The last leg - Pie and Green Bay

After a long and torturous drive through Chicago - which is now on my worlds worst cities list (for now I'm very upset with it) we arrived in Green Bay later than we had hoped.
Why? you ask.
Why was this such a terrible drive? Why the hostility toward Chicago?
I'll tell you why.
-for turning a six hour drive into an eight hour drive
-for having such horrendous traffic that you broke the longest no puking streak we have ever been privileged to enjoy (question? see this!). There had been no puking on the trip up to this point! And just to make up for that it was projectile, all over my seat, snacks and activity bags on the floor, and Princess' favorite blanket! It was horrendous!
-for letting traffic continue so much longer, that after sitting in the puke stink for about an hour we were forced to sit in it another hour because the kids had JUST fallen asleep when the traffic FINALLY let up
-for poor Princess dry heaving from said puke smell (Seriously, you want to see something adorably pathetic? Just imagine it!)
-for turning one long day of driving into such a long day of driving as to mar our otherwise perfect (besides the whole gun thing) trip
-for reminding me what I hate about vacations, something I had avoided up to this point in my married life, horrifically long miserable drives that suck the fun and excitement out of whatever your going to do that you just don't care any more. All you care about is getting out of the stinking car!
-for a horrific view of a concrete jungle for our entire horrible drive through your ugly ugly traffic clogged city.

Chicago you may make it up to me one day, but it will take a lot of toe kissing on your part. A LOT!

Deep breath . . . And now we're with Pie. Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday morning with Pie

Pie's famous trail
Pie's secret entrance

There is this lovely trail around the river by Pie's apartment it runs the entire length of the city, and then some. It is the most wonderful thing. It is so beautiful. There's a little duck pond with ducks and bunnies, ferns and other delightful greenery, and best of all a canopy of trees. This trail runs right behind Pie's old building (she has since moved into a wonderful new home :)), and she walked it so often that she claimed it as her own. I absolutely adored it!

Our first stop was the fun little cafe/bakery that Pie works at.
She had a great little surprise cooked up for us.
She had made each of the kids their own special cupcake

Princess got adorable flowers and bugs

The boys each got awesome light saver cupcakes

Mithradir didn't get a cup cake, yet, but he got an amazing topper
LOTR elf travel cape clip, SO COOL!

On our way to Bay Beach Park we stopped at a nature preserve and went on a very nice walk. But there weren't many animals. Apparently we found the wrong entrance.

This is the little toad we saw, is that an animal?

and the box turtle that was in the parking lot when we went back to our car.

The kids thought the turtle was so cool.

After our uneventful nature walk we went to Bay Beach Park, that was totally awesome. There were tons of great rides for the kids, there were no lines, not to many people, and it was very cheap. We loved it!

The giant slide was our favorite, we all road it about three times. Cause it was so cheap :)

The next day we went to the zoo. It was great. The kids all found a favorite statue. They also insisted on spending the last few minutes before the zoo closed playing on the play ground, like they've never seen one of those before. What can I say, they love play grounds.

We had such a great time visiting Pie. The food was excellent, the new house is adorable, and of course the company was superb. Plus I got to stay up all night long talking to a sister. Which helped a lot with the withdrawals. Love you Pie!

The next day we drove to Milwaukee, flew to SLC, and then drove home. It was nice, uneventful (mostly except getting lost in Milwaukee and almost missing our flight, great times!).
Even though the kids slept all the way home from the airport the boys crawled straight into their beds and slept all night. They were so excited to be home, and be in their own beds.

It was a great trip. We had a wonderful time, saw wonderful things and wonderful people. I love good family vacations. There is really nothing like them.
We even experienced some miracles, we didn't loose anything, nothing bad happened (not actually anyway), no one got sick - even when we got home, everyone had a good time, and we still love each other.
Success. Which is the magic word for 'quit while your ahead'.
So we'll retire our wandering shoes for a nice restful summer, until next week :)!

And that brings us to the end of the world's longest conglomerate of vacations blogs EVER!
Ok fine, so I didn't check ALL the blogs in the world. But definitely the longest for this blog.
Goodnight!