Bribery at its finest.

Chicago

These (FOUR?!?!) sorry photos and my impending story about the quick trip Paul and I took to Chicago last month do not do it justice.  The short story: it rained 60% of the time and I don’t believe we saw the sun once; I spent most of my time sporting Sam's North Face fleece (he’s 6’2” – a good look for me, yes) as opposed to the sun dresses I had hoped to wear; and truth be told, we didn’t kill ourselves seeing all of the sights and sounds of that wonderful city.

What we DID do was have tons and tons of fun.  We went to a Cubs game, hung out in Wrigleyville, bummed around watching basketball, explored the Art Institute of Chicago, strolled through Millennium Park, ate really good food and drank to our hearts content.  Did I mention that Lucy got to stay home with her grandparents? 

The bottom line is that my brothers (I’m totally biased and still totally convinced when I say this) are really great people; in fact, two of my favorites; so a weekend with them, even in the rain, always ends up being just what I needed.

Mother's Day Weekend

We went to the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead:
We saw cows. 

And chickens.

And goats.

We even got brave and fed the goats.

And once we got tired of the aggressive, hungry, pushy yet adorable goats, we stuck that thumb in our mouth and waited for the bottle to run dry. 

We fished.  

And after a few hours (really, this place is huge, it is so great!) of visiting all the animals, we found the play equipment and that was pretty fun too!

Then on Sunday we had coffee on the back deck.   

We climbed on the chairs.

We tried, and I can confidently say, failed, at getting a decent picture of Lucy and me on Mother's Day:

Dada got some attention too:



We had a lesson in learning how to GENTLY brush Buckley:

And then we got in trouble for beating the dog with the brush:

We took a trip to the Dollar Store:

And then a trip out to Grandma Gaye and Grandpa Tom's house where we fed fish:

We took another stab (a few stabs, actually) at a four generation picture:

We ate fresh picked strawberries:

And when Mama said, "I think we're done with strawberries," I led Grandpa back to the goods because I KNEW he would be on my side:

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