sunshine and happy days

Before all the distracting drama of our current housing situation, we had a fabulous Spring Break with Rob’s parents in the Chicago suburbs!

I was going to break it into several parts, but seeing as I’ve already delayed this 2 weeks, I’m just going to throw it at you all at once.

One of our first stops was the Red Robin near their house. They give out free balloons. :)

 Michael and Carol have painted their kitchen a happy shade of green. I love it!I don’t have any photos of it, but we went to Willow Creek church while we were there. What a wonderful experience, as always!! It’s amazing how we can feel the joy of God in that huge congregation of thousands of people as well as in our small New Jersey church of maybe 40 or 50.

We had had our huge snowstorm mere weeks earlier, so it wasn’t even on my radar that we could have nice weather during our trip. But joy of joys, the sun came out and we had a week of temps close to 70 degrees!

We made the most of it and went to one of my favorite places in the world, the Morton Arboretum. They have a fabulous children’s area.

We hit the maze, which Elliot led us around like a pro.

  Nanny got Elliot these super cool sunglasses while we were there. (Rob got him the Shrek at a secondhand store…) I’m super cool, too, eh?

We spent St. Patty’s Day with Stacy and Jamie. This is becoming an annual tradition. Rob insulted them tremendously by confessing we don’t like corned beef and cabbage. Perhaps our annual tradition has come to a swift end? Ah, what gracious friends we have!We spent our last full day in the city on Navy Pier. This is in the crystal garden.I’ve been wanting to go on the ferris wheel for years. Always there was a reason we couldn’t do it. Finally, the perfect day for it! Elliot was even more excited than I was.  Oh Chicago, I love you! On our last night, we met up with our old gang for dinner. When we first met in 2001, Lauren (in the yellow) was the only kiddo. I think she wasn’t even 1. Things are much livelier now!It was great to see everyone and try to catch up over the screaming and chaos. The final morning we went out for breakfast.

It’s always so sad to go. The kids blossom when they’re with their grandparents.

Farewell, and thank you for a wonderful week!