illinois trip - day 7 :: grandpa's park, dinner with the girls, rachael's house

tuesday, september 30

so who's up for a trip down memory lane? oh good. me too.

on tuesday afternoon of our illinois visit we all decided (and i'm so glad that we did) to take a little trip to great grandpa micky's park (my mom's dad) in batavia. well as i started looking through these pictures they started to remind me of some pictures i had taken at this same park with these same kids only the kiddos were a wee bit mini-er.

have a look for yourself...

kylee on tuesday (september 2008)

kylee in april 2007

jonah and kylee (and grandma peggy) in front of great grandpa's sign in sept 2008

jonah and kylee in front of great grandpa's sign in april 2007

jonah sitting by his sister's marker for her tree in sept 2008.

april 2007. what a little chunko! =)

this is one of my favorite comparisons... sept 2008

april 2007

sept 2008 - notice how the swing is tummy height

april 2007 - chest height

so was that fun, or what?! here's a link to the rest of the pics from 2007.

we had such a fun afternoon at the park as a whole family! here's aunt mowgy dangling jonah boy trecherously off the playground.

whew! safe!

have i ever mentioned that jonah loves to swing?


hey you nut!

whoa! molly, you're crazy!


jonah and grandpa dan playin' on the slide


molly: "no! i didn't push him! hard... hee hee hee..."

dude, nice fro.

ooohhh! look what we found in the grass near the playground! pretty "fly-fly"!

me and [d] getting artsy fartsy

oh my gosh! jonah looooved the butterfly on his arm! he was actually so excited to touch it and hold it that we had to reign him in so he wouldn't hurt it. this was his non-stop giggling "look everybody! there's a butterfly on my arm!" look.


grandma got to hold him too. grandma loves butterflies.

ok, let go now little guy. be free.

ahhh... there are those boys. playing my favorite outdoor catch type game... trak ball.

uh oh! jonah spotted them too. "lemme play guys!"

can i try, uncle tiger?

moo ah ah ah! you're never getting this ball back again!

sure i can throw it that far, uncle jeff! move back a little.

when munchkins attack...

we're outta here!

hey mama! i stole the ball!

ok, i'm ready for some more swingin' now, grandpa.




i just love that some good family friends of ours donated a tree in faith's name at my grandpa's park after she was born. that is one of the best gifts we received to help keep her memory alive. i just love visiting my baby girl's tree there! and now especially that we have jonah it's fun to see him running around and playing on the playground. i like "visiting" and having her memory there rather than in a graveyard. i know i share it all the time, but here's a picture of her marker from this trip.

daddy and jonah boy by faith's tree.

oh my gosh, these next few pictures bring tears to my eyes. jonah (with very little prompting) gave his big sister's tree a hug...

played "ah-perk" with her...

and gave her...

...a big smooch!

me and jonah by faith's tree


this picture absolutely cracks me up! i can almost hear my mom and sheridan yelling at jonah that it's time to go. look how cute and pouty he is. i don't even remember what was happening here, but that's how i picture it. "aw, do we have to go?"

i love this picture! it took some fruit snacks to get the little kids to sit still, but we managed to get an awesome picture of me and my siblings and our spouses and kids. very cool. i love you guys!

just a few final rounds of ring around the rosey before we all hopped in our cars.

gorgeous perfect sky on our crisp fall day at the park.

after the park i headed out to dinner with some girlfriends from church. i forgot to get the camera out while everyone was still there, but i managed to get pictures with a couple of my favoritest ccc blackberry creek peeps. here's sue, diane, me and rachey.

saucy.

diane and me. ok, here's a crazy story about me and diane. (remember the andrew saxer one?) this one's similar. apparently my mom and diane waaaay back in the day used to sell tupperware and longerberger baskets and have parties for each other and stuff. well i ended up serving in kids world at ccc when jonah was just a wee baby and i ended up serving in the nursery with diane (because as everyone knows she just loves to hold babies). so we got to talking one morning and since we had an hour and 15 minutes to kill and all we had to do was rock babies she asked me to tell her my life story. well part way in she stops me and is all "wait, is your mom peggy gurbal?" and i'm all "yeah" and she's all having cardiac arrest. tres funny. so apparently the last time diane saw me i was like 7 or something. needless to say i didn't really remember her, but how funny is that? come on, everybody... "it's a small world after all..."

so now we're the best of friends and i think diane is just about one of the sweetest funnest ladies alive and i love being able to see her when we come back and visit!

and again last but not least, my best friend and sometimes prom date, rachael.

after dinner rach and i headed back to her house where we were spending the night because rachael was driving us to the airport in the morning. my family was all there waiting for us and jonah even stayed awake to greet us. so sweet of him... hmmm... 10pm. isn't it past your bedtime mister?


hold on. i gotta drink.

ok, i'm ready to keep on partying!

who wants to karaoke!?

or play crawl through the tunnel?

or jump on uncle tiger?!

phew! what a fun day!

illinois trip - day 6 :: brookfield zoo & the saxers

monday, september 29

before i get into our crazy day i thought i'd share this picture of jonah and my parents' dog whitney. she's an old black cocker spaniel and jonah loved her. she's so mellow that she normally just let jonah pet her. sometimes she'd get tired of it and walk away, but overall she was pretty complacent about the extra attention.

ok so monday we had planned a trip to the zoo. with the forecast looking gloomy we decided to brave the elements and head out anyway. last time we were in town in april we had wanted to go to brookfield but a blizzard stopped us. this time the threat of a little rain wasn't going to hold me back!

so we loaded up our umbrellas and our sweatshirts and our strollers and headed out to see the animals! it was me, dave, jonah, my mom, my sister molly, my niece kylee and our friend karla and her son ian met up with us. what a soggy adventure it turned out to be!

right as we entered the zoo we stopped and bought jonah a sweet froggy umbrella (more on that sad story later) and a few ponchos.

i was finally able to bust out my camera when we got to the giraffe viewing hut. this giraffe really liked licking this tree.

this little guy was born on august 15, 2008! he's so little and cute! yeah, little... probably like 7 or 8 feet tall. =) giraffes are crazy!

ian, are you ready for a nap already?! we just got here!

jonah checking out the giraffes.

the fishy wall in the living coast.

kylee & molly on a giant turtle.

whoa! crush dude!

does it have a lever? then i need to touch it.

ooooooh... nemos! (jonah calls all fish "nemo").

jonah wouldn't go near this fish after it ate aunt mowgy.

hello mr. penguin.

my architectural feet in honor of diane dungey.

kylee and my mom on the peacock on the carousel.

ian and karla on a baboon. nice choice, ian.

this is the oh so cute froggy umbrella with the oh so cute hubby underneath it.

that's me! can you see me? this was a tricky pic to get with the carousel spinning. i got mad skills!

hi again!

[d] was feelin' hoppy.

mmm... cheetos. jonah pronounces them "chfips". i can't even spell it... or say it like he does. it's cute though. that's another one i gotta catch on video.

here we are! it stopped raining just long enough for us to get our traditional picture taken on the lion, but we decided to leave the umbrellas up for dramatic effect since that's where we spent our whole day.

hmmm... this picture makes me want to eat peanuts for some reason.

ok, so the sad umbrella story is that we left it in the bathroom right before we went running for the car. so sad. i need to call the zoo and see if some kind soul turned it in to the lost and found for us. hopefully they won't try to resell it because not four minutes after we purchased it jonah managed to skillfully drop it in front of the moving stroller, bending two of the spines and tearing a small hole in the top. so hey, maybe those defining characteristics will set it apart from all of the other lost froggy umbrellas and keep them from reselling it. but maybe it has since been thrown in the trash. but maybe the kind people at the zoo will take pitty on us and sell us a new froggy umbrella at half price. well, all you illinois folk, now you know what jonah would like for christmas. ok, he could probably care less, but i'm kinda sad about our new lost umbrella. =(

so other than the tragic froggy umbrella incident the whole morning was a success. we had oodles of fun seeing the animals and trying to stay dry. we ended up with some cold wet tootsies, but it was definitely an adventure to remember!

after the zoo and nap time dave and jonah and i headed out to our friend andrew and brianna's house. they got married last september (on jonah's birthday) and dave was the best man.

they just had new baby aj on september 16th (my sister molly's birthday, that makes it easy to remember!) here are his lil piggies...

jonah brought a whole load of his new birthday toys with to play with and i think andrew might have had more fun than jonah.

ok, maybe it was a tie.

andrew drew everyone's portraits.

ummm... andrew, no offense, but you might consider keeping your day job. bri is definitely not that mean in real life.


i think dave might have drawn this one of me because andrew's was too scary.

jonah's self portrait.

and i drew baby aj.

bri & me

did i mention that dave and andrew are twins. ok, so they don't have the same mother, but they very well could have been switched at birth. they were born on the same day at the same hospital and within like just a few hours of each other. aaaaand... as if that's not enough, i grew up across the street from little "andy" when we were kids. i moved in 2nd grade, but up until then we used to play together in each other's back yards. we were reunited in 2003 and didn't even recognize each other until the second time we met and i heard andrew's last name. then dave and andrew ended up working together and they've been best friends ever since. so is that crazy or what?!

the boys and their boys.

the saxers! awe!