My Grandma, Swimming and a Birthday Party

We took the girls' violins with us so they could play for Grandma. Since we play at a local nursing home every month, it only seemed logical to play for Grandma and the residents at her nursing home. I think they gave 3 different concerts. The first day they wore their Elsa dresses.

Elsa 1 and Elsa 2

On Monday we headed out to a friend's lake for what I thought was going to be an afternoon of swimming, but ended up being a surprise birthday party for me. Friends and cousins came to see me and celebrate with me!

Robin and her kids were there. (Robin was my maid of honor and like my sister growing up. She is mom to Ava and Hayden who are now 10). I challenged Robin to a paddle board race - neither of us had ever done it and it was actually fairly easy.

The girls with Ava...

My cousins from Tiskilwa came down...Beth (the mom is my first cousin) and her girls Amanda (my flower girl and on the left below), Malinda (on the right) and Katelyn (not pictured).

Tuesday ended up being an extra day since Kevin didn't want me to meet him in Chicago until Wednesday. So we headed to a friend's pool. Robin and her kids joined us and the pool was FULL of kids!

Wednesday I headed up to Chicago to meet Kevin and the girls went with Grandma and Grandpa Redman to Michigan. Kevin was attending his annual AACC conference and was staying right on Michigan Avenue. It's been years since I was on Michigan Avenue and it was fun to walk around.

to be continued...

the past 10 days...

Ten days ago, the girls and I flew to Illinois. Kevin had his annual conference in Chicago, but we went a little earlier than him so we could head down to Morton to see family.

My dad and Lynn recently moved to Tennessee after Dad retired, but they drove up to see us and we spent Sunday with them.

We met at a restaraunt for a bite to eat, headed to the Peoria Zoo (which is quite nice compared to when I was young and then headed to Kim's house to eat again)...

to be continued....

Swimming, Animals and Corn

One of the things the girls wanted to do most on our trip was swim. We didn't have the greatest weather for swimming, but it was nice the last two days we were there and they got to swim three different times - two swimming pools and one lake.

We went swimming with Grandpa Eichorst and Sydney went off the high dive once. She didn't like it enough to do it again.

And, in an effort to spoil their appetite for dinner, Grandpa bought ice cream for the little ones.

After dinner the girls gave the Eichorst clan a violin concert.

We also got to spend an evening at a "lake" (pond). The girls had fun swimming and we had fun watching them be kids. They both swam until it was too dark to see!

Can you tell how much our girls love animals?

And here we are at yet another pool. We had a couple water squirters and had a little battle.

Much to my satisfaction, we ate a lot of sweet corn while we were in Illinois. It was so, so good!