A little vacation

A couple of months ago I got a phone call from Wyndam Resorts offering me a 4 day-3 night vacation for around $150 bucks. I told them I wanted to discuss it with my hubby and they dropped the price some more. Being married to a salesman and knowing that the girl on the other end was being paid on commission, I jumped. 3 nights hotel, a $75 American Express card & a voucher for another hotel stay and all I had to do was sit through a 2 hour time share presentation. DEAL! Oh wait, we'll throw in a second package for half price.....DEAL again! Can you say SUCKER!

We actually enjoyed the time share presentation, and no we didn't buy one...but thanks to Big Al, it is now on our list of possible future investments when the insurance business makes us rich. But most importantly, it FORCED us to take a family vacation. Something that neither one of us are use to...unless there is some kind of livestock involved...and wouldn't you know it, there was.

We left Saturday morning and made it to Mazon before Claire said "I GOTTA GO POTTY!" This isn't a normal thing for her, but we pulled off at Casey's and sure enough she went potty! We only changed one wet diaper the entire trip up! The next stop was in Ottawa for some lunch and gourmet popcorn. Trever and I shared some strawberry shortcake popcorn and Claire had some plain old borning stuff.

We made it to the Wisconsin Dells around 5, checked in to our hotel and did a little swimming. Our hotel pool was perfect for Claire! There were indoor and outdoor pools but we stayed inside for the most part since the outside pools were FREEZING! Claire really enjoyed the little slides and the castle!

We hit up a few of the local eateries...including a vegan restaurant where I gave tofu a try...enjoyed the outlet mall and the Original Wisconsin Ducks.

Claire like's to refer to them as the car boats and she was a good sport while we were riding them but complained about them being a little loud.

We stopped at this place for lunch called the Cheese House. Being in Wisconsin, I expected it to be Grilled Cheese, Cheese sticks, cheese burgers, cheesecake....CHEESE....there was a little cheese on the menu....but that was the ONLY animal product on the menu. Little did I know that this cute little restaurant with pretty flowers was a vegan/gluten free restaurant.

After naps for Claire & mommy, we hit the pool again. Daddy even took Claire down the big slide. After daddy went to the room, Claire got a little gutsy and decided to go down the slide like the big kids....face first.

Daddy is going to shoot me for posting this picture but I love it!

Monday night Claire decided we needed to go to a pirate restaurant. Turns out it was a very expensive "seafood" buffet. I'm talking $20 for fish sticks.

When were packing up Tuesday morning Claire thought it would be fun to dress up in some of mommy's things. She kept saying "no pictures, no pictures"

We had a really good time. And we even made a stop at a bull stud on the way home.

Kelly & Will

About 6 weeks ago, Trever's cousin, Kelly, married a super cool guy, Will. We had a blast! Claire stayed at Mary's house all night and Trever & I stayed in Rantoul for the night so we could enjoy ourselves and not have to drive home! I took tons of pictures, most of which were already posted on facebook, but this one is my favorite from the night!

Swimming lessons

Claire & Alex started swimming lessons this week. They are warming up to the idea of following directions and they LOVE the frog slide!

A family reunion

Last weekend was the bi-annual Monroe-Read Family reunion. We head to Milwaukee Friday afternoon and had a nice time hanging out with my mom's extended family. We had dinner at Carrabas and stopped at a fun little market called Brennan's where we picked up some local wines and beers.

Saturday morning we met the Waterworth family at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Everyone had a good time and it was nice to catch up with Dani, Chris & Abby.

They had lots of animals....including 2 elephants.

Peacocks that wandered around free.

And monkeys.....I mean Abby & Claire in front of the camels.

Then we went back to the hotel for naps and a little pinata action. To celebrate Lucille's 80th birthday, her niece made her a pinata that looked strikingly like her!

We had dinner as a family and then headed back to the hotel where a wild game of picture telephone took place in the hotel lobby.

Memphis

So, not only will blogger not let me publish my post. It also won't let me rearrange my pictures. So, these are in a crazy order.

The first weekend of July, Trever and I headed south for the summer meeting of Family Heritage. We left Friday after work and spent the night in Marion, IL. Then we got up and headed the rest of the way to Memphis Saturday morning.

The last night we were there we visited Graceland. Here I am with a picture of "The King" listening to my audio tour of his home.

And playing a little guitar

On the 4th of July we headed to Canale Farms which is a horse farm that specializes in company picnics. Trever thought he'd show the girls who kept falling off the ladder that it wasn't as hard as it looked....but it was.

Sunday night we went to a Memphis Redbirds game. The are a AAA team for the cardinals. While we were there, there was a shooting at the hotel across the street. CSI even showed up!

Saturday night we had some AMAZING ribs at Blues City Cafe. We also tried some shrimp and catfish.

This is Trever and his friend Katie having breakfast at Cockadoos. Trever had a BBQ omlet.

And a picture of the two of us. Even though I am a little blurry!

At Canale Farms they had a tether ball set up. I totally kicked Trever's butt at it! I had LOTS of training on the blacktop at Bellflower Elementary.

A Mickey Party!

I have lots of pictures to post! I'm going to start with Claire's birthday party!

We planned Claire's party for the weekend after her birthday. We decided months ago that we would have a Mickey party since Claire is a HUGE fan of Mickey Mouse Club House. Daddy also had big plans for the cake and, as you can see below, he out did himself!

But as much as we had planned and wanted everything perfect for Claire's big party, we could stop Claire from feeling yucky. She ran a pretty good fever most of the day and spent a good portion of the day in bed or clingy to mommy.

She got lots of really great presents. Including a tricycle with all of the bells and whistles. We let her "unwrap" that and her sandbox early with the hopes it would cheer her up.

Then we had pizza! Pizza with black olives is typically Claire's favorite food, so that's what we served at her party! We kept with the Mickey Mouse theme on the pizza too.

Claire got a new show shirt from Aunt Kyla, Uncle Ron, Caisey, Maddi & Kempton.

And a little magnadoodle from Grandma & Grandpa.

We woke her up to blow out her candles. As you can see she wasn't too in to it.

But the good news is, the day after her birthday it was like she was seeing her presents for the first time! She was soo excited and felt sooo much better! We're still not sure what the deal was, but luckily it was short lived! Here is Claire with all of her loot!

A Day at the Zoo

A couple of weeks ago, we met our friends the McIntyres for a day of family fun! We met at LaGondola for an early lunch and then headed to Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington!

Here is our crew....

Eden, Claire, Harper, Lydia & Gavin. (Claire just said "those are my friends")

Claire posed for a picture with the Tiger.

And they all acted like monkeys!

But the highlight for Claire was definately the Merry go Round!

They also have a wonderful playground and splash park at Miller Park!

Daddy & his little girl