Illinois Trip

Greetings everyone! The Wilson family is back from our trip to Illinois to visit friends and family. It was a very long (did I say long?) drive, but it was worth it - we had a really good time on our trip.

Since our road trip to AZ was somewhere around 13 hours, we decided to break our Illinois road trip into 2 days because it was a 15 hour drive. Ryan wasn't so happy the way there, but was better on the drive home. Poor little guy was still recovering from a week long stomach bug that he was sick with before we left for vacation.

On our trip we spent a lot of time with friends and family. We ate and we ate and we ate - sometimes it seemed like that was all we were doing! Derek wanted to make sure that he ate at all of his favorite places back home. We ate at this one pizza place 4 or 5 times!

We were surprised by the rainy weather and unfortunately it put a damper on some of our plans. There were lots of bugs and Sean was amazed by the lightening bugs. Daddy also caught a couple of frogs. It rained all day long on July 4th. Thankfully we had seen fireworks the night before so we were set! Sean really enjoyed watching the fireworks and Ryan was unsure. He never really cried, but would whine off and on and kept looking to me for assurance that everything was okay.

The boys enjoyed going to the zoo, a farm park, and playing with all of the fun toys at Grams and Gramps house. The first couple of days Ryan was crabby, but once he caught up on his sleep he was a sweet boy. Sean wanted his Aunt Megan to play with him from the moment he woke up until it was bedtime. I'm sure she was tired, but it was a nice break for me! :-)

Mommy and daddy enjoyed several nights away from the kids including dinner and a movie with friends, a really nice surprise hotel stay from Grams and Gramps, and a dinner out to a Hibachi grill with the adults. It was really nice to have some "adult" time and the boys loved staying with Grams, Gramps, and Aunt Megan while we were away!

Derek's sister Monica and her husband Ryan who live in Wisconsin were able to come down the Thursday night before we had to leave. It was nice to spend time with them too!

On the last day of the trip before we left, we had an early 1st birthday party for Ryan at Gram's and Gramp's house. It was so much fun and I still can't believe that he is already 1! More info on that in the next post!