If this isn't the essence of a childhood summer, I don't know what is. 
Of course Sadie stayed far far away from the slip in slide (although she adores the pool).
We were lucky to see Brent's sister Mindy and her husband Chris for a few days.
Love the petting zoo!
The girls loved driving the riding lawn-mower with Grandpa. Every time we went out in the garage they begged to ride "the tractor".
Brent's parents are always saying - go out we'll watch the girls. Well you don't have to ask us twice. We saw several movies and even snuck away to the city. Would you believe that in all the times we've gone to Chicago we've never gone into the city? It's a crime I tell you. Actually that's not totally true. A few years ago I dragged the whole family into some warehouse district, scary area to go to an amazing scrapbook store. No one complained - at least not to my face - about what a scrapbooking freak I am. Are you still reading - I'll try and cut the tangents. Well I was thinking it'd be fun to go the the Art Institute of Chicago - it's an amazingly huge art museum. Oh come on, you know, the one in ferris bueller. So the fact that you can get in free in Thursday and Friday nights sealed the deal - we were going to the city. We decided to take the train in - and we almost missed the train thanks to my navigation skills, plus it was actually pretty expensive! But it's part of the experience. We walked around downtown, ate at an Italian restaurant that was not a chain, enjoyed the museum with about 10,000 other people who like to see free art (the Monet collection was worth it) and felt romantic because we were in a big city (kinda like the movies, right?) It was like a vacation within a vacation. Thank you thank you fabulous husband for letting me drag you to the art museum. Thank you thank you Brian and Sandy for watching the girls that afternoon/evening.
Our last day there was a city festival just down the street with bounce houses and fair food. Yummy yummy snowcones and funnel cake. 
And what did we do with the rest of our time? Puzzles. 5 puzzles total. Fun fun times. 
Vacations are so fun - I love not having a schedule. I love that the girls have grandparents who love kids. We are spoiled. And now we are home. The long hours in the car were worth it (although there were moments we thought we might pull our hair out). Luckily we all survived the ride to tell the tale and now I have written way way way too much. But no, I'm not done yet! Wondering why Kate has an eye patch on? Well, I'm too tired to explain it all. But our standard answer is, her left eye is much more far-sighted then her right eye. So she wears a patch on her right eye to force her to use her left eye. If she can't retrain her brain to use that eye, it could eventually go blind. We've been doing this for months - it's been tough. It's been getting better but it's still a long road ahead. Please pray for our little girls eye - we would be so grateful.
