site, found a spot, and began setting up, it was already getting dark! It is not easy to pitch a tent and start a fire in the dark, but we did it!

Lesson 3 - don't forget the chairs. It would have been nice to have something to sit on while roasting those marshmallows...

Lesson 4 - bring water to wash hands and brush teeth with.

Lesson 5 - don't pitch tent down-wind of the outhouses. No wonder that spot was still available...

Lesson 6 - time to buy some air mattresses! Those foam pads just don't cut it anymore! We must be getting old!

Hopefully if any of you are planning to take your first family camping trip, you can use this very good advice!!! But it was a very fun trip! Araleigh was so cute in the tent, she just kept exclaiming "I love camping, mom!!!" The kids had such a blast, putting up the tent, collecting firewood, cooking hot dogs and making smores over the fire, telling ghost stories in the tent!!! (side note for Julie- guess what I ordered from the kids' book orders!!!! Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark!!! and More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark!!!!! Does that take you back, or what????!) It was so fun to just watch the kids get excited and have fun!

The next morning we woke up with a family bike ride on the beautiful trail!

This picture was taken just moments before Jax took a nasty spill which shook him up so bad he actually went into shock and we were afraid he had a head injury!!! He kept repeating himself over and over, and couldn't remember what had happened and why his face and leg hurt so much! He scared us for a while there, but thankfully he was fine! It's sad to see how happy he was, knowing what was about to happen to our poor little guy :(

1st Day of School

The beginning of school is a very exciting time, so I have to post these cute pics of the kids' 1st day of school:

Traeden, 4th grade

Jaxon, 2nd grade

Araleigh, preschool (in a high school)

...and for me, freedom from kids 7 hours a week!!! Since I am just not busy enough, I finally made the jump to begin college for the first time in my life - very scary but cool and exciting too! I am finally doing something for myself! I am super stressed and don't have enough time in a day to manage a household and do homework, but I guess the house will have to suffer for a little while.

Mt Rushmore

We decided to take the kids on one last quick trip before we all started school, so we flew out to Mt Rushmore!!! The kids were really excited to see it. It was a beautiful day, and perfect weather.

There is a trail with different markers that tell you facts about each president and also the history of the construction of the monument, so it was nice to do something a little educational as well as fun while enjoying the outdoors. Rapid City is actually a nice little area, with a lot of fun little touristy spots and cute shops. There are a lot of gold mines and caverns as well, which we will hit next time :) All the hotels have indoor pools and water slides too which is a nice bonus! Over all, it was a very fun trip - but if you go, bring lots of mosquito repellent because I have never seen mosquitos like those in South Dakota!!!


We could not get a single serious picture out of the kids at this point in the trail. Stinkers.

This is where a huge boulder fell and created a cool cave. Jax wants you to believe the boulder was about to collapse on him, I think...

You can see up Washington's nose from inside the cave!

Finally, something fun to do!!! Traeden could hardly contain himself on that mountain any longer - until finally we were at the point where you are allowed to go off the trail and CLIMB!!! We call him spidey...

The view from the top. The rest of us walked around this small cliff, instead of climbing up it.

Awww...a kodak moment :)

Araleigh wanted to join the boys but it proved to be a little challenging in flip flops!

Okay, yes, I totally made them pose for this one, but it's still cute, right???

Now this one I did not pose!!! Our little prima ballerina climbed on that rock and started dancing and posing all on her own!!! Absolutely no prompting necessary for this one! I love the knee pop :)

Day 2, we found a geology museum with free admission - yay! - so we headed over to check out some ancient bones and rocks :)

Araleigh liked the eggs, probably because she could imagine little baby dinosaurs inside...

There was something special about this one...the largest of its kind? The most complete? Found only in this area? Something special... I wish I could remember... maybe the kids know...Wait - it's the only real fossil - all the rest of the bone fossils were replicas. Maybe that's it...

Then on to the rocks, minerals, and metals. The boys were very impressed with the gold nugget collection, and spent a lot of time trying to imagine what these were worth and what they would buy if they had them for themselves!

We like the name of this one :)

My daughter...

Araleigh is a stinker. Well, all of my kids are stinkers, but Araleigh comes up with things that even the boys didn't do - and I thought my boys did everything possible when it comes to making me crazy! She keeps me on my toes, for sure, but she is a lot of fun - especially at the store...

I don't even know what else to say about this :)

The Annual Delta Trip!!!!!

Well what would summer be without Delta??? I only know of one summer in my entire life that I didn't go to Delta, the summer Araleigh was born. It is my absolute favorite place to go in the whole entire world, and it is becoming my kids' favorite as well! It is always a great time and a lot of fun. Some great moments this year:

Riding on the big "taco tube" with all my kids!!! They are slightly wimpy when it comes to this stuff, so getting all of them on there was quite an accomplishment! This tube is very difficult to fall off of, though not impossible, we discovered, thanks to Liz :), so the boys decided to be brave and give it a try. And, not surprisingly, they loved it!

Traeden even got really brave, and stood up! Woo hoo!!!

Araleigh's awesome aunts were very nice to teach her how to bend the hose so that water doesn't come out, and then have somebody go look at it, then let go so water sprays in their face. Thanks. :)

The funniest thing was when Grandpa was going for an evening swim while Araleigh and I were sitting on the dock with our feet in the water. Grandpa asked Araleigh if she wanted to get in the water and she said no, so he swam away a little. Well, I guess she changed her mind, because the next thing I know, she's tearing off her nightgown and jumping into the water in her underwear! She had fun swimming with Grandpa, and I think he liked it too :)

Still catching up on summer...

More of the summer adventures that I am documenting for myself :) I was very excited to be able to take my kids to the new temple in Daybreak for the open house! It was so neat to be able to have them in there with me, and show them all the beautiful rooms where such important and sacred ordinances take place.

I really hope it is something they (at least the boys) will be able to remember. It's funny, because at first they didn't even want to go - but only because they had to dress up! They weren't even really dressed up anyway because we didn't bring "church clothes" since we hadn't planned on staying. But since it was 100 degrees outside, they did not want to wear jeans and a shirt with a collar - way too much to ask :) Well they finally complied, and then of course the people in front of us once we got there were wearing shorts and t-shirts. That didn't help my case :) Oh, well. Once inside, they were really interested and asked a lot of questions, and I think they really did appreciate the beauty of the temple. And of course the cookies at the end helped to keep it an over-all positive experience!

Another fun day was a trip to Liberty Park, one of my favorite things as a kid, although I couldn't find that really cool playground with all the ropes and the zipline!! Does anyone know what I'm talking about??? Anyone know what happened to it? So sad... anyway, I think I mentioned maybe once or twice that it was super hot while we were there so pretty much the kids just got totally soaked while I tried to stay somewhat cool in the shade. They did a few rides on the old ferris wheel and carousel, had snow cones and cotton candy, and then we were too hot to do anything else, so time to go. But I do have some cute pics to remember this day forever :)