I'm a little behind in postings. Why? One word.
SOCCER.
Soccer has taken over at the Hoke house. Between both boys, we are at the soccer fields M-Th, we have Friday off, then have games on Saturdays & Sundays. I'm wondering if they'll give us our own parking spot since I'm starting to feel like we live there? Oh well. The boys seem to be having fun with it, and that's all that matters.
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| Ryan |
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| Brandon (in the red hat) |
PICTURES...
Business has been really good for me! The weather is starting to get nice & everyone is coming out of hibernation. As always, I'm enjoying the ride for as long as it lasts. It still doesn't feel like work to me, and as long as it continues to stay that way I'll keep doing it! Besides that, I continue to meet the most amazing people! :)
SPRING BREAK... Ya, I'm really late posting about this, but y'know, better late than never. (and note: the first half of the vacation's pictures are missing from this post. I took them with my little point & shoot. I cannot find the adapter to download the pictures into my laptop, so until I do, you'll just have to imagine the pictures that should be with parts of this post! The pictures you DO see are from my other camera, which is big & bulky to carry...but really does get the job done nicely.)
We decided not to do the "big" vacation this year. Mike had to work the first weekend of the kids' break, so that sort of limited us on where we could go. We opted to stay somewhat close. We thought about taking the kids to an indoor water park in Ohio (The Great Wolf Lodge), but because it was "spring break time" in the local areas, they decided to jack up their prices. Well, I don't play that game. We had wanted to take the kids up to Chicago to explore some museums anyway, so we thought we'd look for water parks around there. We found some in the Wisconsin Dells area, and weirdly enough, the prices were super low! We drove about 5 hours north to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and stayed at a resort that included an indoor water park & riding stables. HOW FUN!!
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| Ready to hit the water park! |
We got a great deal on a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, full kitchen/dining room suite. The kids thought they were big stuff because they had their own room. It was nice that we weren't all tripping over each other. And, you know it's a good sign that the room is large when you yell, "where are you??!" We all but had the water park to ourselves. I think at the most, there were maybe 20 other people in there as well. We asked at the restaurant if this place is always this dead. The waitress told us that we got here in their down time between spring break & their peak season. Mental note: do this again next year! After swimming & water-sliding to their heart's content, we explored the riding stables. All 4 of us got a horse, and took a 45-minute ride through some neat trails. Brandon thinks he's an expert rider now. I thoroughly enjoyed riding -- except later in the day, I realized that I do, indeed, have the world's boniest butt. (ha!) I literally had the cowboy walk down pat that evening. I think I bruised my butt bones! LOL! All bruising aside, we made some great memories that day. For dinner, we treated ourselves to the world-famous Gino's East pizza. They have one of these restaurants in downtown Chicago, and it's always a huge wait to even be seated, let alone eat. We opted for the WI version... and we walked right in! The pizza was enormous, but totally delicious. We all then, waddled back to the resort.
After spending a couple of days at the resort, we ventured down to Chicago. On our way, we stopped at the Jelly Belly Factory in Kenosha, WI. We took a tour & saw how the jelly beans were made, and the end of the tour dumps you out into the gift shop -- how convenient. Sort of like how most of the rides at Disney end at the gift shop! ;) Anyway, they had every flavor of jelly bean you could imagine... even some pretty gross ones. How gross? Well, I saw these flavors: Booger, Pencil Shavings, Vomit, Baby Wipes and Ear Wax. YUMM. I then wondered... how do they know what these things taste like? Did they actually have to EAT boogers & baby wipes to replicate these flavors? Ya, I think I'll pass on that job. ;) Anyway, the boys each made a custom bag of their favorite jelly beans. I swear, we didn't hear a peep out of them the rest of the way to Chicago -- they were too busy taste-testing all of the jelly beans. SCORE!!!
Once we got to Chicago, we stayed at my favorite hotel, the Palmer House Hilton. You could wander around this hotel for days & still probably not see everything. It's very ornately decorated, and just beautiful. The boys were in awe when we walked into the lobby!
Our goal while in Chicago? Take in as many museums as we could. And, we did! Thanks to a tip from a friend, if you buy a family pass to the Indiana State Museum (or any state museum) - which was only $59 for the 4 of us, we got free admission to: The Adler Planetarium, The Field Museum & The Museum of Science and Industry. We had also won tickets in a silent auction to the Shedd Aquarium. We were set!! That was the best $59 we ever spent!!
The first day we were there, we went to the Shedd Aquarium and saw all KINDS of neat sea creatures. For dinner, we took a cab (which the boys thought was SO cool - all while our lives flashed in front of us) to Ed Debevic's. Ed's is a unique diner where the waiters/waitresses are sassy, and it's acceptable to be sassy right back to them. When a certain song comes on, they all drop what they're doing and get up on the tables/bars and dance! It's always entertaining! The boys had a lot of fun.
The next day, we headed to the Field Museum, where Brandon got his fill of dinosaurs. He literally could've stayed there for a week and would've been content! After almost having to physically remove him, we headed to the Adler Planetarium. This was probably our least favorite, mainly because there wasn't much to see. But, it was still neat. We hit a sushi place for dinner, went back to the hotel & collapsed. Did I mention that we walked everywhere that day? 2 miles to the museums. All through the museums. 2 miles back. And did I also mention how we heard about it with every single step that Brandon took? So unlike him... ha!
On our last day, we checked out of the hotel and hit the Museum of Science & Industry on our way out of town. This has always been one of my favorites. However, we had to sort of rush through -- mainly because we were all in slow motion that morning & just couldn't get moving. And, because Mike had to be to work by 4pm! We saw some pretty cool things! The boys each got to manipulate a tornado - I think that was probably the most favorite thing.
We also went to the chick hatchery. That's always been one of my favorite things.
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| Chicks, man. |
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| They've gone digital! |
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| Photographic evidence that I was actually present on this vacation. I was figuring out whether or not to use the flash on my camera. Next time, I'll point it at my face. ;) |
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| This has always baffled me. It's projected images that accumulate ON you! |
After hustling through the exhibits, it was time to head home. It was a quiet ride home -- everyone was exhausted. Sign of a good vacation!!
