Cross Country Day, Day 11 & 12

July 8 & 9

So, we said goodbye to Wisconsin and started driving west towards Minnesota.  When I think of Minnesota, I think of when I was in college and even though I can't remember who was from Minnesota, I remember thinking people from there seem to be really nice.  The second thing I think of is Mall of America.  I remember women from work taking a girl's vacation to go shopping there.  The world's largest mall?  Well, what good is it if you don't have money to spend?

Nonetheless, I like malls.  I like window shopping, looking at what's in style and getting ideas for what have you!

We checked into a hotel for the evening and then headed over to the mall to get some dinner and look around.  We did have some shopping to do, like swim trunks for Patrick.  The Mall of America seemed to look like any other mall I've seen, just plus-sized.  We walked around the many floors and the multiple food court areas.

After we ate dinner, we found a Marshall's and bought the swim trunks for Patrick.  The kids found a mirror maze.  Tommy and Anne both wanted to spend some of their money getting through the maze together.  They took the video camera with them.  They had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, we found a toy store where the kids had some fun buying things with their own money.

Then we decided to stop by the Nickelodeon amusement park that was right smack in the middle of the mall.  I couldn't believe they crammed roller coasters in a mall.  Since Anne just did a zip line ride at the zoo, she found another zip line adventure where you are harnessed and you walk across many rope courses and basically try not to fall.  Also, you are high above ground - of course!  Joe, Tommy and Anne did this together.  The rest of us watched.  Joe & Tommy were more timid than Anne and finished a bit earlier.  Anne kept on going and had a blast.

The little ones found a ride they could do.  I believe it was bumper cars?  Geesh, don't remember.

We all went back to the hotel.  The kids played with their new toys while also getting ready for bed.

Bye, Mall of America.

We woke up, loaded our van and headed west toward South Dakota.  We were headed towards the Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, SD.  I've never heard of this place nor did I even pay attention to the itinerary when we stopped in the middle of no where surrounded by miles of long green grass.  In the middle of no where appeared these art sculptures made of metal.

The pieces of art were sculpted out of metal by Wayne Porter.  He learned to weld in his father's blacksmith shop as a child and now has his art displayed in the middle of no where off of I-90 exit 374!  We stopped to check it out.  The weather was so beautiful!  It was late afternoon where the sun is just golden.  The wind was blowing a warm breeze and the skies were blue.  The best part was being surrounded by miles of green!

I have to say, his art is really odd but interesting.  Made of mostly junk metal, he came up with some of these sculptures.

A giant hammer.  Odd, huh?

I wonder what his inspiration was here?

This one, I get.

This one seemed to be the most prominent sculpture.

Some of them were a little disturbing, but fun to imitate.

I think this one was my favorite - I like happy.

I think of Sting's Field's of Gold when I look at this picture.

Ahhh, so beautiful!  I don't get to see this every day.  

We all got into our very messy van.  We trashed it!  I wish I took a picture of it.  Our next stop was Murdo, SD and Wall, SD not too far away from each other.  We were going to 1880's Town, Wall Drug and the Badlands!!

Cross Country, Day 10 and 11

Sunday, July 7-8

We said goodbye to Chicago and headed toward Wisconsin!  I've never been there before so I was really excited.  I only think of cheese when I think of Wisconsin.  Didn't get any cheese.

There were two things that brought us to the state of Wisconsin, family and Happy Hippo.  My Uncle in-law lives in Whitewater and we thought we'd swing by since we were so close.

But first, we had to visit Happy Hippo.  What seems to be a long time ago, but really isn't, we took our kids to the National Zoo in DC and went by the Elephant House where Happy the Hippo lived.  My kids were so taken by Happy.  He was very playful that day and walked around, splashed everywhere and played with his ball.  He was so huge!  My kids started their love for hippos that day.  You won't find Happy's home in the Elephant House anymore - they've built a brand new elephant habitat.  Because of that new habitat, they had to get rid of Happy and ship him off to Milwaukee Zoo.  We thought we'd never see Happy again.  We received some news clippings from our family in Wisconsin about Happy and his new home.  He seemed sad and wasn't getting along with his hippo friends.

It was a meaningful trip to Milwaukee Zoo.  As soon as we arrived there, they had a zip-lining ride that Anne wanted to try out.  No one has ever done that in our family.  We let her be the first.

Sort of scary to see your daughter hanging from a string several feet in the air.  She loved it!  All of our other kids were too short to zip-line.

After that adventure, we headed straight to Happy.  When we found his home we were a bit disappointed because he was in the water just floating around and there were these bars that were in the way and it made it tough to watch him especially when you're so short like our kids.

We stayed for a while and watched him as he swam back and forth and the occasional coming up for air which wasn't too exciting.  It was nice to see him.

The Milwaukee Zoo was really nice.  It had a relaxed and casual feel with beautiful trees and lakes.  At one point, we took a break because some of us were a little tired.

Bernie was very cranky.  I love those purple sandals.  Purple seems to be her favorite color, next to pink that is.  By the way, those shoes didn't make the whole trip, unfortunately.  We had to find a Walmart and get her some new shoes.

Daddy had to cheer her up before we moved on.

Daddy is working his charm - usually works.

Daddy is still trying as Bernadette is trying to keep her bad mood.  It was so cute.

Then Bernadette couldn't help but crack a smile.  Daddy is so good and he knows it.

We sat around as we passed out some snacks and got some drinks.

We enjoyed the zoo and even went back to visit Happy one last time.

We were off to Whitewater to visit Joe's Uncle Johnny and his wife Marie.  It's just the two of them now since their two kids are all grown up.  We arrived at their beautiful home and they made us feel so relaxed and comfortable.  They took really great care of us.  They fed us, let us do laundry, showed us around town, took us out for an incredible breakfast and then sent us off with a bunch of goodies for the rest of our trip.  So incredibly thoughtful!  Thanks for a wonderful visit.  I wish I had taken more pictures!  Joe took a great shot with his phone - I just don't have it.

After dinner, they brought out a fun dessert made just for us.

How sweet was that?  No pun intended!  It was both =-)

After we left Johnny and Marie's house we headed towards Minnesota to hit Mall of America!  I was having such a great trip so far with my family.  I never liked rode trips when I was younger - um, also as an adult, but this trip was surprisingly awesome!

This was the last zoo we were to visit on our trip and we were going to begin to see a bunch of National Parks.  This was going to be the first time for my kids and for myself to see other side of America.  Excited!

  

Chicago Part Two, Day 9

July 6

Keeping up this blog has been a challenge.  It's really busy around here!  However, after accumulating a bunch of pictures and memories, I thought I should try better to get stuff onto my blog.  I hate to not document things.

Back to our cross country trip...  I shouldn't be too worried, Joe has made a beautiful video of our trip and we have that!

I believe this would be day 9 in Chicago.  After a full day at Millennium Park and Downtown we added another full day in Chicago.  We wanted to go to Lincoln Park Zoo (free!) and then hit the beach which was right near the zoo.  I have to admit it sounds a bit weird to mention the beach in Chicago.

We went to a lot zoos on this trip.  I really enjoyed this one.  The zoo being situated so beautifully in the middle of the city made it so enjoyable.  Not to mention - free, made it great too.  The weather was perfect!

Another great shot of Chicago's skyline.  I took a lot of pictures with my iPhone.  In fact, I've ignored my camera lately.  My phone is so much easier to take pictures of moments as they occur.  I miss my big clunky camera.  I shall dust it off and use it more often.

After the zoo, we had walked into the city and had lunch at McDonalds.  We also had to make a stop at a local Walgreens to pick up some beach towels!  In the McDonalds, I spotted one of these.

I just stared at it and thought how unused those payphones must be!  It almost seemed to be a thing of the past and it registered useless in my head.  However, there it was!  I didn't even check if it still took a quarter to make a call.  Funny, I just saw a payphone the other day and we had a similar conversation upon finding it and then we noticed that the phone handle had been ripped off.  It was no longer a working payphone.  Off to the beach.

We packed our bags that morning to spend a few hours at the beach after the zoo.  I didn't know what to expect, but once we got there it looked just like an ocean view except it was Lake Michigan.  The beach was crowded.  We placed our stroller and towels way in the back and set up.  I didn't even bring my swimsuit.  I just laid back with Max and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  Everything felt like any other beach but I would say the an ocean breeze might have been the one thing I noticed different.

Eventually, Max fell asleep and I put him in his stroller under the shade.  I laid back and tried to relax while I watched my kids go back and forth between the very crowded beach hoping they would find their way back and forth and not get lost.  I didn't even visit the water till the very end just so that I could say I stuck my foot into Lake Michigan.  Done.

After the beach, it was time to head back to our hotel and unwind, have dinner and go to bed!  Goodbye, Chicago!  Next stop, Wisconsin!

Max Behind The Wheel

This is another video I took while waiting for my kids after school.

I once had to move my car really quickly and didn't have a chance to strap Max in his car seat.  We were only going to move a couple of feet so I didn't think there was any harm in putting him in my lap and driving those few feet.  When I started to drive and turn the wheel so slightly I got this loud squeal of delight from him.  He thought it was the best thing ever!

I was trying to recreate that laugh but didn't get it quite the same, but this video shows how happy he is to be behind the wheel.

Happy Halloween - Star Wars

 

This year my kids decided to dress up as a character on Star Wars.  I was surprised no one wanted to be Darth Vader.

My boys all wanted to be some sort of Jedi.  Bernadette, of course, wanted to be Princess Leia and Anne wanted to be Queen Amidalla (aka Darth Vader's mother).  If you are familiar with the movies, Queen Amidalla is quite extravagant in her wardrobe and make-up.

This year I felt like Halloween was an all day event instead of just an evening thing.  It all started the night before with the pumpkin carving.  After that, I stayed up and made cookies for Anne's Halloween party the next day.  I got an idea from watching the Food Network a few days ahead to make Witches' Fingers.


I thought they were absolutely cute, but wondered if it was too much for a Halloween festive snack?

The next day was going to the Halloween parade and then having to attend an after school haunted house party that Anne was face-painting for.

After that, the kids and I went home.  It was already 4:30!  I made a hot pot of chili, cleaned up the house a bit and started getting the kids ready for the evening. 

This year, my in-laws came over to pass out candy.  This was great because the kids love seeing their grandparents and sharing Halloween with them is special.  I'm always leaving a bucket outside for trick-or-treaters and it's always nice to be able to actually have someone answer the door. 

It got dark so quickly - so I had to get my pictures done!

We were a little disappointed in the headpiece - it's really flimsy plastic, but she looks really good nonetheless. 

 

I had fun putting her make-up on. Her costume improved a lot with the make-up!  Fun stuff.

Tommy is Luke Skywalker. 

 

 

This is his Jedi pose.

 

 

Patrick just chose to be a Jedi - no one in particular.  He's a young Jedi, I guess.

 

 

Eddie just woke up from a late afternoon nap and was a very cranky Jedi.  He was on the verge of going to the Dark side.

 

 

My cute little princess.  The costume actually had her buns attached to a big wig piece that looked so fake!  I just cut the buns off and sewed them onto a elastic headband.  Looked so much better!

 

 

Max broke tradition this year.  The baby usually wears a Santa costume, but he had to be Yoda this year.  Someone took a look at him and thought he was a bunny.  Bunny, I am not!

 

 

My Star Wars crew.

 

We had a great evening.  We went down another road this year which has a lot more traffic.  Tommy was hoping to run into some of his friends.  Halloween was pretty fancy schmancy on this road.  One house had two cotton candy machines passing out huge sticks of sugar out to every kid!  One house had an interactive game to get your candy and another road was sealed off so they could create a bonfire in the middle. 

 

It started to sprinkle in the middle of our trick-or-treating and definitely dampened the mood a bit.  My kids were getting tired.  Joe ended up finding us and joined us for the rest of the way.  That was the best part of the night for me!  When we got back to our house we were informed that our house got 70+ trick-or-treaters!  Wow, that's a lot.  Thank goodness I bought enough candy.

 

I'm a little upset I can't get my pictures to get larger.  Something is not working too well today on the world of BLOG!





Max laughing

This year, I'm noticing I am spending a lot of time in the car.  I've always heard other moms talk about how they live in their car because of shuttling their kids to and from their activities.  I always wondered if that would be me one day.  I drop-off and pick-up my kids from school.  I'm not ready for them to walk a mile home yet.  Tommy has football practice and choir.  Anne has band practice.  Eddie has speech therapy.  With JUST that, there is some idle time in the car.  The kids and I end up playing with my phone and create some cute videos.  I thought I would share some once in a while. 

This one was taken after Mass and a family grocery run on a Sunday.  Max is usually the last one out of the van.  Tommy was making him laugh - what a great sound that is! 

Max is now 10.5 months now.  He's growing fast!

 

I still have to finish our cross country trip, but I'll have to start mixing it up.

Downtown Chicago

The months leading up to our cross country trip I thought it would be fun to make all of us a special shirt that we could all wear during our trip.  I know families have shirts made through a company or the like, but I thought it would be more fun to make tie dye shirts.  It would be a project for the kids and I to do and would serve a purpose for our trip.  Boom, two birds with one stone!

I remember doing it as kid with buckets of dye and white shirts that were scrunched together with rubber bands.  When I went to the craft store they had tie dye kits for about $10.  Cool!  We all sat around the TV as we watched "how to" make the different designs.  Each kid chose his design and Anne and I got to work.  This became a mother-daughter project since the boys chose not to help - which was fine because we had a lot of fun.

So we are already on day 8 of our trip and we still haven't worn our shirts.  We decided this would be the day!

Out of all the shirts, I liked Max's the most!

We decided to go downtown and visit Millennium Park.

What a fun place.  As soon as we got there, the first thing we see are The Crown Fountains.  I certainly didn't read about this place before coming so I wasn't expecting to see this.

I've never seen anything like this before!  The kids just went crazy and wanted to play in the water.  How could we not let them, right?  If I did read about Millennium Park before we got there, I would have brought bathing suits and towels.  Our first stop for the day and our children get soaked!  It was another beautiful day with mild temps and blue skies!  Just loving it!

Lots of squeals of delight!

Thank goodness Max stayed put in his stroller!  He stayed nice and dry.

It would have been perfect to have Max in the middle of this photo, but that wasn't going to happen.  We already get comments from random people when crossing paths with this big family of 8, now we were more of a spectacle with being a big family of 8 in tie dye shirts!  I certainly don't mind showing off our beautiful family - I'm blessed - but the tie dye may have embarrassed me a bit!  I got over it eventually, but people are free with their comments as usual!

We eventually left the Crown Fountains and started exploring.

There were art sculptures all over the park.  In this one, it looks like someone dumped water all over the sculpture and Bernadette.

This is Anne being one with the art (by Jun Kaneko).

We walked through the Lurie Gardens.  I just love the skyline of Chicago.  It is such a beautiful city.

Once we got through the Lurie Gardens we heard some music and knew something was going on.  We approached the Jay Pritzker Pavillion and on it's Great Lawn they were having a huge Zumba class!  The music was lively and there were tons of people participating in this Zumba class.  We stood watching.  There were all sorts of people exercising from old men to bag ladies - all shaking their thang!  It was almost contagious to go out there and join them - didn't happen.  This is definitely something I don't see everyday.

Then we headed over to a red tent which had something going on inside. 

I don't really remember exactly what it was, but I think it was something Target was sponsoring and they had a bunch of activities for kids.  So our kids stopped by to play a bit.

Then we headed off to my favorite part of the park...

The Cloud Gate, aka The Bean.  I remember reading or seeing this before and again, didn't realize I was going to be seeing it that day.  I think it was a neat idea of putting this in the middle of the park.  It's not just a piece of art, but a fun toy for people of all ages!  You can just see why it's fun to hang around.  It's a big mirror shaped like a bean that distorts it's reflections in a fun way.

There we are together in our tie dye!

At this point my kids are damp not wet.  Drying off still...

You can get under this bean and get some cool reflections.

After walking around Millennium Park we decided to walk through the city, down Michigan Ave.,  and get some lunch. 

What a fun city.  I keep having to compare it to New York when I talk about it.  It's just more open, cleaner, friendlier people, classier, prettier - however, New York is classic, artful, interesting and is really a city that is always awake!  I'd choose Chicago to live in, however.

You know you watch a lot of movies when you start recalling a bunch of different scenes from movies when you look at the Chicago River.  Gotta get a picture of it!

We walked around Chicago for a while.  Had to find a potty for Eddie to use.  And then find a corner to nurse Max.

We walked through an art fair which was nice.  We headed back to our car and realized we lost one of Bernadette's bright green crocs halfway there.  The kids and I parked ourselves near a building on Michigan Ave. and timed Daddy to see how long it would take for him to return to us.  I think we clocked him at a little over 12 minutes.

Once we got to the car, we went on a drive to visit where my father-in-law grew up.  There were two homes that he lived in which were very close to each other.  We took pictures of us there and then we headed back to our hotel to call it a day!

We rested up at our hotel for another day downtown.  We were going to head to Lincoln Park Zoo and also spend time at the beach along Lake Michigan!