"Lasts" update

How am I doing with  my bucket list?

These are some of the items I said in this post that I wanted to do before we left:

Silver Beach,

Village Potluck (not mentioned in post, but on the to-do list)

McKenna, Moody, Lyman, Carrier, Kelly, Coffman, Ross

 Ft Wayne Zoo (also not mentioned in post, but definitely on my bucket list!)

Moody, Zumbrun, Turner, Kelly Kids

Miranda feeding Zahra.

Since we had 3 of us in a caravan, we used the girls' walkie-talkies.
They loved having them in the zoo, too!

Promised Sleep-over for Megan's 8th Birthday celebration (even though she has another 6 weeks before she's eight!). I promised her she could have this with friends here before we moved. I wasn't exactly thinking straight, or didn't factor in that we'd be mostly packed up and it'd be INSANE. Still, it was a lot of fun!

Gwen

Nica

Addison

Esther

Olivia

Megan

Miranda, Addison, Olivia, Esther, Megan, Nica, Gwen, Abby
Eight girls, lots of giggles and fun.
(Only 3 of the invited friends spent the night)

Fernwood, we lucked out and made it on a Free Day! Sadly, it was super hot (in the 90s with a heat index over 100!). We still loved the trains, and the flowers, and the (blessfully!) cool nature center. It was too hot to explore much, so we headed to Silver Beach to cool off in Lake Michigan after (see above pictures).

Fire Station, We visited that today. I will have to add pictures later.

Potato Creek, don't think we'll make this one...

touching the Bean in Chicago and
Splash Pad, (see our Chicago trip here.)

Zoo with butterfly house and train,
bike rides at UND campus and along the East Race trail,
picnics in our yard or at the park- we've had a few of these in various places over the last month- ranging from Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Illinois, Michigan and here in Indiana.



Just not enough time. But, we've had lots of good times with friends, and many chances to make good memories. I'm looking forward to having you all come visit us and make new memories in New York!

Happy 40th Travis!

We celebrated Travis' birthday a few days early (cuz he decided we should travel to WY on his birthday!).

What better way than to have surprise visit from a friend from kindergarten, carrot cake, and to have a scavenger hunt with his daughters, nieces and nephews with puzzles to solve that were related to stories about his childhood.

Thanks to everybody who helped!

The anecdotes were awesome, and the scavenger hunt was great fun. Even the cake turned out not too bad.

Happy 40th!

A carrot cake I covered in fondant after dinner. Although I made the fondant, it was Molly's creative design that made the figure and the slip-n-side. I love his face and the splash!

Travis was VERY surprised when Kent showed up!
It was awesome having them together, and hearing about their exploits as kids.

Travis had to arrange the children who were present in their birth order before receiving his first clue for the scavenger hunt. He had a little help, but did really well!
J. Johnson, Zoë, B. Johnson, Megan, Jack, Andrew, Miranda, Ella, Veronica, Micah, Annie
(not pictured of nieces and nephews: Anna, Josh, Claire, Eliza, Luke, Porter, Nathan, and Kate)

Sunset we saw while on the hunt.

Mustache a question: why the facial hair?
It came from a story that Grandpa told about how Travis and Brett tried to sneak out of their room by covering their faces as they tip-toed down the hallway. They got a little smarter and crawled out the window the next time, but were still caught because Carl saw their feet in the next room's window.
Each location that related to a story had a bag of "goodies" and this bag contained items to help them become more incognito.

We had a LOT of fun with the mustaches!

So did the kids.

See all the goodies? Travis let the kids take home most of the prizes...

That's definitely more facial hair than he can grow without assistance!

We sang happy birthday and shared the cake.

Chicago

Saturday in the park, I think it was the 20th of July...

I dragged my kids (not kicking and screaming, but whining and moaning) to Chicago last Saturday. Having lived so close to this BIG city, and all its iconic structures, I knew that we needed to go see and do a few things before we moved away from the area. I had originally thought to take us all on the train, but when I found out that they no longer let 2 kids ride free per paying adult, that killed that idea (it would've been $80 for a round trip!)

We drove to Navy Pier and parked, then hiked it back to Millennium Park. We were looking for the Cloud Gate, better known as "The Bean". You can see why in these pictures:

It's a trick finding yourself in the mirror. Can you find us?

Now can you find us?

Notice Travis' shirt. His shirt is the Bean showing a reflection of theembryonic form of an animal.
(cuz I know these pics don't have that much detail!)

Where's Waldo- Chicago Style
Can you spot Travis and me? I'm wearing red, Travis in black and we are standing together.
There are multiple places...

We had fun playing with the curves and reflections.

The other structure we walked to was the Crown Fountain. There are these two tall towers that face each other, and they have faces on them. Even more cool is that they have water falling off the sides. And, at one point, they open their mouths and water pours from it! or so it appears. We had fun splashing in the water, which was warmer the closer to the center of the fountain you got. Miranda and Nana were the only ones who didn't get wet. It felt great, tho', cuz it was HOT!

Gonna getcha!

They walked right into the water!

Nica didn't shower, but she did lay down in the (warm!) water and splash in it.

After seeing Millennium Park, we walked back to Navy Pier and walked and walked and walked. We looked at the stained glass hall, which was pretty cool. By this time, we were all pretty tired, and we didn't want to spend the $100+ it would cost to do anything, so we sent the kids back to the van with Nana and Travis and I walked to the (almost end) of the pier. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed seeing the skyline and all the ships out in Lake Michigan. We didn't go on the Ferris Wheel, but opted instead to go get dinner and ice cream treats at DQ!

I'm glad I tortured my kids with this trip. I was glad that I got to see these things, and I know we will remember them and the time we spent here in the midwest.

Soon we'll be exploring new places! and we welcome you to come and stay with  us in New York (not the city!) and explore with us.