mall of america & our anniversary weekend

A couple weeks ago we decided we needed a break so we decided to go to Mall of America. It landed on a perfect weekend because on Saturday it was our anniversary. So Saturday morning we got up early and drove to Minnesota. This was on our list of places to go this summer since it is only 4 hours away. We arrived pretty soon after the mall opened. The mall is HUGE! There are 4 levels full of shops and restaurants and in the center there is an amusement park. It was very fun. We spent Saturday shopping, eating (at Wolfgang Puck express, Luke's favorite) and taking Jack on rides. Luke was determined that we were going to walk the entire mall and we did. We weren't really there to shop much so we got through the entire mall in a full day. That is with going into every store we wanted too, so we made good timing. Later in the afternoon we decided to give Jack a break of being in his stroller and head to the amusement park and Lego Land.

I love this picture of Jack, he is so expressive. This is him telling me how scary the dinosaur is.

Playing with lots of legos

The amusement park is all Nickelodeon themed. It was Sponge Bob's birthday so they had the world's largest cupcake there and handed out cupcakes. Yum. (By the way I hate Sponge Bob and pretty much every other Nickelodeon cartoon.)

They had a lot of rides for Jack to go on. This was his favorite. The cars were on a small track but they would go slow on the straight parts and whip around the corners. It made me sick just watching it so Luke was such a good dad and took him on it a few times. It was pretty funny to see Luke try to fit on the kid rides.

Jack was hilarious on the ride. When it would whip around the corners Jack would roll his eyes and lean on Luke and say Whoa. He loved it.

I took Jack on the hot air balloons and got Jack to raise his arms and not hold on, he felt very brave.

I love this picture.

On the bus that goes up and around.

We decided to leave the mall for dinner so we could get back to the hotel and take Jack swimming. So we went to Macaroni Grill for our anniversary and then headed back to the hotel. We took Jack swimming, which he loved and then went and put Jack to bed. Luke and I were very excited because the hotel had Angels and Demons on pay-per-view. We have been dying to see it and haven't been able to go to the theatres to watch it. So we spent a wonderful night eating dessert and watching Angels and Demons. We loved the movie, although it was so different from the book! So all in all we had a very good anniversary.
Sunday we woke up and headed back to the mall for a few hours. I didn't bring my purse or camera in so that we could all ride rides together. We took Jack on a log ride, that he was barely tall enough to go on, and he is tall for a 2 year-old, so it was a little bit scary for him. He actually did pretty well, it had a couple of really big drops that even made me nervous, so I was just glad he didn't freak out. He liked it but did not want to go again. We had a fun morning going on the rest of the rides and hitting the rest of the shops we wanted to go in. Then by the afternoon we were ready to head home. So it was a quick trip but it was nice and relaxing.

Oh yeah and Happy 6th Anniversary to us!! We have been married 6 wonderful years and can't wait for many more to come!

7/18-7/19

the melt down

I'm not gonna lie this Summer has been hard.
Sure we have done some fun things and we have gone places that we have never been before, and had some great weekend trips, but the everyday grind hasn't been very bearable. Luke works 60+ hours a week and Jack and I have a hard time finding things to keep us entertained (with trying to spend not a lot of money) . We feel like we have been camping for the last 2 months, and Jack & I have been in isolation this Summer. We haven't had much interaction with others at all. But we are surviving and we only have 4 more weeks left! We are dying to get back to our townhouse. We are going to feel like we are living in a mansion.

Anyways, I just wanted to remember this story so we can laugh about it in the future. A couple weeks ago Luke and I were hanging out after we had put Jack to bed when we hear our neighbor out in the hall. She is crazy. She is in her 50s and a bit on the wt side. She was out in the hall screaming the f word and yealling about ho knows what. Then we hear a knock on our door. There was no way in H we were going to open the door and have to deal with her. We want nothing to do with her problems. I guess her and her daughter had gotten in a fight and her daughter came and "beat the crap" out of her, and stole her money, and her car. That is what we heard through the walls at least. But we kind of sighed and counted down the days till we moved and I thought again to myself that we would survive. Then I walked into the bathroom and as I went to walk out I saw this........

This picture does not do this monster justice. This spider was the biggest spider I have ever seen, and it was in my house. So I jumped up on the tub and started yelling for Luke and I was freaking out. Luke came in and got the spider. It took him a few tries, the spider was fast too. But as this all was happening I just had a meltdown. I am usually pretty good to not cry (or at least not cry in front of Luke) because he is working so hard for our family and he doesnt need me freaking out. But I couldn't help the tears this time, Luke came in the bathroom and I was up on the tub crying. Luke felt bad and told me that we would go home the first of August. I felt so bad. Luke got the spider flushed, and I calmed down and after a few minutes and later that night we were able to laugh about the whole thing. I told Luke I would be fine and we would stay through August and make the extra money that we need.

Anyways the whole point to this story is that this whole meltdown made me realize what is important in life. I will survive this and all the rest of the trials we have to go through because I have such a great husband. I am so greatful for how hard he works for our family. These last couple of years have been very trying at times, but yet we have had the best of times too. I know that we have to put in these hard times to give our family a better life so I know it is worth it. But there is no one I would rather be stuck with in Cedar Rapids, Iowa than Luke and Jack. I love them and they make each day worth it!

(P.s. I should also say that this has nothing to do with Luke's job. He actually really likes it and we feel EXTREMELY blessed that he has it. He doesn't have to work 60 hours he chooses so we can help our situation out a little more.)

our jack jack

I have been wanting to write a post just about Jack for a while now, because he is so much fun right now. It is so fun everyday to see the things that he thinks of.

He loves to give Woody shoulder rides and gallop around the house.

His is such a funny eater. His favorite foods are tomatoes (seriously he will even eat them like a apple), hard-boiled eggs, oh ya I have also taught him to LOVE candy.

He still loves cars, but he has also grown to love trains, animals, and dinosaurs right now.Since he doesn't own any trains he is always turning his cars into one, hey it works right? We finally took him in again for a hair trim. We couldn't bear to cut off any of his curls so we just got it cleaned up. I think he is very handsome.

He loves to read books. His favorite book right now is The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. He has the whole book memorized. He also loves the book Are You My Mother. Everytime we are outside and he sees a bird or other animal, he always says in a sad voice, "looking for their mom?" and acts all concerned. Too funny.

It has really become clear to me since we moved to Iowa that we couldn't have asked for a better boy, it makes me tear up just thinking about it. He has been such a good sport about how he we are living right now. He had to switch from his bed into a port-a-crib which he doesn't fit so well in and he still is a great sleeper. He hasn't had much friend interaction since we have been here but he is such a good sport to make friends wherever we go. The other day we went to the park and there was a group of daycare kids there and he just made himself right at home with them. When they had to line up, he would go get in line, he followed them around and tried to fit right in with the "big" boys. He also went right to his new nursery without even turning back to say goodbye. He has a limited amount of toys here but he is always finding new ways to play with them. He is SO laid back. (it would be nice if some of that could rub off on his mom) It would be really hard to be moving and traveling as much as we do if he wasn't such a good sport. We couldn't LOVE him more.

good bye

This is a picture of Chicago as we were driving back home. Sad. We really fell in love with this city while we were there. It is our favorite big city that we have been too so far. It was so clean and beautiful. Goodbye Chicago!!! It is going to tempt us the rest of the summer, since we can get there in 3 1/2 hours! Thanks for coming out and showing us a good time Neils & Jill-love ya!

chicago days 2,3, & 4

Saturday on the 4th, we got up and got ready to head to Wrigley Field. The subway drops you off right by the stadium, it was fun to see for the first time.

We had to go and get all our Cubs gear before the game.

Oh cute.

Grandma got sick and couldn't go to the game, how awful!!! We missed her.

We had great seats! The weather was cooler which felt great.

You can't got to a baseball game without getting a hotdog.

Play ball.

The band

We had so much fun at the game. Wrigley Field is so relaxing, I even took a short nap, not because I was bored but because it was so relaxing, with the cool breeze on us.

Jack looked so cute!

Bye Cubs, until next time. I am SURE there will be a next time. (Luke is already trying to plan the next trip)

Saturday night we left Jack with Grandma and Luke, Neils, and I got to go have a peaceful dinner! We don't get to do that very often!


The next day we decided to get up and go on a architectural boat tour. The boat takes you down the river and shows you a lot of history.

It was a pretty hot day!

Jack was entertained the whole trip by playing with Gpa's phone.

There are so many different types of architecture in Chicago. It was very interesting to learn how it all came to be and all the different styles.

We didn't get a chance to go to the institute of Art, so I made Luke take a picture of this. One day we will have to go when we don't have a crazy 2 year old!
Monday we got up and went down to the Magnificent Mile. The streets are just lined with stores. There is some great shopping down there! Luke's parents stayed down there for a while and then they had to leave to catch their plane :( We were sad to see them go, we had a wonderful trip with them, it was so nice to see family!!!
I was dying to go to the American Girl store. I called Haylee when I was inside and she was so excited! I can't wait to send her the surprises I picked up for her. The little girls inside were darling with their dolls. One day....We also went to the Hershey and Ghirardelli shops. We got one of the best chocolate shakes I've ever had at the Ghirardelli shop.

chicago

Day one- yes, there will be a MAJOR picture overload!

Last Thursday we headed out of town to Chicago for the weekend. Luke's parents flew in Thursday night and we both arrived at our hotel about the same time that night. We stayed at The Palmer House. It was right downtown in a perfect location.

Grandma surprised Jack with a Cubs Mr. Potato Head. He loves it.

It was late but we had to go out and check out the town. Jack was amazed by all the tall buildings.

Of course our first stop was deep dish pizza. It was delicious. There is nothing like deep dish pizza at midnight. The next day we got up and headed over to Shedd's aquarium. It was a lot of fun. It was a pretty impressive aquarium with sharks, whales, penguins and all sorts of fish. Jack loved it, he could have watched the sharks for hours. He got to dress up like a penguin and play on the ice playground and got some fun new shark toys from Gma & Gpa.

The view from outside the aquarium. Lake Michigan is absolutely beautiful. It is like you are at the ocean.
After the aquarium we headed over to the Taste of Chicago. Every year restaurants from all over Chicago gather together at the Taste of Chicago. They set up booths and you purchase tickets that you can go around and sample food from all the different restaurants. It was so yummy. As you can tell we ate a lot, this was only the first round. Our favorites were the homemade potato chips from Harry Carays and the sausage deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's. The cheesecake from Eli's was pretty good too. Jack kept putting everything in his shark and eating out of the mouth. He is silly. Then we took a walk down by the lake and got some fresh fruit. I could really see myself owning a yacht on Lake Michigan one day....... :)Then we took a water taxi over to Navy Pier.My favorite part about Navy Pier was Garret's Popcorn. I am still thinking about it. You have to try the Chicago mix, cheddar cheese popcorn mixed with caramel corn. Oh my. Of course Jack found the build-a-bear and convinced Gpa that he HAD to have one. Gpa was excited because he had never done the whole build-abear experience. He got a dog named Wrigley, it is his new best friend. Then we wanted to go on the ferris wheel but it was closed so we went on the swings.Jack drove the toy boats.Picture on Navy Pier overlooking the city.Then we headed over and got a spot for firworks. They do the fireworks on the lake and it was quite the show.On our way back to our hotel. There were so many people down town after the fireworks!!! I think they said on the news that there was a million people down there, crazy.So this is just the end on day 1! Looking at all the pictures even makes me tired! We had a packed day but it was so much fun!