Home Leave 2015! Whitewater, WI - Chicago!

Staying in Whitewater put us just the right distance for road trips to Milwaukee, Madison, the Dells, and Chicago! The Pleva's planned a mini family reunion with Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, and all the new kiddos, outside Chicago one afternoon. 

Gramma Ruby's one wish for this visit with the granddaughters was to take them to the American Girl store in Chicago for brunch. All the girls, Piper, Kailey, Me, Jenny, and Gramma got all dressed up, with the appropriate dolls (or kitty), and headed down to Chi-Town!

Fancy girls with their friends

I have never been to an American Girl store. Wow. It was something! Piper had already decided she wanted a pet instead of a girl (I may have had a little something to do with that decision - have you seen how much those dolls are???) and she found the doggie section right away. 

We were seated for our brunch in a very large, elaborate room, complete with little high chairs, and tiny cups and saucers for the American girls that were joining us. 

It was quite the meal! We all very much enjoyed it!

After begging the grandparents to buy more accessories for the new doggie pets we visited the Lego store. Paul had a good time in here! 

Since we were in Chicago we had to walk down to Millenium Park to see the famous bean!

We even found a princess down there for Piper to take her picture with!

After our touring in the morning we had a great visit with all of Paul's extended family!

More Home Leave 2015 Posts:

- Home Leave 2015! Whitewater, WI

- Milwaukee Children's Museum and Boating
- Whitewater, WI - Summer Fun!
- Milwaukee Zoo

- Fourth of July
- Summer! Summer!

Turkmas in Chicago!

Our annual tradition of celebrating Turkmas (Turkey Day and X-mas), or as some others like to call it Thanksmas (Thanksgiving and X-mas), with Paul’s family was a little different this year. Instead of congregating in Iowa at Paul’s dad’s house we all rented a cabin in White Pines State Park about an hour outside Chicago. It was a very cozy Turkmas, with Paul and myself, his Dad and stepmom, his two brothers and their wives, plus new baby, all piled into the snug cabin, complete with Wii Fit and Mario Cart.

It was very nice to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner with his extended family living in the Chicago area. We got to spend time with his grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins that we don’t normally get to see very often. Since his cousins wedding was also the Saturday after Thanksgiving we got to see them twice even!

While it was quite cold outside, the inside of the little cabin was toasty warm and full of fun stuff to do – oogling over Kailey, baking cookies, playing with Kailey, setting new records on the Wii, and did I mention playing with the baby?

Here are a couple pics from our Turkmas celebration!

Midwest Road Trip!

Well, I’m not traveling to some far off, exotic place at the moment, but I am in Chicago, which is quite nice!  Paul and I are in the Midwest for a long weekend to attend our friends, Rinn and Peter, wedding in Dekalb, IL.   Before the wedding we’re visiting some friends in Chicago and after the wedding we’ll head to Platteville, WI to visit Paul’s mom.  

Paul’s roommate from college, Wes, and his partner Patrick live near Wrigley field in Chicago and we got to spend Friday and Saturday morning with them.  Luckily the rain broke for the majority of the afternoon so we were able to explore a bit of downtown Chicago.  Of course we had to go to Millennium Park and see the famous Bean!

It looks like the spaceship from the “Flight of the Navigator” landed in the middle of Chicago and we are all just waiting for the weird mercury like stairs to form and the cute boy to come out. 

We also visited the Hershey’s store!  Yum!  Five pound Hershey bars…what a great place.  And then took a trip to the Signature lounge on the 96^th floor of the Hancock Building to have a cocktail overlooking the city.