Portage, Indiana

This past week, Kevin had a training class for work in Portage, Indiana.  Benny and I were lucky enough to get to tag along for the week.  I was very grateful to have done NONE of the following for an entire week: vaccuum, mop, clean sinks, do laundry/fold laundry/put laundry away, dust, clean sinks, clean toilets, grocery shop, cook, load and unload the dishwasher, etc., etc.  All I had to do was take care of Benny and play!  While in this fine suburb of Chicago, I also had my birthday.  It was my last and final birthday in my 20s.  (aka, I turned 29.)  Yikes!  I'm getting old.

Here is a little of what we did for the week:

We went to the Bass Pro Shop.  You can meet this cute little fuzzy friend.

 

 

They had a big fish aquarium.

 

 

Lions, and tigers, and BEARS

 

the moose

 

Toasting by the fireplace.

 

Its true that visiting the Bass Pro Shop is quite a cultural experience.  For those of you that don't know, its a HUGE outdoor type store.  (Think rows and rows and rows of fishing poles.)  I did see that they had camoflauge onesies.  Perhaps a Benny essential item??  My favorite Bass Pro Shop item:  a recipe book titled "Kill It, Gut It, Eat It."  Takin' cookin' to the next level.

 

The Bass Pro Shop was such an amazing store that Kevin took me back the next night for my birthday dinner.  (Why yes, the Bass Pro Shop has a restaurant.)  Kevin is such a romantic, sweet, and thoughtful guy.  Ladies---be jealous.  He's taken.

 

They did have a really big salt water aquarium in the restaurant.

 

I had a delicious happy birthday apple pie and ice cream baked in a cast iron skillet.

 

Aside from the Bass Pro Shop (which of course was the highlight of the trip), we did some other fun stuff.  We went swimming!!!

 

Trying out the kiddy pool.

 

 

The big pool with Daddy!

 

 



Sometimes we just hung out in the hotel room.

 

 

 

During the day while Daddy was working, Benny and I went to a couple of different parks.  Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera, so we don't have pictures.  The first park we went to had a nice paved path that we walked and a playground.  The best park we went to was the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk.  The Riverwalk was a neat path build out over a river.  After we walked this path, we visited the Indiana Dunes National Park.  It had interesting landscape.  Very sandy and tall tough grass.  There was a trail---maybe a little over 1/2 mile long that took us to the Lakefront.  This was very pretty, and we had a perfect day for it.  We walked out on the pier and saw Chicago in the distance about 35 miles out.  Very sad I didn't take the camera with us.

 

All in all, we had a nice trip!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benny Goes Mobile!

The cat's out of the bag!  Benny can crawl!  That means I will be busy from here on out trying to get him away from the computer cord.  Who knew the computer power cord would be one of the most intriguing things for him to want of all time?!  Who needs toys?  Those are for babies.  Benny wants things he is not supposed to have.  Here is a video of him in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPQqiN-MXU&list=HL1348245406&feature=mh_lolz

Mr. Funny Guy

This week, Benny has seemed to grow and develop SO much!  He is a pro at being on his tummy and then moving up into a sitting position.  He crawls too!  If I put some highly desired item (like a phone---he loves phones), he will crawl a foot or two to get to it.  I'll make an official declaration of his crawling capabilities once he gets a bit more proficient, and we get a video of it.  (As soon as you get out the camera, he stops crawling to look at you and the camera.)  Gotta hold him to high standards!  I was feeding him Cherrios by the coffee table yesterday, and he pulled himself up to his knees clinging to the coffee table trying to get to the cherrios.

But, what is the the cutest?  He seems to know when situations are funny and is starting to initiate play.  One of our favorite games is 'stinky toes.'  I lay him on the couch, smell his feet, and pretend they are really stinky.  He thinks it is hilarious!  Well, now when we start to play, he sticks his toes under my nose by himself and starts to giggle.  Its too funny!  I'll have to try to get a video of him doing it.

Then, tonight when I was getting him ready for his bath he started to pee without his diaper on.  He was giggling uncontrollably.  (He's done it twice now) I'm curious as to whether he really knows that this situation is funny?  It sure seems like he is thinking, "I know I'm not supposed to do this!"  Anyway, I think he knows and understands quite a lot at this point.  No fooling this guy anymore.  He's a smart cookie.

When you get up in the morning, you gotta start playing right away!

Last weekend, we had Grammy and Grampie's 37th anniversary celebration at our house.

Callie assisted with blowing out the candles.  Benny assisted in eating the frosting.

Fair Fun, T.P., and Miscellaneous

As I said in the last post, we went to the fair on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.  Seeing the sheep is one of my favorites.

This is my Aunt Leila's horse named Julie.  She won first place in her class!

You can see Julie's ribbon in this photo.

A few days, I wanted to take a shower one night when Kevin was stuck at work late.  I thought I would put Benny in his bouncy seat, and he would be fine while I hurried through the shower.  We got into the T.P.  Weeeeeeee!  So much fun!

Guilty.

 

These last two pics were from mid-August.  Love the car on his cute butt.  He doesn't fit into those clothes anymore :(

You can't help but cover those cheeks with kisses!!!

 

Labor Day Weekend Fun

On Saturday of Labor Day weekend, our friend Adam took us out on his boat.  (Adam also owns the Camaro.  He has all the fun toys.)

 

We thought it might be a rainy day, but the weather turned out to be pretty nice.

Drying off after a swim.  It looks cloudy, but I still managed to get sunburned.  All around, a very fun day!  What was Benny up to while we were boating?  Don't worry, he had 5 babysitters.  Nana, Papa, Grammy, Grampie, and Cassandra.  I secretly think sometimes that he probably hopes we don't come back for a longer period of time.  He enjoys the completely undivided attention.  And, I wouldn't be surprised if Nana fed him ice cream for lunch.

 

We also went to the fair on Sunday.  I think we took a few pics.  I need to have Kevin upload them to the computer.  (Yes, I don't know how to do that myself.  I'm reasonably technologically ungifted....)