Chicago Two

Jack's turn. 

This time we chose to leave little Kater Bug home. Flight was awesome without her. We all plugged right into our electronics and it was smooth sailing. 

Then Jack fell asleep on the cab ride to our hotel

We settled into our room and went for our Chicago style pizza.

 It was as good as i remembered it!

Then we did our swimming and went to bed.

 Next morning we went and got our donuts and headed out. 

At school Jack read a book about a dinosaur named Sue, who is housed in the Chicago Field museum, so we jumped on the train, transferred to the bus and went to see Sue. Luck would have it, they were moving her to the 3rd floor so we didn't really get to see her. We did get to see a great 3D movie about her though and the museum was awesome. Then we got lunch and went to see the silver bean and play at the park

 It's so fun to be alone with one kid at a time. We did a round of miniature golf and Jack won a free game for the next day.

 Mike finished his training about 4:00 and so we walked into town, "the magnificent mile" they call it. There are a lot of fun shops and the river (from Lake Michigan) runs right through the city.

 Jack wanted his souviner from the lego store and so we walked and walked and walked and walked to the lego store. 

Then we ate dinner at "Banderas" (our friend Chad DeSpains recommendation)

and walked some more. Stoped at the candy store and then back to the hotel

Then next morning we did the Willis Tower. There is a little group of our Amish friends in the back ground.

We ate lunch at the Wildberry (another of Chads recommendations), did our other round of mini gold and then went back to the hotel and played cards in the lobby until Mike was done. We've kinda set our routine for the trip by now. We are excited to bring Ivan next time and show him what the other kids have done.

APRIL

McKay and Kate in their easter clothes

The boys started Baseball. Ivan pitched for the pirates

and Jack played for the cardinals. We signed up for the American Fork league instead of Lehi this year. Two of Jacks friends joined us. We luckily ended up on the same team as one of them and our first game was against the other one

 We went to a fun Chinese exhibit down town

 Cousin Kassie Ray got married

Easter Time

Grandma Balle's

Grandma Young's

The pinewood Derby

We had our first pinewood Derby! I can remember my brothers doing these when we were young. Since Ivan has started in scouts the ward has done a lego derby instead. We actually enjoyed that. The boys could just make a car the night of, race it and revamp it as many times as they wanted. But this year they decided to do the traditional derby. Uncle Steve cut out the cars for us and then Mike and the boys painted and added weights. They took 7th and 8th place. They were pretty excited