Things That We...

...miss about Illinois:

• Some of our favorite places to eat, like Lou Malnati's, Portillo's, Steak 'n Shake, and Monical's. The list could go on (but we ran out of meals before we could hit them all)...
• We say "can of pop" and everyone knows what we mean.
• Sweet corn
• People drive on the right and leave the left lane open for passing (for the most part).
• Basements... being able to send noisy kids downstairs, as well as for storing stuff
• Actually parking cars inside the garage because things are stored in the basement (see above)
• Seeing our family and friends

Independence Day

Happy Independence Day to all! Ours was pretty low-key, which was the perfect way to spend it, in my opinion. I'm sad that our mornings of not having to wake up to alarm clocks are coming to an end. But on the flip-side, that just means we're another day closer to home, right?!

Then & Now

I was talking with my mom today about our family vacation back in 1978, trying to piece together what we did then. Here are some pictures for your amusement. Compare and contrast, discuss amongst yourselves...

Our vehicle

1970 Buick Skylark (green)

2004 Honda Odyssey (silver)

You Can Always Go Home Again

Got a phone call this morning from my brother-in-law. He "missed his flight" (wink, wink) leaving Vegas (just kidding, K!) so we won't see him at all on this trip. The nephews were utterly disappointed. Good thing we'll see him next month at the family reunion in (wait for it...) Las Vegas, where he'll have to make it up to them!

Cousins

Today was even lazier than yesterday. The alarm was never turned on (finally!) so everyone slept in late. I worked on catching up on the blog and uploading pics (still have to caption all of them, though). The boys played with their sleep-over cousin in the morning, and then Auntie J and Auntie A took them over to another cousin's house nearby to swim in their pool in the afternoon.

Looks like they enjoyed themselves!

Let the Eating Begin

We haven't made any plans for our time here in Chicago, which is just fine by me. We'll just have to play it by ear (*gasp!* Yes, you read that right! LOL!) Since we got in so late last night, we told the boys that they could sleep as late as they wanted to. Somehow that message didn't get passed on to the alarm on their iTouch. Why they are setting the alarm in the first place is beyond me -- it has gone off every single morning on our trip and they never EVER wake up, even after I put it right next to their ears. Grrrrr!