Downtown Chicago Day 1

This morning we took the train to downtown Chicago.

We first went to the Willis Tower which is 103 stories high and used to be the tallest building in the world. We could see for miles from the view up there. I hear on a clear day you can see all the way to Michigan. I was thinking it would be really fun to go sky diving, looking down from so high. There was a glass enclosed ledge that we could stand on and look at the tiny little cars and people going by beneath us. I really liked it. Drew was a little nervous.

We walked around downtown for a bit. It was a pretty, sunny day. We waited for lunch at this interesting water park.

The faces on the big towers would move and blink. Every once in a while the face would spit water out of it's mouth.

These little kids were really cute. The little girl would pull the little boy around by his finger and she walked on her tippy toes. It was really adorable.

Uncle George met up with us and bought us the most yummiest lunch! We were told the waiter's name was George, so Uncle George pretended to wait on us. The waiter-George was busy so his assistant came and we called her George too.

After lunch we walked around and looked at all the cool sculptures and the big buildings.

Here is a cute little spring display we saw. All the flowers looked so perfect we thought they were fake, but they were all real. The moss was so pretty.

The pillow on the chair is made with the same fabric we have in our living room. :D

This sculpture is informally referred to as "The Bean". It's real name is the "Cloud Sculpture" I think. (I like "the Bean" better)

This picture is from underneath the bean looking up. It was a little disorienting if you stared up for a while. 

We called this one "The Apple". From a different angle it kinda looked like a robotic bug thing, but we figured the apple angle was more pleasant.

We called this one "The White Rabbit". It looked totally white from farther away, it wasn't till you got up close that it looked metal.

This sculpture is called "Flamingo". Mom thought it looked more like a wilted flower...

We had so much fun today. It was fun to just walk around and relax. The big city is so different than what I'm used to, everything was interesting.

I don't know if you can tell, but this is Karlyn and I making a heart shape. It was very hard to hold this position, not because we were straining to bend our backs, but because it is super super hard to not laugh with your friend's upside down grinning face within an inch of your own. We had so much fun together.

That picture wasn't actually from today....today was pretty uneventful. We drove all day and we arrived at the Dluhy's house. Auntie Su Su made us a really yummy dinner :) We are all very excited to hang out with Aunt Sue and Uncle George for a couple days. Tomorrow we're going to tour the city.

On the road again

We started pretty early because we didn't want to miss seeing the butterfly house which closed at 4pm, but we ended up arriving right at 4 and missed it anyways :(

We drove by a little ghost town that looked all cute and western. There was even a tumble weed that blew across the road right in front of us! :D

It is very windy in South Dakota. It's hard for mom to keep the motorhome in the middle of the road sometimes because of this, also exiting the motorhome while wearing a skirt can be quite scandalous.

We also drove by a semi full of pigs. It was funny watching them stick their noses through the holes.

We didn't get to see the butterfly house, but right next to it there was a really cool park that Drew and I played and climbed all over while mom took a nap. The park was huge, but our favorite part was the big white dome thingy. We felt like ninjas. There were also some dreary looking, yet cool woodsy areas that we walked through some.

We're driving now so we can get as close as we can to our next destination. Hopefully we won't be late tomorrow. We're going to Chicago to visit Aunt Sue and Uncle George. O Boy!

We are so excited to hear that the Goldman baby has arrived! :D

Also, we are sad to have missed Daddy's sermon this morning :(

A question for you:

Drew and I were looking at this sign and we thought of four different pronunciations this "word" could be interpreted. What do you think the word underneath the "Pro Nails" sign should sound like?

Tournament Day 2

Last night we just stayed in the tournament parking lot. That was really nice:) We had eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast and then we went outside and played frisbee!

I got to watch one of Drew's impromptu rounds. He did quite well. He spoke on a quote about character and how your character is like a tree and the shadow is your reputation. I heard later he made one of the judges cry. (in a good way) I also heard wonderful things about his OI performance today.

Yesterday Benjamin Griffith and I made up a few new levels of the cup game and figured out how to do it in a round. That was really fun! Today there were a lot of people doing our version.

Tonight we all went to a big maze. I stuck pretty close to Drew, James Byrnes, Karlyn and Cassie Cooper. We were having fun running through the whole maze and I think we finished pretty fast.

Brandan Yeates was having a hard time finding the last tower so Karlyn, Cassie and I led him to the right place. I was taking him back to the exit and there were some stairs and I was feeling adventuresome, so I jumped down the stairs more than halfway up the flight. I kinda tripped at the bottom (but I expected that mostly). Brandan, in an effort to save me jumped right after me and didn't land right. He sprained his ankle pretty bad :( We didn't run the rest of the way back.

Tournament Day

Yeah! It's Karlyn :)

Caves and Mt. Rushmore

This morning we discovered the RV park we stayed at last night is populated with lots of chill-laxed bunnies. This one stayed right outside our motorhome in the tiny indentation in the ground there. Itwould curl up and stretch out and wiggle around to get comfy.

Drew and I toured the wind caves while mom took a nap. That was so cool! We both really liked it. The tour guide said there would be spots we would have to duck, but I didn't need to. I watched everyone else duck while I stood up strait.

The drive up to Mt. Rushmore was very pretty. There were cool tunnels and loopdee loops and there were lots of deer prancing through the trees and across the road. There were some buffalo sitting a few feet from the road chewing grass. :D

We got up to the mountain after the museum had already closed, so there were hardly any people there at all. That was kinda fun cause we could frolic about and not be embarrassed or get looked at funny.

We had another "happy" dinner, although it was very late.

Day 2

Today we drove through some pretty mountains that we took some pictures of. :)

We also drove through what mom and I thought looked like a pair of binoculars.

The rest stops we stopped at had some fun things Drew and I climbed on. We also played run-in-circles-around-the-monument-and-tag-the-other-person-on-the-back. (I won)

I worked on quilting my quilt a lot today. My quilting needle(s) got really bent though, so we stopped at a quilt shop somewhere in Wyoming. It was a very cute little town with lots of hay and cows and horses and really slow speed limits. The people in the shops were really sweet and friendly.

As you can see we had a "happy" dinner cooked on our cute little stove.

We didn't get as far as we hoped today, but we'll make it up tomorrow. We plan on staying in Casper Wyoming tonight.

Weeee!!!!

We're driving through the salt flats now. :D

Our First Day

It's only been a few hours and already Jake feels very homey. It is so cool to drive in a whole house. We won't be running out of things to do in here for a long time. We are all glad the first day is a driving day because we're all sick and have been staying up late recently. We stopped in the middle of some woods and just slept for a little bit. (Drew and I also slept while we were driving)
We started memorizing Philippians and memorized through verse 6 of chapter 1 (well, pretty much anyway)
Drew practiced guitar and mom and I sang with him. If he keeps progressing at the rate he did today we'll have a veritable plenty of songs to sing with him. :)

We stopped in Klamath Falls to see Dylan and Vic for a little bit. (VERY HAPPY THING :-) )

Drew and I played Space Invasion Checkers and he won.... By a LOT.

Today we drove through lots of big open wilderness with hills and shrubbery and such like. It was really pretty and awe inspiring to see the road just go on and on in front of you with no sign of ending.

Tomorrow will be another day of driving. By tomorrow night we plan to be in South Dakota so we can spend Wednesday going to see the "wind caves" (the second largest caves in the world) and Mt. Rushmore. We are going to be at a speech tournament in South Dakota Thursday - Saturday (25th - 27th). We're still driving now. We plan to stop in Elko tonight.

Who's Jake?

Every time my mom got pregnant, Grandpa wanted the baby to be named Jake because he liked the name. So, since this is Grandpa's motor home and it needed a name we decided to name his motor home Jake.

On Monday the 22 of April we set off on a trip across the states that will last almost two months. Oh Boy!

~Tess