Road Trip To Louisville KY

Bags are packed, the new car has a full tank of gas and the family is ready for a MUCH needed vacation! Next stop...Louisville, Kentucky!!

One of the coolest features our new truck has is a DVD player!!! And an even cooler part for the parents is...HEADPHONES!!! The kids have been patiently waiting to watch movies in the car and this was a "special" drive that they would get to watch a bunch of movies all the way there and back! The kids were in heaven! Here were some of the features that were playing on the road; Tom and Jerry, John Deere Heaven, James 1st airshow video, and a cheesy old Superman video from the Dollar store (it was a gag gift for a party).

The field of hundreds of wind turbines. This was hypnotic, yet comical. Striking, yet distracting. Any way you look at it, they were everywhere! We packed a lunch to eat along the way, and decided to stop at the next rest stop shortly after the field of wind turbines. Well, the aroma from the fields were a bit offensive (cow poop) and the wind was howling around us, therefore the kiddos stayed buckled up and we served lunch on the road. Yes, we ate in the new car...YIKES! We borrowed an extra travel tray from Heather and we strapped them on the kiddos to make nice sized individual little lap tables for them to eat their lunch with out dropping a crumb! Unfortunately, about an hour or so after our little lunch, our sweet baby girl got a little car sick (sorry, Baby you got that from your Momma). She handled it like a trooper and so did her Daddy (he has let just say a very sensitive nose). She took a little nap and then was good to go.

Are we there yet?
(This picture of our Sweet Pea was actually taken on our ride home, but it reflects how she was feeling/looking after lunch.)

Almost there!

A barge on the Ohio River.

We made it!

See Ya'll soon!

Division of Transporation Field Trip

On the bus and headed to the McHenry County Div. of Transportation!

The engineers talked to us about how they make roads and what some of the things that can get in the way to make a road go from one place to the other, like animal habitats, lakes, houses, etc.

After, the road was "built" we were each given a little car to drive down the road to the bank. The best part was at the "bank" there was a bag of suckers for us to have!!

Check out the cool Thunderbird Preschool sign they made just for us!

Sign shop! Mommy took this picture for Daddy and Uncle Peter.

We got to see the machine cut out the smiley faces on to the blue sticker paper that are used on signs to add color, symbols and letters.

Here we were given a garbage picker-upper thingy just like the people how volunteer for Adopt a Highway program uses.

This game was like red light/green light!

This plow is huge!!!

It is so high up here! I really wanted to beep the horn, but I didn't.
Mrs. Kappelle came up with a fun game for us to do while the remaining classmates got to sit in the snow plow truck, it was like Simon Says. Roary the mascot was standing on top of a platform and was copying every movement we made! He was so silly!
A quick pic before heading home.
Owen and I are ready to work!
Time to board the bus and head back to the beach. What a fun field trip we had!

Pumpkin Carving!!!

It's that time of year again! It's time to yank out the pumpkin guts and play in the ooey-gooey mess! Even Daddy had fun grabbing handfuls and plopping it in the bucket.
Amelia had fun scooping out the "guts" (she and Daddy had a small argument about how the insides of pumpkins are it's guts, she didn't like that for some reason) and then playing with the slippery pumpkin seeds.

James had the cleanest pumpkin by far! Nice work big guy!

That is our "Crazy Auntie Rita" and she is really being CRAZY!!!

Um, what were you to doing? You have very mischievous looking faces on...

Look at their concentration! It takes a steady hand!

Daddy had to reposition himself to be able to get the fine details carved out for James.

A Cackling witch for James.

Mommy's silly scarecrow.

Amelia's and Auntie Rita's furry monster!

After carving, Daddy roasted the pumpkin seed for us to nibble on a little before and after dinner. Speaking of dinner, Auntie not only drove all the way out to our house to carve pumpkins with us, she made us a very yummy and healthy dinner! Thanks Auntie Rita for spending the evening with us and for all of the awesome food! We love you!

Yay For Fall Party!

Today was the Z Family's annual Yay for Fall party!

Check out the largest pile of leaves we have ever jumped into!

Mommy could barely get a picture of all four of us, because we were to busy running, jumping into the leaves, jumping out of the leaves and running back into leaves!
Alright, it is pumpkin carving time!


Ryan is doing his very best to poke little holes along the outline of a silly face!

Lauren and Aunt Kathy are really getting into carving a cute cat on this pumpkin.

James had no fear of pumpkin goo, he dug right in!

Amelia had fun squishing the gooey mess!

All done! This is James' spooky spider

Amelia's "goat" aka ghost is the first one on the left.Everyone did a great job!

After pumpkin carving we all enjoyed a fantastic dinner followed by many yummy treats!

Thanks for a great pumpkin carving party!

Fright Fest

It's that time of year again...

for FRIGHT FEST at SIX FLAGS!

This year they had "trick-or-treating" for the kids in Bugs Bunnyland. Here is Tweety dressed up as an angel.
Porky pig as a lion. Porky helped hand out the treat bags.

Is Bugs a vampire? Maybe he is a friendly vampire?!

Daffy is a pirate! This was James' favorite costume.

We rode upstairs and downstairs on the carousel this time.

Giddy up!

Lunch break! Look at those rosey cheeks, it was a 80+ degree day!

After a quick bite to eat, we headed back in for more spooky fun. Even though this can be a "frightening" time of year at Six Flags, the goblins and creatures stay away until dusk making a no so scary time in the park for it's youngest guests. We stopped in to see both Halloween shows. The first one was called "Love at First Fright". It is a musical that they do each year. We really enjoy the songs, dancing and all of the spooky lighting effects. Then, we took the kids to their first Hypnotist show that was held in the Pictorium. The show was a little over an hour long, making it a bit of a stretch for the kids attention spans, but they did very well. Both Mark and I really found the whole show very entertaining and a bit fascinating. I would recommend seeing Susan Rosen, Mistress Mesmerism. She has been doing this show for 15 years now!

Despite the huge crowds, we had a great time as always.