We're Back!

Did you miss me? We were on vacation last week! We had an awesome time together, but it sure is always good to come back home.  We spent the week exploring parts of Wisconsin.  Originally, we were planning on camping out for most of it as we usually do.  However, the weekend before we left, I came down with a nasty kidney infection - definitely not fun and was pretty scary as I was having what felt like fairly regular contractions.  Ended up going into the OB unit to figure out what was going on with me.  Baby was doing just fine and they gave me a jump start on antibiotics with a shot in each hip.  Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be my big preparation days for getting ready for vacation, but the kidney infection completely wiped out any energy I had.  I spent most of the day sleeping and lying down.  This would not bode well for camping preparations.  On our way to the hospital Friday night, we called a friend to be praying for us as we were pretty scared and needed some extra support.  By the time we got home late that night, we found out that word had spread among our church family and money was collected so that we could spend the week staying in hotels instead of camping.  Talk about a HUGE blessing and a HUGE burden lifted off my shoulders.  We were so amazed by everyone's generosity.  So if you are reading this and played a part in this blessing to us, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.  I'll try to briefly recap our trip here for you without being too lengthy.  I took a lot of pictures one day, and a few the next, but really nothing else after that.  Sorry!  Our first day, we stopped in Rockford, IL, on our way to WI and enjoyed the Children's Science Museum together.  We had a lot of fun doing everything there.  We then drove the rest of the way to Racine, where we would make our home for three nights.  Abby insisted on carrying our suitcase all by herself, which included pulling the suitcase up the flight of stairs.  She made it the whole way.

The following day, we set out to play in Lake Michigan.  It was a chilly and windy day for outdoor water play (perhaps that's why no one else was at the beach that morning).  Abby was so excited to see a "pink and purple house" as we drove into the beach parking lot. No amount of arguing could convince her that it was actually a bathhouse.  I think she would like to live in a house like this someday.

As it was chilly, and I had neglected to bring towels along for the vacation (second time I've done that for a vacation), we thought we'd just let the kids run around the edge of the beach for awhile and play in the shallow water.

There was a large flock of gulls nearby that they enjoyed chasing (you can see the kids off in the distance running towards the birds).

Much fun was had jumping over the waves as they came in.

They slowly inched their way deeper and deeper until their shorts were getting quite wet.

I asked Aaron how long he thought it would be until one of them fell down in the water.  We didn't have long to wait.  Abby and Ana were out in the waves and started running back to the shore.  Apparently, there was a sudden hole in the water that they both tripped into and fell down.  David came running over to help them get up and ended up falling in the exact same hole.  It was quite comical.  We all laughed pretty hard over that one.

Since we did not have towels with which to dry off, we opted to go to a nearby playground so they could run around and get warm while drying themselves out a bit before they got back in the van.  The kids are greatly enamored with the TV show American Ninja Warrior which had been playing for a month or so.  If you aren't familiar with that show, it's basically a giant, extremely difficult obstacle course that no one in America has ever successfully completed.  The kids keep saying how much fun it looks like, so they spent several hours on the playground with Aaron devising various obstacle courses around the play area that they would see if they could complete.  They were doing some pretty impressive stunts and having a great time doing it.  I wasn't feeling too much like a ninja warrior, so I mainly sat happily watching them race against the clock and cheering them on.

I think I'll stop here in the middle of Day Two of vacation and finish the rest up tomorrow since I only have one more picture to share.  Come back tomorrow for the rest of our vacation recap!