Arlington Park!

We took advantage of another great perk to our area - resident appreciation day at Arlington Park got us free admission for a fun-filled day watching the horses race! Look how excited Ben is to watch the horses come in for the big finish!

Ben and Abbey in front of the track.

It was also family day at the park (which occurs on most Sunday's I think), which meant other fun activities for the kids. Here is Ben showing us how easy it is to be a jockey.

And here is Abbey screaming and clinging to Daddy for dear life because he put her on a pony.

Here is how she spent the rest of her pony ride...

They also had a petting zoo with free feed to give the animals - very fun!

And of course, how could the day be complete without rolling down some hills in the soft summer grass?

Summer Excitement!

Something else that has been exciting for us this summer is that the city decided it was time to redo our street, including the ends of our driveway and the sidewalks. Now this sounds like a hassle to most people (and it has been to some extent), but to the kids, this means a lot of very big trucks, cement mixers, and diggers all right in front of our house for our own viewing pleasure everyday! Here they are digging up our driveway (which was actually very interesting to watch).

Ben being sure not to miss a thing.

Ben and Abbey intrigued...note that when they were working on our driveway and sidewalk the kids watched from inside (didn't want to chance any flying cement), but we did take a lot of walks to watch them do others' driveways from a safe distance. We even sat in the grass across the street and watched the workmen do their tricks on several occasions. Luckily, they didn't seem to mind and waved to us as they worked. So far they have done all the driveways, sidewalks and curbs...not sure when they will be doing the actual street yet, but hopefully soon while it is still interesting and before it becomes much more of a hassle!

In other summer fun, we had a sleep over at Aunt Theresa's house last weekend. She took us to the Naperville Centennial Beach, which we had never been to before. It was great - huge sand area (with sand toys) for the kids, splash fountains and a huge pool. They also had diving boards and a slide, but the kids were too young for those so we didn't get over to those areas. It was a blast, but I didn't take any pictures while we were there - too busy having fun I guess! After the beach, we cooled down back at the house with some refreshing popsicles! Juliette was after those delicious looking popsicles!

How nice of Ben to share his with his baby sister!

And Ben got to spend some quality time with his favorite cat, Jack. Abbey still didn't want to touch the cat ("No Kitty Cat"), but she did calm down and let Jack be close to her feet without freaking out. We'll consider it progress!

Rockford Air Show

A few weekends ago (yes I am still behind in my blogging), we headed out to Rockford to see the air show at the Rockford Airport. It was a very cool event and we had a lot of fun, but it was very hot too! You can see that Abbey needed to spend some time in the shade with Cousin Tim.

Besides seeing all the cool planes do tricks, there were also little planes the kids could drive. Here are Ben and Caroline being pilots...

They also had a lot of planes on display that you could go inside and see. Ben and Caroline show how big they are in this picture.

Cool - the pilots get into their real cockpit! As a side note, Ben asked the lady before he got on if the plane was going to take off while he was inside (that thought made him nervous). Luckily, the nice lady told him that the plane wouldn't do that because it was out of batteries...she must have her own kids because that was a perfect explanation for him!

Besides being incredibly hot, it was also very loud!

So we put ear plugs in for Ben (good thinking Daddy to bring that), but Abbey and Juliette wouldn't do that so we bought these...

It was a lot of fun and definitely something worth doing again next year!

T-Ball

So as you can see from a previous post, Ben has been playing t-ball this summer and has been loving it! That video was taken from his first game and he has gotten much better. I love watching the games - they are so cute! He did learn to stop at first base (unless the coaches told him to continue to second) and his batting was excellent - he consistently hit it into the outfield. It was so funny to watch the kids and see how they all improved by the end of the season. There was one poor girl though who just couldn't seem to get it. Every time she hit the ball, she would start off running to first base, but then as soon as she saw the ball, she would chase after it into the outfield - sometimes getting it and throwing it to first base or home plate! It was hilarious! But here is Ben in his very serious "ready position" while he waited for the person to bat the ball.

And here is his big swing (he's a leftie)!

And he of course has lots of fans too!

Catching Up

I know, I know, I have been a bad blogger recently! We have been having so much summer fun that it hasn't been a top priority lately to capture it all in blog format. But I know those of you far away from us love to see new pictures of the kids, so let me attempt to update this for the past few weeks.

One of the many fun things we have done lately is to spend some time with the Kurby's having some backyard summer fun with a water table and inflatable pool.

Juliette and Jillian enjoying the water.

Abbey and Joey having fun in the sand box (Abbey loves sand).

And Juliette hangs out in the hammock with her Aunt Godmother Sandy for a nice break.

We have also had some inflatable pool fun in our own backyard! Here is Ben showing how much he likes going under water!


Then one day we took Aunt Theresa with us to a new place called The Treehouse, which was a really cool indoor play place with a cafe and nice comfortable couches you could sit on and relax while watching your kids play. We may have to revisit in the winter! Here is Abbey showing us her jump shot!


And Juliette really loved going down the slide! As soon as she got to the bottom she would turn around to go back to the top again.

And here is Ben showing us how it's done on the big kid slides!