We left on Wednesday July 23rd and returned to MPLS on Saturday July 26 (so that we would have Sunday to recoup).
The trip went as well as we could have hoped since we obviously not following any strict schedule in terms of nap times and such.
On Wednesday we were able to drive three hours to Wisconsin Dells and then stopped for picnic lunch so Tom and Joe would be able to exercise their little legs. Now, you think in the water capitol of America you would be able to find a nice public park to have a quickie (lunch that is). But hark, it tis not. But we turned off on some random street and saw playground. Paydirt we thought. So we pull, had a nice lunch on a covered picnic table and then had a park to play on until I finally realized, "Hey Katie, I think this it the common grounds for a trailer park community. And so it was. A nice man came up to Katie and asked her if she was here visiting friends to which she aptly replied, "Well yes, the Andersons!" Well done hon.
So we continued our travels and made it over the boarder into Illinois when Peter decided he had had enough, so we were forced to pull over and layout a blanket for him to roll around on for a while. What insued was one of our most productive photo shoots with Mr. Luscious.
We stayed with Uncle RIck and Auntie Naenae in St. Charles and had a wonderful meal at Portillos. Afterwards, the boys had their first experience of sleeping in the same bed since they were little tykes and boy was it funny. They both slept on an inflatable mattress, so Katie and I stayed in the room until they fell asleep. Joe decides to take his feet and poke Tom in the side. "Stop it. Stop poking me!" Tom tells Joe as he keeps scooting away from Joe. Joe wouldn't stop so Dad had to go over and tell Joe to stop. Peace and quiet....for one minute. All of sudden you see Joe slowly lift of his leg, move it over towards Tom and start tapping him in the head with his foot. I'm doing everything I can to not burst into laughter. Joe definitely gets the antagonistic bug from momma.
On Thursday we headed out to the Lincoln Park zoo. Great zoo and it was free! The boys enjoyed all the animals, but took particular liking to the monkey drinking from the waterfall, the swimming polar bears, and the dolphins. The trip to the zoo also marked the debut of our new SUV.
Apparently, we an exhibit at the zoo as more people commented about us and stroller (both directly and indirectly) than I every could have imagined. "Wow, that's a great stoller!' "Man, that is some serious strolling!" "Where is the 4th one?" "That is Cadelliac!" "Do they know they are missing one?"
Peter wasn't quite as happy at the photo shoot in front of the conservatory:
This picture is a picture of an Ardvark's ardvark. Courtesy of and Copyright 2008, Katie Vnak.
She did take at least one appropriate picture:
Would somebody please get this guy some Viagra?
And finally, for all of you ludicrous liberals, behold the beauty of a CFL lightbulb! Ooh, it's so green.
AFter the zoo we headed off to our hotel, The W Lakeshore. Yes, I brought my family to a W hotel. For those of you who don't know, the W hotels are supposed to be these hip, luxurious, posh, first class hotels. Well, I wanted to slap the prententiousness of their experience in the face by bringing my family to roost for two days, especially since I was using hotel points and didn't have to pay for the room. Ha! But then we arrived at the W, and the hotel slapped me right back in my face with $50 a day for parking. Are you kidding me? Thanks for having such great roads Illinois!
That night we met the Lambrechts for dinner. Not surprisingly, we ended up walking about 10 miles to a restaurant that had clearly been out of business for a number of months. And I thought we didn't get out very often. ;) We ended up at a nice family Italian restaurant and had an extremely chaotic dinner as T&J had pretty much not had a nap all day. It was good times though and we would have enjoyed more but Jess was committed to studying for the bar exam. Thanks again to them for meeting us! The first night in the hotel couldn't have better, except I had to remove the boxspring from the mattress as it would have been a long for either Tom or Joe if he fell off.
On Friday, we headed over to Shedd's aquarium which was nice in concept but an absolute zoo with little kids from every single summer program in Chicago attending. We saw some neat stuff, but all in all, it was more work than it was worth. The boys enjoyed seeing real crabs, giant frogs, dolphins, turtles.
That night we met Mothball for dinner and afterwards went to the beach for a little post dinner skinny dip. Tom and Joe didn't like the feeling of beach sand on their feet at first as evidenced by this video (look out technology, here I come!).
I tried, their was an error uploading. Better luck next year.
But after I walked them out to the water and they were able to "Put my tooties in the water" as they put, they were fine. I was able to get some nice shots of them. We had to park and haul the kids to our destination which ended up being boarded made reservations at wonderful restaurant that no longer exists.
Tom's got his Vnak face all figured out!
Here's the boys sailing away.
The Vnak fam on tour.
Saturday we were up and out of the W. We drove north along the lake shore checking out some of the big homes on the lake and ended up in Waukegan to meet Angelo and Beth for lunch. We had a nice time at Chili's and it was good to catch up. Afterwards we headed home, stopping again in the Dells to see what a drained Lake Delton looked like. Crazy bidness.
The vacation was a success and they will hopefully only get easier and easier as everyone, including ourselves, grows up more and more.
Are next vacation may be closer than we thought though, as Tom and Joe ask if they can go to "Sehcago" everyday.
That said, we're bringing the whole fam down to ND for the home opener against San Diego State. Should be a blast!
