the rest of June

Evangeline has been enjoying the toys that we get out for my nephew. She will just bounce away in this thing.

This handsome little man is just growing like a weed. I didn't have my niece and nephew for several weeks so I am glad to be back on our routine. Ari really misses them when they don't come over. And I know Evangeline misses all the "new" toys that are out.

Ari drew a picture of his daddy when he was a little boy. I think it's cute!

Evangeline is really in to her daddy too. She can't wait for him to come home and pick her up.

We went up to Wheaton last Thursday night and stayed with AJ's sister and brother-in-law all weekend. We saw dark clouds when we neared northwest Indiana and were excited that it might rain. Instead of raining it decided to hail! Thankfully it didn't last too long since we were on the interstate and there was no where to pull off. But I don't think I have ever driven in hail before and let me tell you AJ and I thought the windshield was going to break!

We went to a little zoo on Friday with Erin and finished just in time before more storm clouds let loose. They looked worse than the hail clouds from the night before so we weren't sure what these had in store for us. Thankfully all it did was rain so we made it back just in time.

Ari was so excited to be with Aunt Erin all weekend long. I think he might have been doing a happy dance.

After naps we walked to a playground, then walked to the train. We thought Ari would really enjoy riding the train so we went two stops away and got some ice cream.

This little ice cream shop was awesome. It brought our food on a train! Ari is still enjoying his train whistle that came on top of his ice cream.

Then Friday night we went to a festival in hopes of seeing some hot air balloons.

We got a really close spot near the air balloons, but right when they were to launch the announcer said bad weather was coming in and they had to take them down. (What are the chances with all this weather?) But rain is much needed everywhere so we really can't complain.

Saturday morning was pretty low key since everyone was exhausted from the busy day on Friday. Saturday afternoon AJ and I left for a wedding that was a little north of where we were staying. It was so fun seeing old friends from college that I hadn't seen in years. Congratulations Ashley and Brian!

Then Sunday we were going to head out after lunch. We were going to cookout with Chris's family since it was his mom's birthday. But then we were hit with bad weather again. This time it was really bad. The weather people called it a land hurricane. With 80-90 mph winds and hail, there were trees and fallen limbs all over the place. Even the power lines had fallen and we were without power. So lunch was delayed and finally after it stopped raining we were able to grill. In fact, they still don't have power and probably won't get it back until next week.

On the way home we stopped at Fair Oaks Farms and just missed the birth of a calf by minutes! The baby was still gooey and the mom was breathing heavily. They say a calf is born about every hour and if you get there at the right time you can see it being born.

We let the kids play on the playground and we did a cheese maze. Some other things weren't open because of the weather but it was still fun to see what all they had. We got to sample some cheese and it was the best cheese I have ever had. Mmm...

My favorite part of the drive is seeing all the wind turbines. There has got to be hundreds of them and it makes me want one for myself. We were entertained the rest of the drive by more of Ari's drawings.

We had such a fun weekend but like usual we were glad to be back at home. The kids never switched over to Illinois time so the whole weekend they were waking up at 5:30. Yikes! But now we are back to normal and they are back to their old tricks. Well at least this little one is. She likes to show off her food on her head. It's a battle almost every meal. But it's hard not to laugh so what can I say?