Another quick trip to guess where? Yup...Chicago

Dave bought a car to take to his twice-a-month trips to Minneapolis for work.  Since he got a different job as a manager of a team of field service engineers within Calix, he decided to make the committment to go to their HQ in MN to make personal connections important.  It only involves being gone for 1 night, which is very do-able for me and the kids.  Its the week-long absences that make us all go crazy!

So anyway...he searched high and low for weeks for "the right car"....and settled on a 02 BMW M3 with red leather interior.  It was located in Milwaukee...so last week Friday we all drove as a family up there, picked up the car from the family he bought it from, and since we were so close to Josh and Carrie, we decided to stay there for a night and most of Saturday.  It was a long day of driving - but our kids have turned into great travelers over the last month.  Violet and Calvin are constantly singing to pass the time and making up silly games to play.  Vanessa sleeps well in the car.

We got to J&Cs around 9 pm that night.  They let their kids stay up waiting for us to get there, so it was about an hour and a half before we got the kids to bed.  Austin, Violet, Renee and Calvin were SO excited to see each other!  All 4 kids played in their basement for awhile - even Vanessa crawled around for awhile, since she slept quite a bit in the car that day.  Once we finally got them all in bed, we stayed awake for another couple hours talking to J&C in their living room.  They had planned s'mores by the fire, but it was raining so that canned those plans. 

Saturday was relaxing!  Having the kids grow up a little has really helped!  Austin is 6, Violet is 5, Renee is 4, and Calvin is 3.  Those 4 kids pretty much were glued together, doing everything in sight, running around, not needing much tending to.  Wesley and Vanessa crawled everywhere and we kept them in sight at all times, but 2 needing attention sure seemed a lot less than 6 kids.  Carrie and I cooked up some scrambled eggs, potato hashbrowns, and sausage for breakfast.  She and I got to take off and grab some coffee together when the younger two kids were taking naps.  Josh and Dave cooked dinner by themselves, kicking the ladies out of the kitchen.  Monday was Carrie's birthday, so Josh planned a meal and cooked it (and cleaned up) for everybody.  He grilled seasoned sesame chicken with pineapple, made rice and broccoli, and served a key lime pie.  It was delicious!  We packed up our stuff and headed out...later than we wanted (the plan was to leave by 4)...but we got on the road by 6:30.  I really thought all 3 kids would knock out and fall asleep immediately as soon as the van started driving (Calvin did), but the 2 girls stayed awake.  We drove home on 90 and 20, stopping a few times, and switching up who was in which car.  I had brought along the spare car seats so V and C could ride with daddy in the new car.  They loved riding with him too.  We wanted to stop at the observation deck tower by Galena and climb all the flights of stairs up to the top to see the view, but it was closed down. 

We didn't get home til around 11.  V and C were sleeping when we got home so they got transported to their beds in their clothes and all - didn't even brush their teeth (sorry dad!).  They continued to sleep through the night, and were surprised to wake up and find themselves in their clothes!  We did have to wake up Calvin a bit and put a pull-up on him so he didn't wet the bed.  Sunday morning was pretty crazy - we knew all 3 of the kids needed baths before going to church, so Dave got in the shower with Calvin (he's always the first kid out of bed), and I got in the kid's shower, and after I was ready, I bathed Violet and Vanessa in the tub in our bathroom.  They were super quick baths...but very necessary.  We all got up at 8 am, and left the house at 8:59!