On Sunday we went to a local park in Arlington Heights to meet up with almost every family member on my mom's side minus my cousin Kim and my grandpa. We had a great time playing boccie ball, badminton and catching up with relatives.
On Monday we drove to Madison, WI to visit with my 99 year old grandpa.. we sang karaoke for just over 2 hours with my grandpa and his girlfriend (the top lady in the place as my gpa would say). I could write an entire blog post about this experience, but I will keep it short and say that it was ... entertaining. I'll post a video of this event soon once my sister gets back from her trip.
After karaoke and dinner at the dining center, we went over to my grandpa's old lake house and I showed Ben where I would go every summer and where the famous water ski reunions took place. Afterwards, went over to my Aunt Char's beautiful house in the cou
ntry. They live in 7 acres with tons of woods. We had a fire Friday night and roasted smores. We spent the morning exploring the woods nearby.
We headed back to Arlington Heights Tuesday afternoon, but not before we ate at the long promised Culver's .. yumm the custard was so good!
On Wednesday, we said goodbye to Jessie, Mark & James who headed out on their cross country road trip. Austin, Kelsey, Ben, my mom, Aunt Jo & I headed out for a fun day downtown. We went on an architecture boat tour, spent some time at millennium park, at lunch at Giardono's (deep dish), took a free trolley to navy pier and ate dinner at portello's a place that serves Chicago style hot dogs.
Thursday was spent driving to my aunt Jeanne's lake house in Douglas, Michigan. What a fun time! We went to the beach Thursday afternoon where I proceeded to forget to put sun screen on my back.. Nevertheless, we had a fun time playing Frisbee and going for a long walk. Thursday night we went into Saugautauk, MI which is a small artsy town with lots of cute shops. We ate dinner on the water and of course stopped in for some delicious ice cream.
Friday we drove back to Arlington Heights, but stopped off at the Indiana dunes state park.. kind of creepy and extremely humid, so we didn't stay long.
On Saturday our group dwindled even more when Kelsey & Austin flew back home to AZ. Ben and I took the train into downtown Chicago and had an awesome day. It was totally clear, so we took the opportunity to go up to the 95th floor in the Hancock build ling and eat lunch. What a fun experience! We then toured the 4th Presbyterian church across the street and went inside the water tower. Then we took a bus up to Lincoln park and walked along the waterfront. Unfortunately, we could not put our feet in the water because of high bacteria levels. It was still beautiful out though! We walked back through Lincoln park and took a bus back to the train station.
Sunday was spent getting ready to leave.. the only notworthy moment was when Ben got dunkin donuts that he was asking for throughout the whole trip.
