Go get something to drink and make sure you're comfy-this is going to be a long one!
First off, the birthday girl! Seven. Man alive.
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| At the family party. |
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| As is our tradition, a picture the minute she turned 7. |
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| Getting a manicure (I caved). |
Chicago! We left on Thursday for the weekend family union. It was an action-packed weekend!
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| Treats beside the Chicago River because we had to get up early to catch the train into downtown. |
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| First stop: Sears Tower! |
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| Mugging for shots outside Sears. |
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| Most of the cousins reuniting. They have such a great connection. |
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| You can stand inside a plastic "box" 102 stories over the street. It was a somewhat freaky feeling at first, but very cool. |
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| First family photo this high in the air! |
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| This was while we were waiting for a taxi. You can just grab a bike and take it somewhere else and park it. Some day we might do this! |
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| The kids' first tax ride. We squished six of us in there (my cousins Jessica and Amy were with us). |
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| Seven of us-Kate came along for the day. :o) |
Our destination? Water Tower Place-eight stories of shopping -but we were interested in just two stores...
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| This entire city scape-background, sky and everything-is built of Legos. Joshua and Ryan headed here. |
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| Bella, Kate and I headed here. We had some birthday shopping to do! |
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| The latest "Doll of the Year" is Isabelle-close enough. Bella stops her shopping for a cookie break (the best kind). |
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| Kate and Bella now have matching glasses! |
Saturday was reunion day! We all met at Jeff's to enjoy time as a family. Altogether, there were 37 of us! We were only missing April and Rachel.
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| Carl and Lally's children: Judy, Richard, Sheila and Shirley. |
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| The cousins in birth order: Jeff, me, Erika, Eddie, Shari, Jessica, Lori, Amy, Kevin and David. |
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| The cousins' children (minus April and Rachel). Lori is at the end with Cousin #18 due in December. The ages range from Brian who is 22, to Jacob, who just turned 1! |
Sunday we all went to different churches, then met up at Portillo's for lunch. More fun!
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| I'm pretty sure Brian unhinged his jaw to get this double burger in his face! |
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| Just like Uncle Jeff, my kids adore their cousin Brian! |
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| Aunt Sheila and Lexi. |
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| Random cousin-ness. |
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| This. This is the one I tried to bring home with me. He is adorable. |
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| Even Uncle Richard played with him, and Uncle Richard only likes girls. |
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| Bella is listening very intently to whatever it is Aunt Sheila is saying! |
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| Lori with Zoe. |
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| The young ones did this on their own-grabbed a bunch of high chairs and made a train. Naturally we all helped them scoot around the party room we were in! |
Monday was another day downtown. This time we went to Navy Pier with Jessica and Amy. It was quite the travel day!
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| First we got on the train. Uncle Jeff pulled out his phone so he and Ryan could watch themselves travel on the map program. |
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| Then we got on a water taxi! It was raining, but we didn't care. It saved us a loooonnnng walk. |
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| Then we caught the free trolley. By the time our water taxi ride was over the skies had cleared! |
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| Always beautiful. The ferris wheel wasn't running because it had rained all morning. |
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| It has its issues, but Chicago is a beautiful city. |
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| The sky, the clouds and the light all combined to give Lake Michigan a beautiful turquoise color. It was great for pictures. |
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| I know his eyes are closed in this one, but they were closed in every shot! It didn't seem like it when I checked my phone after shooting. Oh well... |
After the train, the water taxi, and the trolley, we boarded a double-decker bus for a tour.
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| Here's our ride! Ironically, it's plastered with an ad for visiting Michigan! |
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| Ryan started out strong... |
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| But in the end, the bus just lulled him to sleep. |
Tuesday morning we met at the motel to say goodbye. I didn't get any pictures of that, but Bella got a ton of selfies. Look at my crazy girl. (I have tried-literally-more than 10 times to get these pictures to load correctly and I can't figure out why they aren't. Sorry.)
On our way home, we stopped off at the Shedd Aquarium. Bella grabbed my phone and took over 120 pictures! She's certainly a shutterbug!
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| How cute are these two? |
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| Not even gonna bother trying to flip this. But I love it. |
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| This is called a sea dragon. God has created some truly amazing animals! |
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| Little girl dreaming of swimming with dolphins. |
And that's it! At least for now. We're in the last few weeks of summer break (what?!). Bella has been in MO with Maga and Papa, and Ryan and I are headed there tomorrow for a few days. More pictures when we return!
