And we are all coming back up and will be staying in a house!
I don’t know when we’ll be moving our stuff up but I hope it isn’t very long. It’s in Illinois, south of Chicago. It’s in a quiet neighborhood with a playground at the end of the street. Pictures will be coming after a little bit.
We found a nature center on Saturday and though it was off and on rain, we went there for a little while. We started to take a small hike in the woods, but the mosquitoes were pretty bad, so we decided against it. Noelle enjoyed running around and seeing the flowers.
On Sunday, we went into Chicago and just walked around. We went to a mall where there was a Lego store. Noelle loved seeing all the different things they had built there and the play tables they have there to play with some of the Legos. Then we rode the red line down a little ways and walked to the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium. We didn’t go in, but looked around. We saw a bunch of globes and the sailboats in a marina nearby. We could even see the Navy Pier from there, though it was a bit foggy. We stopped by a fountain in Millennium Park, though I don’t remember the name of it at the moment. I don’t know how much walking we did, but we hadn’t expected to do this much so we hadn’t brought the stroller. Noelle still walked most of the time. I was surprised. I thought as soon as we got back in the car she’d be out, but no, she talked the whole drive back to the hotel.
Anyway, she seemed to enjoy it a lot and Jeremy and I had a great walk even with the drizzling.
I got the other photos uploaded to Flickr. All in all, yesterday and today, I think I uploaded about 50 photos. I’m sure I’ll have more soon. I have some more on my camera from this weekend when we walked around Chicago with Noelle.
The internet has been out the last two days and not too reliable for a few days before that. Jeremy just went and helped them redo their router (or whatever) here at the hotel. I hope they appreciate it and give us a discount on this week. *smile*
Anyway, the first weekend of August was spent in Michigan with Jeremy’s Dad’s family. It was a lot of fun for me. I haven’t really had much time before to get to know them except for Aunt R who visited us while we lived with Jeremy’s parents. Many of them, I hadn’t even met. We got up to Aunt R’s house on Friday around 4 pm which gave us time to visit with her and Uncle J. Their daughter came with dinner and her kids and mine all had lots of fun playing together. Her son just turned 2 and he is about the same size as my little AnnaBeth. We all just enjoyed sitting around and chatting.
On Saturday, we all went to Aunt L and Uncle E’s house. We met lots of people. The guys played horseshoes and the gals played bocce ball. The rest of the time, we sat and talked and ate some. After lunch, the kids all changed into swim stuff and ran through the sprinkler. AnnaBeth, Noelle, and two other little girls got into the brownies about halfway through the day. There were probably about ten of them left at that time. They thought we didn’t notice, but both I and the other mom didn’t really mind if they ate them since it was a special day, so we didn’t stop them. Together, they polished them all off. Later, Uncle E got out his tractor and took his kids on a wagon ride. They had so much fun. We had to leave not too long after that to give kids baths and get them to bed.
On Sunday, we went to Aunt L and Uncle E’s church. It was very friendly and enjoyable. We went to their house again afterwards and had left-overs for lunch. With less people around, I was able to visit more with them and it was a very relaxing day. I had missed the fire and marshmallow roast the night before, so Uncle E made another fire at an earlier time for us and my kids ate a bit too many puffy pieces of sugar. I think I had at least one complaining of an upset stomach at bedtime.
On Monday, we packed up and after getting the keys to Jason’s car, we headed out. We went down to Jeremy’s parents’ house where Jeremy got his stuff out and drove back up to Chicagoland in Jason’s car. The kids and I stayed at the house with Jeremy’s grandma and my friend (she was taking care of Grandma) while his parents finished their vacation up in Michigan.
While the internet was down, I edited a bunch of pictures for both family reunions. I have uploaded all the ones from the Bromley Family Reunion to Flickr. I’ll upload the rest of them soon. Hopefully, tomorrow if the internet is still up and running. I apologize about the quality of some of them. They weren’t my best work.
On Wednesday night, a pretty bad storm came through here. We went to Walmart to get groceries after dinner and when we came out, the lightening was almost a continual flashing in the sky. There was hardly any breaks in the lightshow. It was really cool. Noelle seemed to enjoy watching it from the van. She kept saying, “Wow, it’s going to really storm!” She’s not afraid of storms, instead she’s seemed kind of in awe of it all. Just after getting into the hotel and getting our food in, the rain started and it rained heavily, no slow build-up. A few seconds later, the hail started. We pulled the curtain back a little so we could see it falling. Noelle was fascinated. She said it sounded like lots of popcorn hitting the air conditioner. She figured out that hail is balls of ice all by herself during her observation of the storm. The noise did keep her awake a bit longer than normal. It came in big spurts off and on during the storm. We lost internet access near the beginning of the storm. I was getting ready to shut down the computer anyway. Anyway, we just got it back on. The hotel didn’t even call it in. Jeremy went up there yesterday and they gave him the number for their tech support and he called for them. We had to call back a second time because they just tried resetting it the first time and it didn’t work, so they had to figure out the problem. This morning, the connection has been off and on a few times. It took a few times before I could read all my e-mail. Anyway, we were thankful that our new van had no damage.
I plan on telling some about the Wall family reunion in the next post. I’ve just been kind of busy. Hopefully, I’ll get some pictures up soon as well.
Pray, pray, pray, pray
Ugh, maybe not. She gave me the address a week and a half ago, but we moved from one hotel to a cheaper one last weekend with a visit to Jeremy’s aunt in between and I stayed down at his parents’ house this last week with the kids while his parents were on vacation. I know I had it at least until we got down there, but I can’t find it now and I can’t get ahold of her by phone. *sigh*
Eleven years ago today, I woke up hyper and excited. I said “I do!” to the love of my life and then was pregnant or nursing for most of the next 9 years. LOL
Happy Anniversary, my dearest Jeremy. I love you very much.
We were at a family reunion for Jeremy’s Dad’s family today. It was a lot of fun. I’ll tell you all about it later.
Anyway, when I went down on Thursday to pick up the kids from Jeremy’s parents’ house to take with us, I had to also clean out our refrigerator and so my good friend down there came over to help (plus she has my key so she had to let me in. She picks up our mail for us until we get a new place to send it to.) After we were done cleaning, we went over to Hardee’s for chocolate milkshakes and talking. It just helped me relax and destress. It was what I needed. So now, I am feeling much better.
The lady that made us feel so confident decided she doesn’t want 5 kids in her house. It feels like nobody wants us because we have “too many kids”. I can’t handle anymore of these rejections. AUGH! NO MORE! I’m so lonely here. I need a place and I need my kids! I can’t do this anymore!