Makayla's visit (part one)

As I previously mentioned, my niece Makayla came back from Utah with us to stay for a week. I was nervous because I know little kids don't always like to do the same things that 15 year olds like. But she was game for anything, and I think she had a fun visit. We went to the pool 3 or 4 times while she was here. the kids really liked playing with her there.

She happened to come during the week that pass holders for Six Flags got to bring a friend for free. So we went to Six Flags twice. Evie usually refuses to go on the Joker ride, but wanted to ride with Makayla. Of course she clung to her in terror the entire time. Now she is back to saying that she hates that ride.

It was nice to have her there to ride all the roller coasters with Kara that the other two are too small for.

We got so so drenched on the Tsunami Soaker. I hadn't ever been on it before. Luckily it was a super hot day, so we dried out fast.

Not sure why, but Evie insisted on posing like a pirate in front of the Yosemite Sam statue.

I very rarely ride the ferris wheel. I don't mind any roller coaster, since they're over so fast, but I really get anxious being trapped in those cages for such a long time without any control over when they bring us down or not. But I sucked it up and we went on it.

I even tried my best to act like it was fun to be up there...

Evie doesn't hate Sylvester anymore it seems. So that was a good development.

Kara and Makayla are in the back row. They loved the Boomerang.

On Wednesday, Ben had a business trip in Springfield, IL. We decided to all tag along. While he was in meetings all day, we walked all over the downtown area. It was pretty fun, and not too hot. A perfect day for walking around. The kids were excited to hang out with the Lincoln family.

At the old capitol building.

We also walked over to see the new capitol building. We were going to check out the museum across the street, but decided to walk over to the Lincoln museum and library instead.

The grounds were really fun for the kids to run around and find photo ops.

Kiersten looking at the Capitol building.

It was a few blocks to the Lincoln museum. the kids were pretty excited when we got there. I'm still not sure what they were expecting to find.

Wax family. Evie took a liking to these waxies. She kept getting in other people's pictures. One guy hadn't even noticed she was in his picture. I guess she must have been standing perfectly still.

About to enter the log cabin.

The alarms all went off when I took this picture. Then I realized that was not allowed, oops! So no more pics from in there, but it was pretty cool. I liked that Evie and Kiersten could ooh and ahhh over the costumes, pictures, etc, and Kara was also interested because there was tons of info to read. I think even Makayla and I learned some new things.

The kids play room had a fun dress up area.

And Lincoln logs, of course. I wish I had video of Makayla trying to catch a ball in a cup. It was hilarious.

We also went to both of the short movies about Lincoln. The kids were really into those. Especially because they had been given little clipboards with a worksheet of questions to find the answers to. They learned a lot of facts. Evie is still talking about the president getting shot in the back of the head.

We stopped for ice cream, and had a little break before heading over to Lincoln's home. We were going to do the tour, but Ben got finished up with work, so we decided to meet up with him for lunch instead.

We ate lunch in Washington park. I kind of wanted to tour the carillon, but we didn't want to wait around for 3 more hours, so we did a drive by instead.

Evie's 4th Birthday!

Evie turned 4 on July 13. We flew back in from Utah with my niece Makayla the day before. She asked for pancakes for her birthday breakfast.

After breakfast, she couldn't wait to open some gifts.

She tried on her new pirate fairy outfit, with her bed-head and all. We still need to get wings for it.

She had some birthday money to spend, and toys r us coupons, so that's where we headed. She got this adorable outfit from Jackie, and insisted that was what she was wearing on her birthday.

We had her party at the North Pointe again. She has really been looking forward to it.

Since we were gone for 2 weeks, we thought it would be best to buy her birthday cake this year. She picked out this fun Minion cake from Dierberg's.

Floating the lazy river with her buddies.

Birthday Princess.

Makayla hung out with the girls in the deep pool. They had a great time together.

Makayla on the rock climbing wall.

Kiersten tried it out as well.

 Evie loves the whirl pool, but hangs on so tight, that it's not as much fun when you're the one in there with her.

After the party, she got to open her gifts from her friends.

It was a fun day, and I think she has liked being 4 so far. She tells us all the time now that she is no longer a baby, and I guess that's kind of true.