Chicago Day1

Our day began around 5am in Denver. By this afternoon we were all tired. Bridger fell asleep in my lap from the airport to the condo rental. That was a disappoint since he had been waiting all day to see CHICAGO. We got into the condo and showed Bridger the outdoor pool. It was a difficult decision for him to pick swimming or the Star Wars movie that was on. He actually braved the chilly, windy day to sit at the edge of the pool.

It is a great view from the sundeck. We can see the John Hancock Bldg from the sundeck. The condo is on the small side compared to our home, but we will certainly make it do for the week. We wondered around for awhile near the condo. We found a Chili's and had dinner. We found a grocery store, an organic grocery store. The prices were a bit steep so we settled for breakfast stuff.

Tomorrow we plan to check out the "Taste of Chicago" and maybe on out to Museum of Science and Industry. It will also be the day we get to experience the EL(train) with Bridger. With all the walking around just tonight he asked if we couldn't just ride a bus.

It's a boring blog, I know, but maybe some good pictures tomorrow!!!!

Happy Birthday to Roger!!!

sunday am

Ah Sunday! Wish I could sleep past my weekday wake-up time. We went to an anniversary party last night. It was for a colleague of Darin's. They were celebrating their 15th. The husband's family has a restaurant called "Goose Egg Inn" on Goose Egg Road, which is several miles from town on Hwy 220. They had their party there on an outside patio. They chose luau for their theme. I wish we would have taken the camera. Bridger had so much fun dancing.

At first he was a little reluctant and commented people were staring at him when he was on the plywood dance floor. They had tried to screw several sheets of plywood down into the asphalt to create the dance floor. Darin willingly got up with him to dance and I guess I was a little bashful at first, but later on the 3 of us were regulars on the dance floor. Bridger asked one of the young women teachers to dance quite often. She was a great sport. He started following her around and I overheard him ask her if she could tell him any stories? Don't know what that was about. Bridger somehow learned the Macarena dance at Summer Camp this last week. Towards the end of our evening there he got to prove he could do it. He also went out without either of us and did some hip-hop adult line dance. Like I said, I wish we would have remembered the camera. I once tried to pick him up and dance with him in my arms, but he weighs 60 lbs now! Forget that!


Mom and daughter in North Dakota on top of a blockhouse. Mom-we are flying to Chicago. I imagine our little bird will get tired flapping his wings! We leave Mon night for Denver and fly out Tuesday am.

More of the "I don't know what these flowers are".

I obviously didn't get this picture rotated. So rotate your head.

I know now I will hear from Daddy-O and Judi! By the way, Roger has a birthday on Tuesday!

remote boat

Bridger's friend, Ian, got him this remote control boat for his birthday. We hadn't gotten it out yet because we had been waiting to meet Ian at the lake. We decided no time was like the present and got it out this week. Darin got the wading pool out, filled it and let Bridger float his boat. I love the killer whale in there also. Bridger tried out a few things as passengers, but settled on his lego Star Wars people. He let Darth Vader "steer". We also went out to the boat club for dinner Thurs. We let him take the boat and manuever it around the boat docks. Doesn't it look "small" compared to the real boats? We had hoped to find Ian at their lake house, but no such luck. We have since heard from the family they will be there this weekend.

Darin was channel surfing last night and I noticed the WGN channel which is a Chicago channel. I asked him to stop and checkout the news. I thought we could at least see the weather report next week. It was actually "rewarding". Weather will be on the cool side possible rain a couple of days. There were highlights of the Cubs/Soxs game. It showed Taste of Chicago highlights and we saw how much the tickets would be (helpful). They also mentioned South Dakota for their bad weather yesterday. Rapid City had 85 mph winds. I noticed also Grand Forks should be getting bad weather. I pointed out the Chicago Skyline to Bridger and he remarked, "Mommy, that is the tallest building (Sears Tower)". He recognized it from the antennae things. Here is trivia-Did you know that Sears Tower will more than likely be renamed. There is an uproar over a London Insurance Company buying the building and having naming rites. They want to change the name to their name. I can't remember what it is other than it starts with "W".

Maryhelen-Thank you for the input on Transformers. I had read the reviews which are not good at this point. I am curious about the reviews from the other recent movie. We sure enjoyed that one. Considering the line around the building I am guessing most movie-goers take those reviews with a grain of salt. And yes, majority of people in line were adult.

Does anyone know where June went?

bush stumps

Darin has been fairly busy so far this summer. Last weekend he tried using the truck with a logging chain to pull stumps from out of ground along the driveway. One wouldn't budge. So this week he surprised me with all three in the front being out of the ground when I got home one night. He started on the backyard ones yesterday. He toils with the shovel and pick axe. Evergreen roots are not especially deep, but they see to produce many roots quite long. Yesterday we were high 80's or into the 90's and today into the 90's. It was a work-out for sure.

Darin came home last night from fire drill and announced he had the fastest time for their 45 lb backpack 3 mile hike test. He was up against the young-uns who are in their 20's. He was pretty pleased with himself. He laid out the course and I know he wouldn't have made it easy. If someone didn't pass then they wouldn't get certified. Oh yeah, he did that hike in 38 min.

Bridger and I had an easy night of it in contrast. I thought we might go see the new Transformer movie. We drove by the theatre 1/2 hour ahead of the movie and there was a line out the door and part way around the building. I explained to him what all those people meant and he even opted to try for another movie. We went to UP. It was a cute little flick. It was observant on Bridger's part when he announced heading into the movie that "Daddy wouldn't mind missing UP, but he would be disappointed to miss Transformers".

Two nieces are headed to Wyoming in a couple of weeks. How great. We are looking forward to seeing them while they are in Pinedale.

what is this one?

Since I don't know, what is this one?

Garden Creek Falls

We had a nice hike up to Garden Creek Falls. The creek was rushing pretty good. As Darin mentioned it was not a place for solitude yesterday. There was hardly any parking and you never really felt alone. We ended up trading cameras here and there taking pictures for other families. We ran into a friendly family that had moved here from Utah-they only had 2 kids. They were enjoying getting to know Casper.

Darin opted to have a late lunch at Old Chicago and then brats for dinner. It was fun to point out landmark pictures of Chicago to Bridger. He is getting excited to be going. He is asking daily how many days to our trip.

Darin and I went to sit with him over his lunch today at Summer Camp. What an experience. Darin noticed a little boy seemed to have some sort of ankle alarm on him. He asked and sure enough the kid has an alarm to set off if he gets away from the staff.

I think this is Indian Paintbrush?

jedi knight

Happy Father's Day to all my favorite dads!!!!


For the last week we have come to close to watching all 6 of the Star Wars movies. Bridger loves them. We have the last one to go tonight. Darin has been going back and forth to the library and renting them. Consequently, we have a jedi knight in training at our house.

He is using his Power Ranger mask and pretending he is Darth Mal. Oddly enough the mask comes close to looking like that character. Unfortunately, that is a Dark Side character. The training come complete with light saber noise, by the way! May the FORCE be with all of you.

it's Friday!

Last Friday we woke up in North Dakota to sunny skies and warm temps. This Friday I am awake and the sky is sunny in Casper.

Not much news to tell this week. Bridger is enjoying Summer Camp. I took a wart off his hand this week. He is a brave little trooper. He acts up at first then he is intrigued with what is going on. He told Darin kids at Summer Camp made fun of the wart and he wanted it off. He also said he thought he should maybe get that taken care of before he went to Chicago. He just amazes me sometimes with what he thinks of.


Bridger on the race track at the amusement park.
Blockhouse view from Ft Abe Lincoln.

Milking New Salem Sue on the way home last Monday. It was quite rainey outside of Bismarck. We decided to prove we are not fair weather adventurers.

Ft Abe Lincoln and Hooters

This is Darin agonizing over the Red Wings loss. He then bounced up and attempted to get us with pillow. Sore Loser?

At Ft Abe Lincoln Bridger raised his hand that he could read when asked by the guide. The guide wanted him to read the Welcome sign below. It was a little challenging. Darin went up and helped him sound out some of the bigger words. All in all he got it read.

Bridger at On-the-Slant Indian Village. Notice he is naughtily on the lodge.

Darin had a vision in going to Hooters. I think this must have come close. Darin asked if this would be blog worthy. Bridger is hoola-hooping with the Hooters girls. I forgot to share the other blog worthy story. Last night at dinner-Chinese, we ended up sitting by a fish tank. There was a lone fish in the tank. After we sat down it did truly seem like the fish had his eye on Bridger. The fish was a tiger fish and most walked by and would say look an Oscar. The waitress told us they fed the fish twice a week a raw shrimp. Eventually, the waitress decided to get a shrimp and feed the fish for Bridger. It was quite a sight. The fish gulped the shrimp-no chewing. Bridger was actually silent momentarily.

boat ride and amusement park

Last evening we took a riverboat ride for a sunset cruise. Darin and Bridger sat in the bow while my parents and I sat in the covered area. Bridger received a captain's hat from Grandpa Roger. He loved wearing it. Bridger also got a sticker from the actual captain saying he was a co-captain.

Bridger showing the boat we were going to ride on.

Bridger with the Space Alien menu.

Bridger on the climbing wall. He made it to the top this time. He got to push the buzzer at the top.

Bridger paused a moment to get his picture taken with his grandparents.

better weather

We had to leave Wyoming for better weather. We woke yesterday to sunny skies and 60 degrees by 9am. Beautiful day in North Dakota into the 70's. We wore our sunglasses almost all day and rolled the windows down! Far cry from this last week in WY.

Our journey was uneventful. We travelled further on the first night than we had making it an easy shoot into Bismarck yesterday. One reward was a beautiful starry sky. On one of Bridger's stops we all got out and took a moment to check out the stars. Our lesson last week did not pay off. We all found the usuals-Big Dipper, North Star, Little Dipper. Bridger could see the Milky Way first hand though. His comment was, " that's it?"

When we got to Bowman, ND there was an envelope taped to the motel outer door and the office was pitch black. We guessed correctly that the envelope was for us. We chuckled about small town living and the honesty there. It had our room keys and note in it. No office staff stayed on site over night. Who knows what they do if there is a problem? We didn't need to find out.

Bridger got to the pool fairly quickly after we got to the hotel in Bismarck. We had lunch at "Space Aliens". We were treated to the lunch menu since it was a week day. It was quite an interesting place. A lot of noise from the game room that Bridger somehow managed to not discover.

We were planning on a riverboat cruise last night, but I discovered an error in my planning with the hockey final 7 game also scheduled. We were able to reschedule for tomorrow night. Sorry to Darin about the Red Wings. Bridger kept bouncing back and forth on his team choice and didn't have the courage to stick it to Darin on who won. I did, but I was a gracious winner. Yeah, Penguins!!!!!

Nothing concrete for our plans today except the riverboat cruise. My mom so enjoys quilting and will want to check out the stores here. Bridger was given a cowboy quilt last night for a bday present. We packed for cooler weather so some extra shorts might be needed. We were considering the Ft Abe Lincoln State Park for an adventure so probably that also. There is a Ribfest going on so that might be good.

Roger clued us in on something with the blogsites last night. Scrolling over the picture pulls up a link and names the picture. I guess I had never looked that closely. Always something new to learn. Speaking of pictures--I guess I won't put on any today. I know I am being annoying enough with typing at 7am and the computer seems terminally slow. Tomorrow is another day!

quiet again

Last night at bedtime Bridger told me how much he was going to miss Mikayla. He said he was going to miss having someone to play with. Hit the heart pretty good. Even though we try to play with him doing the things he likes there is nothing like having a playmate your own age.

It was a little daunting even for us to drop him off at Summer Camp this morning. It was going full swing when we got there. They(45 kids) all stared at us as we walked in. One little girl said, Hi Bridger, when we did walk in. Bridger jumped right into the craft they were doing. On the way in he asked, "what if they don't like me?" I said let's see if you don't know someone, otherwise, just tell them you plan to be their worst nightmare.


These are some of the pics we had from Bridger and Mikayla being together. Seemed like we have a lot of the same pictures Rance and Judi have, except these. It was nice having company. It was awfully quiet this morning after Rollie and Judi left. Funny how that is so noticeable after company leaves. Safe travels to everyone.

busy saturday

Busy day yesterday. We had the fishing derby that Bridger and Mikayla got to enjoy. Mikayla caught two fish. They think they had the trout that was caught last night for dinner. Amazing what fish sticks can do for kids.

Bridger had a birthday day party for a couple of hours. It did seem like the birthday boy was happy to have had Bridger there. It was called a Wonka party. At the end the kids got to go into an area the parents had decorated to look like a candy room. I can not even imagine what the store thought when they went to buy the candy. They had made golden egg pinatas for the kids and had skittles rain down out of popped balloons. There were 5 gallon buckets filled with individual pieces of candy. Quite crazy.

We met up with Rance, Marcy and Mikayla at the Trails Museum. I know the kids had fun, but Rance, Marcy and Darin snagged Judi's camera and had fun leaving pictures on her camera to find. We came back to our house and some played Wii. We had dinner and rushed off to the Planetarium. Judi and I rode together and on the way over I asked if the paper indicated this show being kid friendly. Sometimes they ask for no children under 6. It ended up quite an ordeal. They couldn't get the program to run and we sat for an extra 1/2 hour. Not great with two kids. The moderator announced he only did this particular program 2-3 times a year. It is only June remember. The kids were troopers, though. At one point the moderator trying to get crowd participation was leading up to asking someone to identify the Milky Way. I leaned into Bridger and said, "Say Milky Way". Let's just say that there was no doubt what he said. With him being my child, I caught the attitude in his voice which purely said, "how much longer!" It wasn't much longer. We did get an answer for the Passport project we needed.

We got home to find the TV off and lights out. Darin had gone to bed and Rollie had gone downstairs. Rance's family had gone off to their motel after the Planetarium. Bridger and I had some alone time-I reheated dinner for him and he chatted away about his day.

Rance runs the Marathon today (Sunday). Go Rance!!!

no topic

This will not be our weekend. Forecast for rain.

I usually hear about it if I have gone this long without an update. School got out on Tuesday. Bridger was disappointed that the "beach party" had to be indoors. He whacked his head at daycare after he got there. We got 2 phone calls about it and he didn't end up with a lump. We got the boat out to the boat club. It was too cold, wet and windy to boat.

Bridger and I were going to do a movie last night, but by the time we got done with grocery shopping it was too late. We rented a couple of movies instead. Maybe we can do our usual movie outing in North Dakota next week.

We have company coming this weekend. Everyone arrives sometime this afternoon or evening. Bridger is quite excited about his cousin Mikayla coming. So excited he was willing to forgo a birthday party for a classmate on Sat. I haven't been able to get ahold of the family anyway. They didn't put the time of the party on the invitation. What's up with that and then to not answer their phone or call me back.

So that is our week. Running behind and gotta get moving. Ginni