Summer Fun at the Sprayground!

We had fun today meeting Traci, Katie & Bethany at the "Sprayground" at a Bloomington park! Bethany and Abby are both from Zhuzhou, Hunan and are only 3 days apart in age. Traci traveled with us to meet the girls in January, 2004 ...

Happy 9th Birthday, TJ!

TJ had a fun few days celebrating his 9th birthday! On Sunday, he had best-buddy Jared out for a boat ride. We went to dinner Monday night at one of his favorite places, Pizza Ranch. Then we were too full from dinner to eat his birthday treats when we came home, so we held those off until Tuesday night. Not bad, stretching those birthday celebrations out over 3 days!

This year TJ wanted a "big cookie" instead of a cake ... so I made a 9x13 pan of chocolate chip cookie bars. Last night the kids had fun topping the cookie with ice cream, chocolate sauce, carmel sauce, whipped cream, nuts and cherries! Abby treated TJ to a very special and unique rendition of "Happy Birthday" and TJ sat there like a typical 9 yr old big brother, not sure if it was cool to smile or not. HA

The slide show at the top has pics of the boat ride and the cookie feast! The You Tube video below is Abby singing to her big brother!

If the You Tube screen below won't play for you, you can see the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXcJX-krkd0

July 4th in Peoria

We usually sit on the dock at the marina and watch the fireworks from there, but last night we ventured to downtown Peoria to take in the riverfront activities. Listened to a favorite band and enjoyed dinner at Old Chicago ... finished up just in time to walk out and see the fireworks. Nice display, very beautiful ... but then it took an hour to get out of traffic! Oh well, it's once a year, right? :-)

Cell phone camera to the rescue again! We were up on a deck outside the restaurant and could look right down on the barge on the river that was launching the fireworks. Great spot! I heard there were 200,000 people on the riverfront last night and I think we were behind them all driving home!

Beautiful Weekend, Beautiful Sunset

It was a gorgeous weekend, which offered us some family time at the marina. This beautiful sunset greeted us when we were heading back to the boat from dinner Sat night ... who says you have to be at the ocean to see the most beautiful sunset ever?

The orange and reds that were in the sky and reflecting on the river reminded me of one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, when we were on a sunset catamaran cruise in Maui three years ago. This one was definitely up there in the most gorgeous I've seen! I wish I would have had a better camera with me ... these were just taken with my cell phone, but still show how beautiful it was.