Summer road trip....part two

On Friday we continued our last road trip for our summer of 2012 and crossed the border into the state of Illinois to visit Uncle Mike, Aunt Becca, and Morgan.

The cousins hung out like this....

And they hung out like this...

Last year we rode the trains and did the downtown adventure thing...

and with the kids being the ages and the heat...

well we just kept it simple and enjoyed the local parks, ice cream joints, coffee shops, restaurants, etc.

When asked what his favorite part of the visiting Chicago...

Henry stated that his favorite part was doing the monkey bars at the park.

It's the simple things with kiddos!

Syd is mastering the slides independently.

We didn't do as many parks as I thought we would this summer.

I think the heat mixed with the stage Syd was at...it just didn't appeal.

But this fall I know we will be fitting in lots of park stops.

One evening we wandered down the street for ice cream.

We met an old childhood friend who happens to have a two littles who go to daycare with our cousin Morgan.  SMALL world.  

But, it was watching them all just hang out and play that made us parents happy. 

Cousin Morgan lives in an apartment so I know that my boys can get rompy if contained for two long. 

But it never got too crazy and they sure enjoyed riding the elevator and feeling the apartment living vibe!

Little Syd loved going out onto the balcony and watching the world go by.

Planes fly over.  Cars zoom by. 

She went with Uncle Mike and Aunt Becca onto the balcony.

One day we laughed at the outfits of the girls...they almost matched.

We went out to dinner/lunch twice.  And with four kids that meant we knew things could get nutty. 

But both times the kids were champs.  

One lunch we went out for Mexican. YUM! 

And one night we went out to my favorite restaurant...Benihana's.  

Here are the expressions of each of the kiddo's taking in the experience.

Syd even ate her blueberries with chopsticks!

This was our second Labor day weekend spent in Chicago.

And it was a great distraction from the reality that summer was ending and school was starting so soon. 

But next year we will have two school age kiddos and I realized that returning home Monday night at 5pm and feeling ready for school on Tuesday morning wasn't super calm. 

So we'll see if our possible Chicago Labor Day weekend becomes a tradition or if we change up the weekend.  

No matter what though...we'll get down to Chicago...

It is fun to know our cousin Morgan in her own home.

She is that much more real and loved by her big cousins when they know where she is sleeping, eating breakfast, and walking for ice cream on a daily basis...well, maybe not the ice cream on a daily basis :)

Plus Uncle Mike has really cool toys!

Thanks Uncle Mike, Aunt Becca, and Morgan for all the fun.

Thanks for letting our tribe come invade your living space and for making us feel so at home.