We woke up bright and early at 4:30 a.m. to take Dave and his buddies Jeff & Josh to the airport. Dave flew on Frontier, they had a racoon on one of the wings, which he took a picture of, since our family mascot is a racoon. The kids thought that was pretty cool!
When they got there, they checked out the city, went to get some Chicago style pizza, got lost, and went back to their hotel room to get ready for a busy week. Most of the time was spent in classes and workshops, listening to speakers and enjoying dinner with WSU students and Alumni and networking. Probably his favorite part of it was the opening speaker and the LDS Administrators networking.
They went to the Millenium Park, which seems like a pretty cool place.
The "Bean".
The boys...Dave, Jeff, Josh, Shay, Jarom.
Looking up through the bean.
The beach!
Walking the streets. I guess it's a neat place, but one Dave decided he'd never want to live. It's a pretty dirty city, and the people are interesting. Lots of honking, people aren't very friendly, lots of drunk people and people on drugs downtown. Sad. But it's worth going once. The guys walked a ton! At night, they'd wind down from long days of conferences by soaking in the hot tub and swimming in the pool. I loved the days I'd Skype with Dave. He had it on his phone so it was fun to do that with him! I swear when we'd do that he started getting teary eyed and cried since he missed us. How sweet is that! Of course he wouldn't tell you that, because he's Mr. Tough, but we all know the truth, that he's a huge softie. And I like it! He kept telling me that I looked so cute. Oh, I love him and missed him.
The Sears Tower...Dave made the trek to the 103rd floor. He said it was pretty cool and you could see 4 states from it!
They had a glass balcony. Here's the view from above...Dave said it was pretty eerie, even though he's not at all afraid of heights.
Wrigley Field.
The Green River downtown. The boys stayed at a Marriott right downtown across from the Trump towers.
The beach was pretty and was packed with people.
The Navy Pier.
The Trump towers.
They also went to China Town, but they weren't that impressed. But Dave did get the kids some goods from there. Overall, Dave had a fun time with his good buddies, learned and got to see some cool things. I'm so glad he had a great time!
We were all so glad to see him again! We went and picked up the boys from the airport late at night and rushed Jeff to the Hospital. His wife Maria wasn't due for a few weeks after they got back, but she was being induced due to some complications. When they found this out, they tried to get an earlier flight back to Spokane, but there weren't any! Luckily, Jeff made it in time. That's what I call cutting it close! Congrats to the Gertch's and their new sweet baby girl Reese!
Emma made a cute poster for Daddy. It said "Come Home Dad!" (Instead of Welcome home Dad...he he! Cute.). And "Love, Mom, Emma, Lucy, and Cal." She's a sweetie, what can I say? The kids tried so hard to stay up to see Daddy but kept dozing off and just couldn't stay awake for it. But in the morning, they were stoked to see him! At nights they'd cry because they missed him so much. Lucy kept saying "Daddy?" in a surprised tone of voice, as if to say "is it really you?" Emma was excited to see if Daddy would bring her a prize home, which of course, he did. I also scored a sweet yellow Chicago shirt. Cal was excited to have Daddy home to play with.
So what did we do all week while Dave was gone? We stayed plenty busy between school, preschool, Relief Society (just got the Birthday dinner out of the way and it was a success), music practices for the special musical number I did at church, playing, cleaning, and all of the usual stuff! A few nights we texted pictures to Daddy of the kids.
One night, they all decided to climb into our bed and I told them it was alright. This is what it looked like. I thought it was so sweet!
We had two extra special visitors come stay with us for most of the week, Morgan and Kyle, my 8-year-old cousins! My Aunt Suz and Uncle Dave are looking for places to move where Dave was transferred for work, so they came over and hung out. So we had 5 kids here (6 including me)! You might think it was crazy, but it was great! They are such cute kids and such great helpers! (I asked my Aunt and Uncle if we could keep them, they didn't like that idea.:) We played, drove kids around to get to where they needed to go, went through our normal routines and had some fun, too.
On Monday night, it was Emma's school's skate night at Pattison's. We've never been there, but the kids did great! Morgan and Kyle were pro's, in their in-line skates (does that take you back or what?), and it took Emma a while but she got it once she let go of me and got some confidence and Cal figured things out really quick. Kyle and Morgan both won the race in their divisions and for their genders. And Emma won a free drink as well from a number skate where you have to skate to numbers on the rink for prizes. She was lucky, practicing when they called the number right by where she was practicing.
Tuesday, we took dinner over to Alex and then went to Coldstone and got some ice-cream, yum! I love the combinations of toppings and ice-cream the kids come up with. (:
Wednesday, it was Morgan & Kyle's school's Chuck E. Cheese night, so we went to that. It was so much fun! The kids had a blast and love it, of course! We kept telling Cal that we were going to take him when he got all the way potty trained, and he's pretty much there. Good job, lil' guy! Kyle and Morgan had fun playing with our kids, as well as their friends. And Emma's little friend Brooklyn was there for her sister's birthday, so Em played with her a lot. It was a fun night. I love how excited they get about that place.
Thursday, we went to my 16-year-old cousin Alex's band concert and it was the great night Suz came home, as well as our Dave. Everyone was happy to have their favorite people home. SO happy you're home, babe! I missed you like crazy! Glad you had a great experience in Chicago!
Which reminds me, Dave landed an internship in Utah for the summer! Hooray honey, I'm so proud of you! It was highly competitive and he won out. So he'll be working for the U of U hospitals with a senior administrator, which will be great experience. And it will be paid, so we're so grateful for that. So we will be visiting for a couple months during the summer, it will be like an extended vacation. We're super excited!
