ODO: 3000+ miles Illinois

From Omaha, we drove to Chicago to see and stay with Julie.  The next day, we drove to Roanoke for lunch at Kelly's house and then on to Bloomington to see Nathan, his girlfriend Megan, Steve and Emily and their new baby Jonathan.  

Here's a pic of Kelly and Anthony (Anthony arrived home from work soon before we had to go).  The little boy on the left is Trevor, who Kelly babysits periodically.

Anthony painted his car camouflage and mounted a potato launcher on top.  This is legal in Roanoke, IL; he checked with the local police department.  The ignitor was broken, so Brady was a little disappointed to not play with this giant potato launcher.

Grammy Pammy / Aunt Pam holding baby Jonathan; Anna Belle really liked admiring him too.

Steve came home from work, changed clothes, and immediately offered to take my kids to the park.  Thanks Steve!  The kids loved it, and after dinner they even got a second trip to the park (with more cousins joining them).  After the second park trip, Brady came back with this lightning bug in his hand. I thought it was dead, but it showed some signs of life and actually lit up in his hand for awhile... bugs are so resiliant!  Uncle Rick had caught a lightning bug in his hand the night before; I know Brady was quite proud of himself.

I take, upload and select pictures in chronological order and they come out all over the place...  Again, I'm too lazy to fix it.  We spent the night at a hotel in Bloomington.  We were on the road by 4:05 AM the following morning, to start our 10 hours of driving.  We made really good time (partly because we didn't stop and go inside for breakfast and we strategically gave Brady very little to drink).  Construction delayed us an extra hour.  We made it to Little Rock by 2:00 PM and ate at the Flying Fish, which is in the riverside market area, right next to the Bill Clinton museum.  They had lots of fried food and fresh iced tea.

During our stay at Rick and Julie's, the kids got to ride the lawnmower with Rick.  Brady steered by himself, and actually did pretty well.  

We arrived in Chicago around 1:30 PM, I think.  We went to the Navy Pier for lunch and took a trip on the ferris wheel.  It was a fun break from the long car trip.

So, I'm in my new glasses a lot on this trip because I have pink eye in both eyes.  Between the Accutane induced dryness, Colorado dryness, driving, lack of sleep, etc., I should have seen it coming. I seem to only get pink eye on vacation, which seems strange to me. 

Anyways, the first pic has both the kids smiling, but I love how Brady's personality comes through on the second photo.

We chcecked into the Alpine Inn in Hot Springs, Arkansas at about 4:00 PM.  It's a really small place owned by a friendly Scottish couple.  Grammy found the suite for $90.  It includes a kitchen, table for 4, 2 rooms, 2 TV's, 3 queen beds, and a basket full of breakfast snacks / drinks.  Aside from that, I really like the decor and bedding.  The internet connection was pretty bad last night; I couldn't open up my blog page, let alone upload anything.  At 4:30 AM it's still pretty slow, but it's manageable.

Last, but not least, here's Steve playing with Brady and Anna Belle.