Wednesday, July 20, 2011

2011 Summer Vacation, Part I

This year Blake and I kind of combined 2 vacations into one. On July 2nd, we boarded a plane heading for Chicago. When we landed we rented a car and headed for Stevensville, Michigan to visit with Cindy, Ken and Sydney. It was Cindy's birthday and we were anxious to get there for a little bit of her birthday. 
We arrived at about 8:30pm.

After greeting the Three Manteis and Stormy, we went inside and ate a late supper, then we went for a walk. 
I had told Cindy that I really wanted to see fireflies, and we did! They were all over! If you look close, you can see them in this field.

After our little walk, it was dark enough to do fireworks in the driveway, just like when Cindy was young! We always did fireworks in the driveway on her birthday.
We enjoyed Ken's firework display.

The next day, July 3rd, we went to St. Joseph to Silver Beach Pizza. To quote Blake, "it's the best pizza in the world!"  It is really good pizza, and we stuffed ourselves clear full and still had some to bring home. 
We found a good place to take some pictures!

Blake forgot to bring a hat, so Cindy GAVE him her superman hat. He wore it all the time!

After pizza and ice cream, Blake, Syd and Cindy washed up Stormy.


Then, we played some games, yes you are seeing right, Blake did play too!

We skyped with Brian, Celia and Maden. That made it almost like we were all in the same room.
Cindy took this picture of Maden with the web cam while we skyped. He was showing off his stacking and sorting skills.

One of the small towns nearby had a fireworks show that night. It was in a large field of grass, and about 200 or so cars parked in this field, then they lit the fireworks not very far away.  It was a really good fireworks display for a small town.

Cindy brought some big bubbles to play with while we were waiting for the fireworks to start.
Here's the proof, we really did see fireworks!

In the morning on July 4th, Blake and Cindy went and played tennis. Blake was really impressed with how well Cindy played.
No one was there to take their picture while they were playing, so they improvised with this self portrait.

We went out to a friends house that has a pond in their yard stocked with fish. It was a wonderful yard, with the house set back in the yard down a little lane. 
There was even a pet duck, Oliver, he acted just like a puppy wanting to be pet and steal food. (We have heard that Oliver was killed the next week)
Blake and his little fish.
Ken and his little catch. It seems the bigger fish were not hungry.
Cindy and I being the spectators!

Cindy has Stormy, the Great Dane and four cats in her house. I'm not that crazy about animals, but Blake likes them and they like Blake, especially Stormy. 
Duda decided he didn't care if I liked him or not, he wanted to sit on my legs.

On Tuesday morning we piled in the car and headed for the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. It is a really nice zoo. It was really hot, so it was nice that a lot of the exhibits were inside and there was a lot of shade. It was also really nice that it was not very crowded, we parked close and could get right up front to see the animals.


Us girls rode the carousel, it was hard to choose which animal to ride!
We wished this peacock would spread it's feathers.
Inside the butterfly house, there were millions (well maybe not really, but it seemed like it) of different kinds of butterflies, really fascinating.
Cindy's favorite thing ever, the stingrays!
It is a big pool with lots of stingrays.
We saw a dolphin show, always so fun to watch them.
Not sure if this is a zebra, or horse and I can't remember what it is called, but pretty much the strangest creature we saw.
We saw these majestic giraffes, but no elephants.

On Wednesday, Cindy and Ken had to go to work, so Blake and I did laundry and shopping to get ready for the 2nd half of our vacation. After they came home from work, we went and played some tennis. It was really hot, but fun. We left on Thursday morning and headed for Nauvoo, Illinois.  It was so fun to see Cindy, Ken and Syd. I really wish we lived closer so we could see them more!

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