Friday, April 17, 2009

The Easter Bunny found us in Chicago

Nothing like waiting until the last minute to finalize our Easter plans. At the last moment, I decided to take Caroline and Chase up to Chicago to visit their Aunt and Uncle and their cousins Steve and CeCe. My BIL's health makes it impossible for him to travel and given the depressive situation that's going on in their house, I decided to liven things up with 2 kids and 3 dogs! Just what the doctor ordered! Since airline tickets at the last minute were prohibitively expensive, we drove the loooong trip. We had so much fun, I think we ate out every meal, we took the kids to one of those Benihana type restaurants and they got to use chop sticks for the first time, and what a show, the kids loved it! We played in the park, went bowling, went on an Easter egg hunt and just had so much fun. Easter Sunday, the big bunny found us and left the kids so many goodies, I don't ever remember getting so much stuff in my basket, I think they are a tad bit spoiled. We spent the remainder of the day gorging ourselves at this massive buffet in this beautiful restaurant that my nephew Steve manages; I think Chase ate 6 cupcakes from the dessert table! Caroline of course was all about the sausage. My cousin Mark joined us for brunch and filled us in on his latest mission trip to Cuba, what an incredible experience. Both kids were just in their glory; I swear that Caroline would rather spend her time at a funeral with family than spend the day at 6 flags! She just looooovvvves being part of a family, she could be the poster child for what adoption is all about! Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures and the ones I did take don't really represent Easter, but here are some from the fun:

This first one is for my nephew Steve. When Steve was in college, I swear he kept this particular bar in business! Here's Caroline drinking out of a souvenir cup, training for her future college days... NOT!

Chase checking out his loot:


Forgive me for this one; my BIL Larry is such a good sport and enjoyed, I mean tolerated the kids doing funny things to him:

Can't leave the fur babies out. Here's Violet "smiling"!


3 comments:

Jane and Jim said...

Looks and sounds like you had a grrrrreat Easter and fun little vaca!
I'm so sorry to read about your BIL - you sis sounds like she needs major respite from it all. I can't even imagine...one minute everything is fine and the next minute, your life is hell. She and your BIL are in my prayers.

Michael, Carrie, and S said...

That's great that you all were able to get away and visit your family. I'm sure they appreciated you all coming and that it gave them some fun for a few days. It looks like Caroline and Chase had a great time with family-and those were huge Easter baskets! :)

Troy and Rachel said...

So glad you got to go for a visit and liven things up. I love the huge Easter baskets!! We're keeping your BIL in our prayers.