All Aboard Train Restaurant

For Lynette's closest buddy's birthday, no place was better suited to celebrate it at than All Aboard Train Restaurant. This kids loves trains and this place is decked out in them. There are several motorized trains to see and play with. The kids were in heaven.

This birthday boy couldn't be more excited.

Your food was served out on a train, and when it was your birthday they played a special birthday song as it chugged along.

The kids were enthralled with this play area. It had several trains and things moving around. There were buttons the kids could push to make things go, turn lights on and off, and make the train whistle. We could have spent all day there.

A group of buddies. It was REALLY hard to tear them away from the trains long enough to take this picture. In every shot at least one of them was looking back at the trains.

This little girl way too happy to be riding this train. D rubbed off his love of train onto Lynette, she's been hooked ever since.

One more BIG hug from the birthday boy.

Last zoo post...promise.

I'm sure you're sick of zoo posts, but this blog is intended more for recording the doings of my family, so here they are...again. I told you we went there a lot.

Brookfield Zoo is one of the finest in the nation and we felt very fortunate to visit it so often. One of my very favorite things about this zoo is it has not one, but two playgrounds. BRILLIANT idea. So often when you go to the zoo the parents walk for miles and the kids just sit in the strollers. The playground is a much needed break for both parties. Usually we ate our lunch and then the kids played. It was great.

My little climber.

Don't you love it when they play nicely?

The brand-spankin' new Great Bear Wilderness. We got to enjoy for only a month before we moved away. Though there are none present at the moment, Bison graze in the field around this archway. Their land actually goes over the archway and sometimes you walk right under them.

Measuring up...

The Bald Eagle

A very lazy grizzly.

This photo is dusky because its actually shot through a large pane of glass. No zoom was used in this photo. He really was that close. The first time we came here we saw a polar bear that had just rolled around is a big dirt/mud puddle. We honestly thought he was just a wierd lookin' brown bear for a while.

Ah the hippos.

Pygmy hippos. My favorite.

Hop, joeys, hop!

Our Favorite Thing

You may have noticed by now that we went to the zoo a lot last year. A LOT. There's a reason for this, it was nearby, it was excellent, and we decided that it was worth it enough to get a season pass. So far be it from me to let that go to waste. I could practically give tours there. It never got dull to me- it certainly beat being at home, and we all loved it

Anyway, one of the best times we ever had there was when we took our close friends/cousins along with us. Much fun was had by all.

We played on the carousel- the only time I allowed my kids the splurge of spending additional money there.

Pretended to be animals- and learned a bit about the zoo history while we were at it. I learned from this board that one of the parrots I had the pleasure of seeing was actually there when the zoo opened, back in the 1930s. Cool stuff.


We monkeyed around a bit.

The kids, and adults, were fascinated by these ADORABLE little monkeys. I don't know what they are but they had a lot of energy and were super-duper cute.

This gibbon family provided a lot of entertainment. The black one was swinging all over the place. It was amazing how he could just fly around, hundreds of feet above the ground. Show off.

These gorillas are amazing too. Though it didn't happen on this outing, I need to tell you about the grossest thing I ever saw. In about a 5 minute timespan 4 of the gorillas all started urinating, while one of the gorillas caught the urine in his hand and splashed it around toward the crowd (thankfully it didn't hit any of us). As if that weren't bad enough another gorilla starts pooping, catches the poo in his hand and then EATS IT. So so so so gross.

Lynette and D giving us a demonstration on how gorillas move.

The dolphins. Oh I love the dolphins. So calming, and I LOVE that its one of the only places where the adults can sit and relax along with the kids. While we were there a dolphin show started up, it was fun watching it from below.

We checked out the gift shop. It is so hard to tell him "no" when he looks so darn cute in that hat!

Please don't judge me by my daughter's appearance. Yes, I did her hair, but it was a hot day, she was running around and this is what you get. Luckily, it doesn't affect the amount of fun she had riding on the carousel. Tigers are her favorite because she IS a tigress, she informed me of that almost daily.

These two are the best of buddies. They really love each other.

These two enjoy each, but really needed a nap more than anything.

So you may have thought that our favorite thing about Chicago was the zoo and you would be close. But you would be wrong. Our favorite thing about Chicago? These guys. Love you Chandlers! Miss you tons!

Piano Party

Chicago was a fascinating experience for me. It was several times larger any other city I had lived in and presented all new kinds of experiences I didn't really think I'd ever have. It was a good year, although certainly difficult with having Michael gone so much. One thing it did give me, that I was not expecting, was an opportunity to teach piano for the very first time. I didn't advertise or anything, but individuals from our church would just approach me randomly and ask if I would teach their children. I was hesitant since I had never taught before and knew I would be leaving soon- but they were eager and my rates were low so I didn't feel too bad if I wasn't that great of a teacher. I was amazed at how much I LOVED teaching. It was so fun spending time with the kids and sharing my love of music with them. They were all wonderful. Before we moved I thought the kids would enjoy a little recital of sorts just as students. I wanted their first performance to be casual and fun, without stress so I asked the parents not to join us. I'm sure some of them didn't love that, but I think it was in the best interest of the kids. Each played a piece they had worked on, memorized, and perfect for a few weeks. We also played a few music games, like music note bean bag toss. Afterwards I astounded them all with a glorious piano cake. It was so simple, but they loved it. What a great day.

Here's the cake. A simple white cake, with white frosting. The black keys are actually Kit Kat bars.

A closer look- I'm no artist so its not perfect, but they didn't cared. I used floss to score the keys.

My youngest student, Gracie. Such a doll. It was fun trying to keep her attention- she really loved playing with the pedals and enjoyed making up her own songs.

Sierra, sweet and soft. She was a diligent student and a delightful girl. My kids loved her.

Samantha- my pefectionist. This girl had a lot of energy and had my heart the moment I met her. She was disappointed that she didn't play her dynamics exactly the way she practiced, such is her drive for excellence. I can see this girl going very far in life.

Emma, Samantha's best friend. The two were peas in a pod and it was a challenged to keep one from distracting the other during lessons. Samantha has cute sense of humor and often can be found with a mischevious twinkler in her eye.

Ruth, Gracie's older sister. She is a fellow bookworm, eager to learn and grow. We often had fun, rather mature conversations together. She's a wonderful big sister and delightful student.

Nathan, a soft, quiet boy around me but I bet he's pretty lively around friends. I loved to see him interact with his mother, you could tell they had a good friendship.

Jeanie, my first student. So kind and thoughtful and loving.

The whole gang- what a fun bunch.