Today’s the day! We will start our day in cool Illinois, and finish in fairly warm AZ. We are super excited! But before we go, let’s wrap up the summer here.

This past Sunday, we made our last trip to the waterpark, and took Kevin with us. It was not crowded at all – probably because it was barely 70 degrees! We only stayed a couple of hours before blue lips and fingers set in. We then tried to go ride some coasters, but Sunday afternoons on a 70 degree sunny day = 2 hour waits for everything. So we just came home. It was fun while it lasted! The girls took great delight on getting Daddy VERY wet (and the water was pretty chilly).

On Thursday, the girls got a present too – their new carpet finally arrived! Here are some shots of the rooms “in progress”.

And here they are all put back together!

Of course, by “put together”, I mean the carpet is done and the furniture is back in =). As you can see, the girls have some organizing still to do!

While the carpet was busy being installed, the girls were playing with Caleb at Mom’s house.

Guess he was camera shy or too tired! The girls stayed at Mom’s house last weekend too, and there are some great pix of the cousins!

Eating lunch…

With the other “kid”….

Playing marbles….

Time with Great-Grandma….

After all that hard work, one must not forget to stretch!

Last night, we had an extra guest. Ashley’s best friend stayed the night, which might seem like a strange choice the night before we leave. On Tuesday, Ashley found out that her best friend had to move, what seemed like very suddenly, to a new house about 3.5 hours away from here. Her dad got a new job that was too good to pass up, but he could have lost a lot of money that he had rightfully earned if his current employer knew he was planning to leave. Because so many of their friends knew people he worked with, they had to keep the move a secret until he finished his current job. Ashley was devastated, because she did not get a chance to say “see you soon” or anything. But, another kind of sad event has made it possible for the two girls to spend one more day together. This morning, there is a bench dedication and memorial event planned in the park for Kayla’s friend Alex. Ashley’s best friend’s family are good friends of Alex’s family, and wanted to attend the event. They also needed to clean out the house here because it is being rented. So, Ashley’s friend came over last night so her parents could clean. We will “return”
 her when we walk over to the event this morning. We are already talking about ways to get the girls together in the future, like meeting halfway to spend time together or arrange weekend visits.

Today will be quite the day! The little girls are playing downstairs and will have breakfast soon. Kayla is awake but not ready to eat yet. We will get all dressed and finalize packing by 10AM, then walk to the playground for the event. Then back to home to make a quick lunch for the car, then off to Milwaukee airport! Our flight leaves at 3PM, and we will land in AZ at 4:40PM their time. Thankfully, Trevor has been working very hard to get “Gramma’s house” ready for us to borrow. He is picking us up too. What a busy boy!

Next post should have some new cousins pictures to share!

With our upcoming trip and some curriculum training, our summer vacation at home ends next Wednesday already! The temps here are below average (sorry AZ!), but comfy. What have we been up to? Well, Ashley’s room got its coat of paint too. She also got a present from Great-Grandma – the panda mirror from the condo! New carpet should be installed next week in both girls’ rooms, which is great because they have the 11 year old original stuff with cheapo padding. Here is Ashley’s room.

We still need to put her stuff back, but we are waiting until the carpet comes in so we don’t move it all in and then have to move it all out again!

Last week, we went to Great America for a day at the water park with friends. We spent a little extra money this year and got the Gold Season pass, which puts parking on all 4 cards and allows us to enter the water park 30 minutes before everyone else. I thought that meant you just went to the gate for the water park, flash your pass, and were allowed in. Not so! The park has a super secret special door that opens along the back fence. A security guard checks every pass ID as you sneak in. We have used this perk several times, and there has never been more than 30 people waiting to go in (even on the day when it was 95 degrees here!). We love it! You can save yourself some chairs in the shade, and the girls get to ride all of the tube rides that always have long lines. Here is the secret door. Do you see it?

The girls had about an hour before the park even got busy and some friends of ours arrived.

They went in the lazy river.

This last photo was just before Ashley leaned a little too far back and scraped her forehead on a rock wall. Luckily, she was fine and had nothing serious enough to require anything other than some ice. She enjoyed the rest of her day! We hope to one day bring B,T,K,and C to the park. We do get buddy passes during the summer….

You might recall that Kayla came home from her retreat with some “camp crud”. We took her to a Walgreens clinic one evening and followed instructions for the viral bronchitis she was diagnosed with. But the cough would not go away. We went to see her pediatricians on Wednesday, where she was diagnosed with a bronchial infection. She had to have a nebulized albuterol treatment in the office just so that he could listen to her lungs. She just couldn’t take more than half of a breath without coughing. Funny thing is that she never had a fever in 3 weeks time. She is on zithromax, prednisone, and an inhaler for 5 days. She is starting to feel better now that she has some meds on board, and she has been cleared for our trip. We visit the doctors again on Tuesday for their routine physicals and a follow-up on Kayla.

Lastly, Kevin and I escaped this weekend for a little trip. We found something in our suitcase:

This hamster has become a game in our house: whoever finds it has to hide it next. We found him in our suitcase and took a picture from our room. Now, he is hidden awaiting discovery……