HOLY VACATION part 1

We are back from Chicago and North Dakota! We had such a great time. It was great to see family and friends! We left on the Friday, July 31 to Oswego, Il (near Chicago) to see Matt and Melissa Sides. We had a AWESOME food and a great time. On Saturday we all went to Legoland there; all of the kids loved it. Thanks for hanging out with us for a couple days guys! We miss you more now! I have to add the picture above for Sam. He loves Alastair and misses him.

Logan kept petting this guy.

Their faces are so funny, but they were standing together so its a keeper.

When Sam saw Batman, he ran up to him and posed like this luckily I had the camera ready because that is a great shot!

This was a ride like, It's a small world. It was really slow and went through a castle. It was really cool all of the Lego things built inside. Sam got scared a couple of times. Someone let the Dragon out and the was not fun for him. Logan on the other hand did NOT enjoy any of it. Dave said he was whimpering the whole time.

Sam was the 'Professor's' helper to make Legos. He went through a mini system and showed us how they make Legos. This was probably my favorite part! I wanted Dave and Matt to take their picture with him but they wouldn't! BUTTS!

Matt and Sam with President Ovoma (as Sam says)

All of us a Buca's. Awesome Food! Good choice Matt. You order giant bowls of food and everyone shares. But they don't tell you how GIANT the bowls are. We could have eaten for days on the food we got! But SO GOOD!!

After we ate lunch we took off. Our plan was to drive to Minneapolis and stay the night which was about 6 hours away. At 8 the boys were getting tired so we stopped at this rest area to get jammies on and we noticed a scenic plaque that said their was a waterfall. I didn't read it I just told Dave we should go and wear the boys the rest of the way out. We walked and then ran up a trail which turned into this board walk. It was raised of the ground. It was really pretty. But we seriously walked over a mile and then came to the end of the board walk. Yeah and guess what. NO WATERFALL! It was a good walk and the boys were happy to get out of the car for a while. We got back in the car and drove to Minneapolis. As we were getting closer about 10:30 Dave called Marriott to make a reservation. Now I will tell you that we not snobs or anything and its not that we have a problem with other hotels it just when Dave is in Japan he stays at the Marriott so he gets points and we don't have to pay for the hotel if we stay there. So anyway, The lady tells us there is a vacancy in one down by the Mall of America so we go downtown Minneapolis at night and try to find this hotel. Well we find out that the Hotel the lady found was Burrlington (suburb) but not in Minnesota but Indiana. Excellent! Dave was on the phone and driving so I was trying to read the map to get us out of that town. No we don't have GPS. The freeway turned and we went into a tunnel at night remember, and as I am trying not to freak we hear a DEAFENING siren! There were firetrucks coming up behind us in the tunnel that wanted to pass. There is NO room for pulling over in the tunnel so Dave decides to speed up for them. Dave is a great driver, but I thought WE was going to die!!! The boys slept through all it. We finally made it out of that town and ended up driving to Fagro, which is 4 hours more. The Sturgis Rally was starting in a few days so all the hotels were booked. But we found one there and rolled in about 2:30 am. It made the drive the next day lots more pleasant because we only had 6 hours left.