Mini-Vaca to Madison

We went up to Madison, WI to see a guy from CP play baseball on Sat. July 18. He was the starting pitcher for Madison Mallards on Sat. We made the trip up around noon.

  

We got stuck in all the Chicago traffic, which is to be expected. T wasn’t happy.

It took us 4.5 hrs to get up there. We had arranged to stay at a Holiday Inn. E was just excited about getting to swim again.

Matt’s parents arranged to get us tickets so that was great! 

The park had a lot of things to do, fun for the family.

Ethan happy they had hot dogs, of course! Oh, we got him that cute mallards shirt and they had yellow in his size!

Doesn’t beer and cheese curds just scream-Wisconsin!

Fun running down a hill…other kids were doing it so he had to.

It was unseasonably cold that day/night. We all had sweatshirts, so not too bad.

Our great view from our seats…     

Trent took all the pics of Matt pitching…

I don’t know why but they had the world’s largest pants there…nice photo op I wasn’t going to miss!

The Mallards won and Matt was the winning pitcher!! We brought good luck, huh? Here is Trent, Matt & Ethan after the game.

 

Then after the game the team lines up to sign autographs for the kids! An usher tossed T a baseball for E so he had something to sign.  

Ethan loved this part, too! He loved standing and getting the guys signatures! Matt wasn’t out there right away, but found E first to sign his ball.

They had a record attendance that night of 7211, everyone comes out for the big fireworks night! Ethan was so amazed by the fireworks. He sat there with his mouth wide open.

We got lost getting back to the hotel, so E fell asleep in car. He went swimming in the morning with T, and let me sleep. We brought the lap top which I loved, since I stay up so late.

The boys had breakfast at the hotel, but I skipped it. We planned on going by Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg on the way home to eat late lunch at

It was Ethan’s first time there, too! We only had to wait 15 min for a table.    

Way overpriced for what you get…Ethan actually told me that he was happy that we were able to eat there, though. He thought it was pretty cool with the stars and the lightning and the gorilla growling. We sat by dolphins though? We walked some in the mall and let E play in the lego store.

We got home around 6pm and luckily Ashton didn’t have any accidents at the grandparents.

Another wedding and pool time

Saturday Trent & I went to a wedding, so Ethan stayed with his cousins. I think they had fun. They slept in a tent in Matt’s room.

We went to a nice wedding, it was really fun. We know the bride, T is friends with her dad. It was fun because we knew a lot of people there and it was nice because it was local. I only took one pic there, though. Well, someone took this pic of us. Can’t really see my dress.

We left Ashton at home and blocked him off in the kitchen. He is having some problems with bladder or kidneys. He has peed in the house a couple of times, which is so unlike him. He knows that deal of going to the back door when he wants out. He has been drinking ALOT of water and hardly eating. Vet gave us some antibiotics, we’ll see if that helps. I hope so, but he is getting old- 9 yrs now.

We were making him go out every 2-3 hrs and that was helping. When we got home he was asleep on his dog bed with a big ole wet spot. Poor dog.

On Sunday, Ethan was dropped off after church and the cousins were hinting that they would like to go swimming. It wasn’t really hot that day, but I said they could come back to swim. They were over for a couple of hours. I think they just swam for maybe 30 minutes.

 

T cooked out for hotdogs & hamburgers. I always love eating outside in the summer.

4th of July

This year’s 4th of July party wasn’t typical because it rained for most of the day. Trent drove down to our spot for the parade and put up a pop-up tent. So nice that we know the family where we sit so we can do that.

My sister’s family sat with us this year. I was late getting to the parade so missed all the firetrucks-darn (so not my fav with all the sirens)

 

It rained the entire time of the parade. They still got a ton of candy.

And the annual popsicle given out…I almost missed getting a pic of E eating it this year!

 

And it’s not a CP 4th until you see Willy…he had this big sign traveling around town this year.

 

E dancing I believe to Boom Boom Pow…funny- click on the video below

it was soggy but they still got a bag full of candy!

Next was cookout dinner time! Which was moved into our garage this year, due to it STILL raining!

Swans came for the cookout and Marcineks stopped by later.

 

my yummy plate of food…yes, I added the fun flags to my deviled eggs

Trent enjoyed grilling on his new grill this year. He made up chicken kabobs, hamburgers & hot dogs. But, remember it was still raining when he was grilling so he designed this nice area with an umbrella by the grill to hold the food he was grilling. (pic was taken when it was sunny the next day)

 

I wasn’t able to put up all my usual decorations due to the rain. I just added some touches to the garage quickly…how about a patriotic bow for the recycler…I guess Trent thought it was funny because I just found this pic on the camera that he took

We did our fireworks –fountains at our house. We let the kids do some snap dragons.

  

And of course, all the kids had glow necklaces! I wasn’t sure if I was going to have enough to make 7! But I did and they each had a bracelet, too. My mom had brought over 3 glow wands for the 3 g-kids.

all the kids lined up in their glowing gear

T surprised me and got this awesome aerial firework that was 44 rounds of various aerial ones. It was the finale and it was so great! He really surprised me, he said it was sitting out all day but I didnt see it!

My patriotic touches around the house…   

Hope you had a fantastic 4th of July! I missed having Sherry & Johnny come this year.