Soccer

Grace had her opening ceremony for soccer earlier in the month, and then had her first games a few days later. She seems to enjoy it most of the time, but other times tells me it's boring because there's only one ball... I've been told this is normal and that she'll get the hang of it after a while - which she is, the more she plays.

#9 Grace Samuelson

The Grasshoppers

At least she looks cute when she's playing, right?

Beautiful Butterflies

Just wanted to share with you some of the beautiful things we see around here. We have two flowering bushes in our front yard that have been abuzz with loads and loads of butterflies (and bees too). There are so many different colors fluttering around those bushes it's like living under a rainbow!

These are only two that I could capture, but I think you get the idea.

T-ball

Okay, it's once again time to try to get caught up! I've been busy the last few weeks trying to get everything ready for the hearing and vision screenings at the school, and am pleased to report that it went much better than I anticipated. I guess it helps to anticipate the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it goes so well - I had planned on it taking 6 days to screen about 200 students, but with the great help that I had it only took 2 days!

So let me take you back a few weeks. Tristan had a mini-sports t-ball camp for 6 weeks (1 day a week). He thought it was great, but got bored sometimes with the repetitiveness of the whole thing. You could just about hear him say, "I know how to throw a ball, I've got a rocket for an arm - get on with it already!" But it was good father son bonding time. Grace's soccer practice was cancelled one day so I was able to go get a few pictures...

Daddy giving pointers

Go team!He even earned a medal!

Morton Arboretum

After visiting the Children's Museum, we headed back to cousin Bonnie's house, grabbed a snack and headed to the Morton Arboretum. We didn't get to do a whole lot there because we arrived in the midst of a downpour. I was hoping to show David the Children's Garden and go on the guided tour, but we were about the only ones in the park! We did drive around to see the grounds, and after the rain let up, we got out and toured some of the animal habitats they had on display. Each year the Arboretum does a different "special attraction". When we were there last year, there were a bunch of different insects and animals sculpted from tree branches - at least that's what I think it was, all I know is that they were very large and looked as if they were made from that sort of material. Anyway, this year they had 11 animal habitats scattered in different areas of the park, all related to what animals live in those areas.

In the Prairie they had a coyote den, an ant colony, and a spider web

In the Wetlands they had a Great Blue Heron Rookery, a beaver lodge, a pollywog pond, and a skunk denAnd in the Woodlands they had a squirrel drey, a raccoon den, and a fallen log (unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of these because it was still pretty wet when we got out to see them).

We also saw a beautiful bird feeding in the wetlands area and many beautiful flowers and trees. For those of us that live in the desert, we find anything that isn't brown to be quite breathtaking...

Chicago Children's Museum

A view of the Chicago skyline from the Eisenhower Expressway (I think)

After dropping Mom off at the airport on Saturday, we went down to Navy Pier and took the kids to the Chicago Children's Museum. We didn't brave the train that day... It cost us $24 to park, but were very pleasantly surprised when we got to the museum and found out that admission for active duty military and their families was free! So I decided I couldn't complain about spending the $24 for parking - it turned out to be a really fun (and cheap) day down at Navy Pier.

The kids had a great time. They played in water, bowled, did crafts, climbed, fished, were paleontologists, and so much more! I so wish we lived closer to a place that had all of these things! Here's a few pictures:

The kid's "stairs"

The water works area - I'm so glad there were raincoats!
Checkers with Daddy
Bowling She's proving to be quite the climber
Riding down the river
Fishing
Our future paleontologists

They had this really cool area of shadow play. One part had rocks falling on you, and the other screen had butterflies. I have no idea how it works, but it was really neat. There were rocks falling straight down on the screen, then when you stood in front of the screen and created a shadow, the rocks would divert their course according to your shadow's positioning.

The butterflies would fly around you, and would land on you occasionally.

We're trying to raise our kids to be self sufficient...

Pumping gas

Changing tires

A view of the Chicago skyline from Navy Pier

It really is a neat city, with lots of stuff to do - and I'm sure we'll discover even more as the kids get older. I think this is the first trip that we've not gone to the zoo - there was just too much else going on...

First Train Ride

While in Chicago, we met the Keyser's downtown at the Museum of Science and Industry. I had the brilliant idea of taking the train downtown because I thought it would be better than fighting traffic and paying out the nose for parking. My cousin Bonnie thought it would be a great idea too and told us just what we needed to do when the train got to the end of the line - unfortunately, both of us were wrong... It turned out to be quite a challenge to get to the museum, but we managed, and the kids didn't seem to mind - after all, what could be much more fun than riding a train and a bus to get to where you're going?

This was Tristan's first train ride, and the first that Grace will remember.


We all enjoyed the museum - they had something for everyone!

The kids had a great time in the hands-on section,












they enjoyed climbing the walls (and mom didn't even yell!),
David and Tristan thoroughly enjoyed the gigantic train diorama,

and the kids enjoyed visiting with their Grandma on the trolly.


The next day we spent some additional time with my Grandma, and we visited with my Aunt Mary (believe it or not, she's 95). She has a big yard, so the kids had a ball just running free.

Then it was back to Bonnie's for some rest. Tristan decided he needed to rest so badly that he was going to knock himself out...

I don't know what it is with this boy and head injuries! But it was too cute not to post.