pics from chicago trip

Here's some pics from our weekend trek (as promised). The shady ones are from a downtown park with fountains in Chicago. The boys met up with the girls right after they finished their shopping at American Girl. Needless to say, they were a bit delayed after getting an "unplanned" bus tour of the city :)
We ate a lunch (that the MEN packed and brought) The girls were way hungry. We then proceeded to the Taste of Chicago (big waste of time, don't do it with kids, especially on a 90 degree day, 100%humidity) The best part was Isaac coming out of the spot a pot screaming "DAD, you gotta see those things!! they have their own washing system for your hands where you pump with your feet and the water trickles out!!) Levi was baffled by the BLUE water in the bottom and why we couldn't flush away the big piles! We spent $22 on some tickets for 3.5 oz of frozen gelatin/yogurt. Oh, did we mention we didn't bring enough water for eleven people and a baby. The $5 water bottle was rationed very sparingly!! We ended our city time by walking another 12 blocks back to the train station. The lines for the busses were INSANE and getting all of us on one bus with our ginormous strollers was too much to ask. We needed our OWN bus!

The picture in the racecar was from the Downer's Grove Heritage Festival on Sun. This was a homerun! It even rained, but the kids didn't care!

Where ever we go, we seem to be a bit of a conversation piece. It is fun though, because we get to talk about Christ and the reasons behind our family. For example, at McDonalds on Sat., a woman asked us if we had a daycare! The conversation started there but continued towards adoption and why we adopted from Ethiopia. What a blessing our kids are!! What a testament of Gods grace and the joy He brings!