Catching Up

Well, summer break has returned which means lots of fun adventures for the Gillespie boys!  And with summer break comes just a little bit of free time for me, so that I can post the occasional blog about all our adventures.

The polar vortex really screwed up our school calendar this year, so we've only been on break for a week at this point, but we've managed to do a lot of fun things already.  I'll actually use this post to show off some pics from activities we did before school ended, and then post a Week 1 blog as well (mainly because I just have too many pics to put in one post!).

A few weekends ago, Ryan's cousin and his family stayed with us and we had a great time!  Our families went to Great America and Brookfield Zoo.

This was our first trip to Six Flags with the boys.  Here's Gav on his very first ride there, the double decker carousel.  We of course rode on the top level.

 Daddy and Declan on the carousel.  Dec wasn't as enthusiastic about the rides as Gavin was, but he did really enjoy the merry go round.

 Enjoying another ride in one of the little kid areas.

 Cruisin'

 Gav chauffered us around the crazy cars track.

 Selfie of Gav and I on the airplane ride.

 Gavin was obsessed with seeing as many characters as possible, which is funny since we haven't watched Bugs Bunny cartoons so he doesn't even know who these characters are!

 Just before Gavin's first ride on a "big boy" roller coaster, the Whizzer!

 When we asked Gavin how he felt after the Whizzer, he told us "my tummy feels like this" and then he made this face!  But he still said he liked it and he went on the Jetsons roller coaster later.

 Pettit cousins taking an ice cream break.

 Enjoying the boat ride is some nasty looking water that I had to plead with Declan not to touch.

 Gav wanted me to be in this picture with him and Scooby Doo.

 If you look closely, you can see Ryan and Gavin in the fourth car back.  This was the Jetsons roller coaster.

 Meeting Sylvester...

 ...and Daffy

 Declan was not nearly as trusting of the characters, so it took some convincing to get him to take this pic.  I however seem to be enjoying myself.

 Gav and Tweety Bird.

 The kids had a blast at Great America.  We got there at 10:30 and didn't leave til 5, which is quite a long day for a 4 and 2 year old.  

 We also went to the zoo with our "cousins."  Gavin is really into maps lately, and he was loving navigating our group around the zoo.

 Gav and Ella, our navigators.

We didn't take a lot of pics at the zoo because it was just Janelle and I with the five kids (the dads were golfing).  So although we had a ton of fun, we were too busy having fun to stop for pictures!