This is a make-up post for all of the rest of the trip pictures.

Gramma’s table was full! We had a lot of reasons to celebrate during the trip. Caleb’s birthday, Rhys’s birthday, Gramma’s birthday, Shannon’s birthday, and now Grampa Dusty’s birthday and Aunt Lillian’s birthday! Wow! June is busy! Happy Birthday!! Also happy anniversary to Heather and Kevin!

Busy couch

Tuesday the 14th, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago with Heather and the girls. They boys love the kids zone.

Giant tractor that they can actually climb into! Score!

Baby chickens!

We went for the “Brick by Brick” lego exhibit

The ISS in Lego

Kayla was selected for a building challenge

There were lots of different building zones

Six Flags Great America – American Eagle roller coaster in Lego! The coolest thing about this is that as a teen I operated this very coaster for a summer job.

So many people walked up and said “ooh cool, the White House!” when it was actually the very building they were standing in. MSI, formerly the Palace of Fine Arts.

Totally bummed, the Toymaker 3000 was out of order 🙁 Bill and I made a top here 12 years ago and I wanted to do one with the boys.

Brendan did not want to go near the 3 story tornado but Trevor loved it!

Mirror Maze!

Our traffic nightmare drive-by of “the bean” AKA Cloud Gate Sculpture. One day I will take some silly photos here.

The video Gramma has been waiting for:

We did lunch at IKEA with Erin and the boys. The IL IKEA is rather different than ours. The boys enjoyed it. And free meatballs! We did a lot of hanging around playing Minecraft:

We went to visit Aunt Lillian and helped her catch up on the blog

Gramma taught the boys how to play pool

We broke Gizmo 🙁 🙁 A pile up with the dog underfoot led to him fracturing 3 little bones in his foot. He is going to have a splint and activity restrictions for a month or more. He was a wreck with all the kids playing when he could not.

We had a treat with Aunt Beth and Uncle Steve at “The Buffalo” restaurant near where I used to live. Brendan and Uncle Steve are buddies.

Trevor licked every last drop of chocolate from his banana split!

The boys helped me to set up the photo studio stuff in Great-Grandma’s old living room.

Hot tubbing!

How many boys can we pile in a tub?

There were thunderstorms!!

With hail stones! Trevor was almost as excited to see real hail as he was to find real roly-poly bugs.

He proceeded to gather up any hail he found and he ate it!

Party on the deck to watch the rain

Hanging bed fun

We were sad to have to leave. It was nice being able to spend time with so much family. We miss them all everyday.

Our journey home was supposed to be a 5-6 day trip with more sightseeing and fun. We arrived in Missouri the first night and Brendan had a 102.7 fever. He was so distraught that he was not going to get to go fishing. We had bought life jackets and the boys picked out their own fishing poles just for this part of the trip.

In the morning, a breathing treatment and some tylenol pepped him up enough to come outside for a bit.

Trevor was SO excited to fish with Allen

It was a magic day on the pond, he pulled up his first catch in no time at all!

He wanted to hold it so we would have to put giant leather gloves on his hand so he could throw the catch back in.

Family fishing

Brendan has got something!!

Brendan had to go inside to rest and cool down, but Trevor got to go out on the boat

Trevor caught his own fish by just holding his line in the water a bit and letting the boat drag it around. No bait! Just a wiggly rubber worm thing that came with the pole!

Brendan got worse enough that we had to take off right away for home and did it in a 2-day marathon drive. He went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. Breathing treatments, vest treatments, O2 and meds are keeping him stable, but he is still pretty sick. He is just well enough to be crabby about being restrained from doing fun things.

WHEW! Caught up!