Kansas City

William referred to our Grand Canyon/LEGOLAND/San Diego trip as his "triple vacation" since we stayed three different spots, so I will refer to our weekend roadtrip to Kansas City/Olathe as our "double vacation."

After all the time off in June, my to do list caught up with me in July.   Luckily John (who was already going to do all the driving anyway) and William (who liked the company) were both amenable to me setting up my mobile office in the backseat!  William and I both enjoyed some screen time!

Our first stop was the Great Wolf Lodge at the Legends!  Apparently the new thing is wolf ears for the kids registered in the room.  They were used as head gear and spy glasses among other things.   This summer I finally realized that those swimming lessons for the kiddo had paid off!  He enjoyed pushing our tubes through the lazy river and, as always, enjoyed the adventure of the big slides.   And I don't know what kids find so appealing about thousands of gallons of water dumping on their heads, but my kid was no exception.   He staked out the drenching regularly.

We enjoyed a lovely evening at John's sister's house.  The two six-year-olds entertained themselves and then us with their "Circus" variety show.   It is very hard to get a picture of two moving kids!

Saturday morning we checked out of the Lodge and headed downtown for Science City fun with the family followed by lunch at Fritz's.   Even after all the pictures I have seen of Fritz's on Facebook and other people's blogs, I have to admit that I hadn't quite "pictured" how the train drop-off worked! 

Part Two of our roadtrip took us out south to "Aiden's house," where the boys (and girl!) disappeared into the basement and only reappeared sporadically over the weekend to make the parents targets of a Nerf battle. 

Sunday the rain stayed away and we got to relive 2003 by taking the boat out on Clinton Lake for some tubing and swimming!  Only in 2015, the cooler was stocked with juice boxes in addition to beer!   I wondered how William would do swimming in the lake where he couldn't see the bottom.  Turns out it didn't gross him out as much as it did his mother at that age!

  

Here the boys are just sharing the single rider tube while we were in the cove.  William was pouting because we told him we were out of time for more tubing!  My little adventurer loved it!   Always looking forward to our next big adventure with the Koudeles!

Summer

Summer started off so fast with school not getting out until the second week of June and then vacation in the middle of the month.  Fourth of July weekend was our first weekend at home, and we were thrilled to host our friends and neighbors for some fun.  

A failed attempt at slip and slide.  We could never keep it wet enough for the kids to slide and they gave up after an attempt or two each, but the water guns had some traction.  Ava and Hannah enjoyed some chalk art including all of their favorite Disney characters!  And everyone loves the sandbox!  Luckily the neighbor boys had done some serious weeding of the yard (and the sandbox!!) so we could all enjoy our outdoor playtime. 

 

Eventually the party did move indoors and it was complete craziness.  Actually the adults stayed outside since that day we bought a neighbor's patio table and chairs and we finally had enough seats for everyone to sit!  This is what your carpet looks like when the kids are left unattended.  Haha.

 Our neighborhood had their traditional July 4th parade with local dignitaries and emergency vehicles.  Of course there was much celebrating of the Chicago Blackhawks' Stanley Cup.   There were several replicas in the parade.  Since the mosquitos have been so bad this summer, I was happy that for fireworks viewing, we found a paved lot where we could watch the city's display mostly from the car!

The next weekend was the annual Ride For Aids Chicago bike ride.   William and I met up with Ryan and his teammates at their lunch pit stop near the Wisconsin border.   Of course we brought balloons!  I'm sure the Spiderman one was very inspirational to the riders!  We enjoyed playing on the playground before the mosquitos were too unbearable.  We sprayed our arms and legs so of course they attacked our necks and faces!  Makes me itchy just typing it!

The afternoon was spent working in Chicago at my office.  William loves to come to the office since he equates it with snacks and screen time!  He chose what to pack in his lunch.   I enjoyed taking him around to meet some of the people on my team who were in.   They hear a lot about him already!