July in pictures...

We will start at the end of the July and work toward the beginning since I didn't plan out appropriately when I posted the pictures. Last week we took a family trip to Chicago for a few days. It was fun and we made memories...maybe not all the kind of memories you would like (such as vomit and the like). But despite the stomach virus that refused to leave us alone, we had a great time.

We took the kids for their first trip on the train. We rode a couple of different lines so that they could experience an elevated train and a subway. They much preferred the elevated variety. John said the elevated train was like riding on a zip line...not that he has ever experienced a zip line.

This is John's first Chicago dog. He was the only one we could convince to try it and he LOVED it! Ashley tried her first Italian beef sandwich and felt the same way John felt about his hot dog. The other two children...well, they were experiencing the wretched stomach bug so they took it easy in the food department. We were going to try some Chicago pizza, but that will have to be another trip because, again, the bug.

The day we went eating, we also went shopping. We hit the two favorites for our kids...the Lego store and the American Girl store. We also hit up the Disney Store and the Hershey store before it got too hot to walk around downtown anymore. On the way out of town Joe and I hit up our favorites...Bass Pro and IKEA. (Soon we are going to have a Bass Pro only 20 minutes away...guess who wishes it was going to be open in time for his birthday!)

The second day in Chicago (we are working backwards, remember? Shopping and eating were on the third day) we went to the Field Museum. What an incredible museum. We would have loved to spent a little bit more time there, but alas this was the worst day of the aforementioned bug. I will say that they have very nice bathrooms...and I could tell you where they are at on every floor. This was Joe's favorite museum of all time and we are hoping to go back sometime this fall just the two of us. The kids enjoyed it, but not nearly enough to stop and read every sign. This was Nathan's favorite museum. To quote him "The Field Museum was great and my favorite mom! You know, except for the times I wasn't feeling very good."
The first day in Chicago we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. The above picture is in the ship section which was really cool. The kids' favorites at this one were the tour of the Pioneer Zephyr train, the submarine and the fairy castle. The castle was unbelievable, but it was all pretty cool.

In front of the Zephyr waiting on our tour to start. We all felt pretty good on this day, so you would be on your own as far as bathrooms are concerned. Couldn't tell you where they were and kind of like that....

We spent some family time in July. John and Sara spent some time at Grandma and Grandpa Horn's. When we were dropping them off we all got to play with Grandpa's bird dog puppies.

The kids and I spent some time with my mom and dad. We did bike rides and swam at their neighbor's pool. The girls also treated us to a fashion show.

We started out July with a celebration of our country. We had a picnic with friends and headed downtown in our small town to see the fireworks. They were really good this year. Here are the kids enjoying them.