So what is new in Illinois? Well a lot, so this will probably take a few posts. We started our summer a few days late since the kids had snow days to make up. It still baffles me that here in Illinois there are no snow days factored into the calendar. Each one must be made up at the end of the year. Of course, in Georgia there are days built into the calendar. While we had only a few "snow" days down there, we never had to make one up. Anyway, we started our summer with a bang with a very special visit from our awesome friends Jan & JT & their kids. We miss living in Georgia with them (of course, they left first so we have been missing them for a while). The kids had fun hanging out and spending a relaxing day together. The Bananagrams party that night was icing on the cake! (If you have not played Bananagrams, you need to - it is very fun). It all ended way too fast.
It is hard to believe how big the kids are getting. It seems like yesterday Hannah the dinosaur and Savannah the ladybug were trick or treating on Pine Grove Drive.
At the end of June we got to take whirlwind family trip to New York City to see my family and celebrate my Aunt Pauline's 90th birthday. Aunt Pauline's birthday is June 29 and Mary's is June 27, so we celebrated for both of them (the party for Aunt Pauline happened to be on Mary's actual birthday). During the trip we went to the Statue of Liberty, the Intrepid and even the beach! It was a very bust but very fun weekend. We stayed with my sister Jennifer in Brooklyn in her 3rd floor, 1 bedroom walk up apartment. She is a very good sister and aunt to have all of us there. The kids got a very nice taste of the city life their mom grew up with (although we did not have a walk up, thankfully).
Mary really wanted a Statue of Liberty crown,so since it was her birthday weekend we indulged her.
The Intrepid was way more fun than I thought it would be. I pictured something only Rich would enjoy. However, since they redid it, they put in a lot of family friendly activities to do in addition to all of the airplanes. Of course, since we had Rich with us it was like was were taking the audio tour for each airplane there. After 15 years of marriage I am pretty good at smiling and nodding and totally ignoring him all at the same time! Jen was less experienced so she got many earfuls of aviation history that I am sure she uses all the time.
We had Aunt Pauline's birthday luncheon/dinner (it was at 3:30) at a Greek restaurant in Brooklyn. Jen ordered this incredibly beautiful cake with "Happy Birthday Pauline and Mary" written around the sides. It had these groovy tall and skinny candles. We were going to put 97 (90 +7) on it but we decided to just put a whole bunch without counting them out. My sister Jackie was there too with her husband and twin boys as well as Antoinette (my grandmother's sister) and Doreen (I am not sure what she is too me - she was married to Aunt Pauline's nephew who recently passed away; Aunt Pauline is my grandfather's sister so maybe Doreen is some form of cousin in law once removed???)
We don't get to see Jackie's boys very often so it was a treat to spend time with them. They are 6 months younger than Mary. They got a kick out of playing the DS with Megan.
So that was our crazy June. July has been pretty busy too. The whole summer is passing by way too fast.
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