Well we decided on one last summer trip before the kids headed back to school. Last week I took Thursday off from work to prep for our trip and get all our back to school ends wrapped up. We also ended up having two of the kids friends over for the day, so with four kids in tow we did all our running around, packing, cleaning, and school paperwork. As I went onto start some freezer baking our oven quite working and I had to call the repairman out! Oh well, we still got a lot done. Thursday night Dave took Ajax to his first soccer practice and Noomi and I took Husker to Emily’s house for the weekend.
On Friday morning we were up and out the door by 8 am. We had the easiest drive into Chicago with hardly any traffic. We met my parents, and their friend, Melissa, and her daughter, Christine, at the Shedd Aquarium. The aquarium was awesome. Ajax could’ve spent all day there, while Noomi took more of a “quick running tour” of the place. Both kids loved touching the stingrays and we hit that up twice before leaving. After that we walked to a nearby restaurant before leaving the city around 6/7 pm for Rockford. When we got to Rockford we checked into our hotel and then chilled in bed watching TV before everyone passed out.
On Saturday morning, Ajax was up at 5:30 am. He managed to still his little body till almost 7 am and then we were all up. We had breakfast and then Dave and I headed out for Tough Mudder, while the rest of the crew hung by the pool for the day. The Rockford course was pretty awesome with almost 10K people, it was huge! When we got back, we all went for dinner and then back to the hotel, where we again laid in bed watching TV before zonking out.
On Sunday, we had breakfast and then took the kids swimming a bit more before checking out. We then had lunch and headed over to Schaumburg where we found an awesome outside park with a neat play structure and little river that the kids could play in. What we didn’t count on, however, was the near 100 degree weather. So after playing outside for a bit we all ran for ice cream to cool off before heading to Medieval Times. I remember going to Medieval Times when I was on a school trip to Toronto and I remember loving it. Ajax has really been into swords and knights and I thought he’d be the perfect age for it. He was. Both kids had a great time (though it was a bit loud for Ajax). The adults also had a good time. After the show we loaded into the car and headed home. Ajax fell asleep around 9 or so, but Noomi just kept talking and talk. She was asking what would happen to us when the sun went out and why did the moon glow? She talked till about 10:20 pm before I convinced her to just lay her head down and then – zap – she was out like a light. We rolled into Williamston at about midnight and everyone stumbled into the house and right into bed!
It was an awesome trip and everyone had so much fun!
