Friday, March 26, 2010

Grandma's Big Birthday

The beginning of 2010 my Mother, Carol, officially retired from her job with GE ReInsurance. She's been enjoying the time off by catching up on some projects around the house, creating more of her beautiful art work and portraits and I'm sure driving Ray insane...

Last week Mom had that big birthday, 65 years young. We had planned to originally visit them the end of March during our school districts Spring Break but since we started homeschooling we decided we could go anytime we wanted. So we headed down to Kansas for Mom's birthday party on March 20th. Turns out we surprised her by having it the night before with close friends and family. With the big KU game being on the 20th we just couldn't do both of course! Turns out we probably could have...

The day before we left Mom got a phone call from my Sister, Kris, in Washington state that she was surprising Mom by coming in for her birthday. Kris brought her two youngest children, Anna and Mimi, with her and they stayed for 4 days. Anna is 8 years old and Mimi is turning 1 year soon. Boy was Mom's house full! Mimi had a lot of fun playing with Audrey (my Step-Sister's daughter), who is also almost 1 year old. Watching all these little one play sure brought back memories...

So below are some of my favorite pictures from our short trip. I didn't get the camera out much but did capture an afternoon playdate with the little ones... too cute! You can find more of the trip at http://picasaweb.google.com/princesrealm/triptokansas


Mimi, Kris' youngest daughter

Anna, Kris' oldest daughter

Mom early in the morning. She doesn't like having her picture taken either...

Kris moving fast

Anna enjoying the warm sun
Isabela actually posing for me

Mimi crawling around the family room

Legos a favorite toy of every kiddo!

This is Audrey, Rachel (my Step-sister) and Justin's daughter.

The babies playing

The dancing bunny was a real hit

See legos are favorites!

Audrey and Mom

Then someone let the babies play with cards... they were everywhere!


Audrey reads the newspaper

Then no one else can...

Mimi liked the rings

It snowed 8" or so while we were there. Poor birds didn't know what to do. Robins were all puffed up the size of softballs.



On the drive home we stopped at our usual rest stop for a break and to move around a bit. The girls just had to play on the playground equipment.

Even managed to get a couple of posed shots. No they didn't consult each other before they got dressed that morning. They just happen to were the same shirt...


Rather pleased with this shot!

Action shot...


The girls decided to race each other to the tree and back

Guess who won...

Then they raced to the car.

Isabela decided to watch a movie on her netbook. For some reason Nick loaded 'The Butterfly Effect' when he loaded some movies for her. She was watching that and the squeaks and intakes of breathe were amazing. I thought she was gonna pop off that poor sock monkey's head at one point. After awhile she decided to watch something else. I think it was Pixar animation...
Rhianna was typing her report on the Greek God Poseidon and comparison from book to movie (Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief). She typed the whole thing while I was driving.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Museum of Science and Industry Visit

On March 12th we headed to Chicago to spend the afternoon at the Museum of Science and Industry. That evening was a special Member Night for the newest exhibit, Science Storms. We checked out some of the exhibits we missed the first time we visited in December and still haven't seen everything!

The first exhibit we saw was "You, the Experience". We checked our pulse, saw what exercise can do for you, made a commercial and Wayne checked his brain.

Isabela seeing what her pulse was and how her blood flowed through her heart at her pulse rate.


Wayne checking his brain


Some fellow visitors enjoying the movement display


Rhianna seeing how exercise effects her in the hamster wheel




Wayne and Isabela's commercial for bottled water








The transportation wing


Chicago - The Train Model




Isabel and Rhianna flying a plane together


Wayne playing too


Of course a picture or two of planes

The entrance to the transportation wing

Rhianna steering a big ship

Isabela checking out her favorite ships, The Santa Maria, The Pinta and the Nina




Rhianna found the legos

St. Louis in Legos. cool how the light looks like the moon or at least I think so.


Chicago in Legos






Rhianna found a cow


While Isabela found a tractor




So did Wayne
They even have fake corn fields

And you can milk a cow



Me and the girls
You can find more photos of our adventures at
Museum of Science and Industry