The Best Wedding in Chicago.

Dude, you guys, yesterday it was only 87 degrees around 7:00PM! We totally went down the street to the park and played for a while. I told Evan that if the weather was more like that, I would complain about Texas less.

So, Evan and I were talking about how this is our first weekend in our house. Well, there was that weekend that was spent unpacking boxes and eating off the coffee table because there was nowhere else to eat, but that wasn't much of a "weekend". You see, one week exactly after we moved into our house, we packed up and headed to Illinois.

In case you were wondering, driving from San Antonio to Chicago takes 20 hours. Yeah...it was a long drive.

But, it was all worth it because A) we hadn't been to Chicago in almost 3 years and I have missed that city like you would not believe and B) we were headed to help my best friend celebrate her wedding weekend. This is my sunshine, Melissa:

She married her fabulous fiance Scott and I was the matron of honor. I'd been impatiently waiting for this wedding for months because I knew it would be such an awesome, happy occasion.
They got married in the heart of Chicago (where they both live and work) in a gorgeous hotel that overlooked the river. The views were amazing!!!

Elisabeth was the Official Greeter and got to get her hair done with the rest of the bridesmaids. That girl loves having her hair done.
She looked so grown up.
The wedding was gorgeous and we all had so much fun. It's so nice to watch an amazing couple get married. Especially when you know just how happy they are to be around each other.
I got to give the toast. Thankfully, my pregnancy brain did not interfere and I remembered everything I'd planned on saying.
Instead of wedding cake, they had an ice cream sundae bar. It was a fabulous choice on the bride and groom's part.

Jana and Keith came up for the weekend to help us out with the girls during the wedding and to explore Chicago with us. They also got to watch my children dance during the reception.
I don't know about anyone else's kids, but my girls LOVE to dance. It's like they have to dance or their bodies will self-combust. It's super fun to watch.

We have had a hard time getting our girls to take respectable pictures with us, so we've settled on a compromise. First we take a nice picture:
Then silly faces:
A nice picture:
Silly faces:
Look! It's like high school all over again...except Nena and I are married and have kids and Mel's in a wedding dress.
Why is Ebeth laughing so hard? Because Evan is singing "It's a Wonderful World" in his Louie Armstrong voice. She was belly laughing at him.
At around 9:45, while dancing to a slow song with her Papa, Julia crashed and called it a night. She'd been dancing for a good 1.5 hours.
Congrats to you both Mel and Scott! We had a fabulous weekend and you two throw an awesome party!!!!!

Back on the Wagon

Hi. It's me and I am back.

Miss me? :)

Dude, I haven't blogged in so long that I don't know where to begin. I guess I could tell you how the move to Texas has been.

It's been hot. Super hot. Break records as the second hottest summer in San Antonio on record hot.

We left in July for Texas and it was the LONGEST TWO DAYS OF DRIVING EVER.

I rode in the car with our two drugged up cats while Evan drove with the girls. The first night we planned on staying in Amarillo, TX and got in around 9:30 only to find out that Amarillo is the only city that has hotels in a good 200 mile radius. Everything that would except cats was booked. We were ready to have to sleep in our cars for the night (I am not kidding) when a very nice man at a Holiday Inn that had rooms but would not let us bring our cats into the air conditioned hotel (it was in the 90s even at 10:00 at night) said he found one "inn" that had a room for us. You know how in the vacation comedy movies (like all the National Lampoon vacation movies) the characters end up in some backwards hotel that there is no way anyone in their right mind would actually stay in? Yeah, we totally stayed in one. The room smelled like an old Moose Lodge, the air conditioning didn't work, the other guests were all pretty sketchy, etc., etc. We made it through that horrific night and made it to my sister's house the next day around 7:00PM and thanked her endlessly for her clean house and her air conditioning that worked properly.

We stayed with my sister and her husband for almost exactly one month. And while we were so appreciative of their hospitality, I am a pregnant mom and needed a place of my own. I won't get into the details of how every time I called the housing office on base they would tell me I was a different number on the wait list (sometimes 9th, sometimes 14th or 15th) and it got to the point where i would cry whenever I had to talk to them. I will tell you that, after almost exactly a month, we got the call that a house on base was available. Oh, and they wanted to know if it was ok that it was a 4 bedroom instead of a 3 bedroom. We said we could live with that.

So, we moved in to our new house exactly a week before we were to leave for a 12 day trip to Illinois.

I won't lie, I am not a Texas fan yet. It is too hot to outside and there are no mountains. I could forgive them the mountains if the weather would stay out of the 100s for longer than a day. Unfortunately, the girls feel the same way. When Julia gets overly tired or is upset, one of the first things she says is she wants to go back home to Colorado. Her "real" home. It makes me cry every time she asks.

But, now that we're back from our Illinois vacation, I am determined to make this place "home". Our house is beautiful inside. All wood floors and lots of rooms for everyone. I am almost done with the downstairs living area (with the exception of the office/guest room, which is now a dumping spot for things we don't know where to put yet) and the girls rooms are set up with the exception of pictures on their walls. We're back to setting up a routine similar to what we had going on in Colorado and I am hoping we'll get to where this place is where we most want to be.
We've done a tiny bit of exploring (when the weather was under 100 degrees) and we definitely plan on doing more as we watch the temperature drop for "autumn".
My parents are coming in early November and our lovely friends Kim and Chris are coming for Thanksgiving with their lovely daughter Kayleigh. We have school and work and dance classes and a baby growing in my belly who will be born in the Army hospital 10 minutes from our house.

So, that's kind of where we are right now. Trying to get ourselves rooted here in this oh-so large state. Thankfully, we now have internet, so I will be blogging more again.

Denver Aquarium

One of the other things we did while Jana and Keith were visiting us in June, was go to the Denver Aquarium. My lovely friend Rachel and I had planned on taking a trip to the aquarium as one of our summer field trips and it turned out the best day to go was on Julia's birthday.

I must warn you that we are kind of spoiled by Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. It is enormous and you could easily spend an entire day there and not see everything. It is one of my favorite places in Chicago. Not that the Denver aquarium wasn't nice, but it was kind of pricey for not being near as large as I'd expected it to be for a big city. (So definitely try to find coupons and deals before going.) Rachel had one of her kids, the little girl she babysits and 3 of her siblings with her. We had Jana and Keith with us, so we were able to all get in at a group rate (10+ people), which helped out the price.

The aquarium starts off with local fresh fish that live in the Colorado river. Then you "follow" the river to the ocean.




I've never seen a starfish hug something before. Well, except in Finding Nemo.

Um, there were tigers at the aquarium...yeah, it was odd...
Unfortunately, my camera died in the middle of this field trip. I was very irritated with myself about that. Overall, it was the perfect amount of time for a short field trip. We ate lunch at the restaurant they have in the basement of the aquarium and the food was pretty good, but the fish exhibit in the middle of the restaurant was gorgeous. Julia had a lot of fun, and since it was her birthday, I am thankful. If we were still living in Colorado, I wouldn't be making a second trip to this aquarium, but am glad that we did check it out.

A little bit of catch up.

I realized that, due to my all day being pregnant sickness throughout June, I neglected to tell you about some of the things we did before we moved to Texas. So, since my camera cord is packed in some warehouse and I can't download my pictures until I unpack it (dude, I am so mad that I forgot that thing!!), you will just have to enjoy some Colorado pictures until I can share Texas with you.

Evan's parents came to visit us in June. They surprised the girls by showing up to see Elisabeth's dance recital and stayed through Julia's birthday. While they were here, Jana found this place to visit:

Rock Ledge Ranch is located in The Garden of the Gods and I hadn't even heard of it before!!!

As they explain so nicely on their website:

The Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site is an educational, non-profit living history farm and museum that depicts life in the Pikes Peak region in four time periods: American Indian area in 1775; 1860’s Galloway Homestead; 1880’s Chambers Home and Ranch; 1907 Edwardian Country Estate.

The girls loved it. Elisabeth was most interested in the volunteers dressed up in the time period of the house they were representing. She asked lots of questions and watched the demonstrations in awe.


Julia liked being able to touch and explore. She was in love with this "house".

In fact, she didn't want to leave and was most upset when we had to move on, which you can see in the picture below.


Elisabeth wanted to be one of the children who got to dress in the time period and give tours of the houses. I could totally picture her playing that role.








This is definitely a place I'd recommend taking your kids. Both my girls loved it, despite their age differences. There were lots of trails and open spaces to run around, a little grocery that sold nickel candy and sodas, and very interesting demonstrations. I really wish we'd have discovered it sooner because they offer tons of events throughout the year.