Lego Land

We went up to Chicago this weekend to visit Jim's sister and husband, to celebrate Jim's parents 41st wedding anniversary, and to visit Lego Land. We started our venture by driving to Bloomington to catch the Amtrak to take up to Union Station.

Jim and I have done this a handful of times and it is a really nice and relaxing way to travel to the city. The best part of the train ride this time was it was the boys first true train ride (not just the Monticello train). They were like a kid in a candy store. They were so excited and it was hard to keep them in their seat-which was ok because the boys and I had to share two seats thanks to college kids that's wouldn't sit by anyone else, we did get lucky enough one college guy got up and offered his seat to us-that way Jim could sit across from us.


We arrived into the city after the sun had gone down and it was a beautiful site all lit up. The kids were in awe. Jim's sister Kelly and her hubby Paul picked us up at the station and then we headed back to the hotel where Jim's parents were waiting for us. We didn't get in until 8:10 so we got to the hotel about 9ish and then we watched a little tv to unwind and then we hit the hay.

We got up the next morning and had breakfast and swam in the incredibly warm pool for about and hour and then got ready and headed out to Lego Land in Schaumberg. It was AMAZING!! We couldn't believe some of the stuff they created. They had a display of Chicago. It was awesome. It was detailed, things moved, and lit up. It was so cool. They also had florescent lights that made it go from day to night in the city and it was so neat.


Then we headed into the Jungle which was probably my favorite place of the entire building. It was so cool to see all the animals and critters they made out of Legos.

Then we met President Obama and Batman-I mean really two of America's hero's here. :) Then we rode on this cool little Dragon ride that was of a village-with a King, Queen, Dragon and such and that was a lot of fun even though Alex I don't think opened his eyes the entire time.



Upstairs we went.....up there the boys got to do a Lego building workshop and make a bumblebee. That was a lot of fun and we could have bought that bumblebee for $5. Uh...ya...no... However they had a great time doing it. The we went over the the "factory" where they got to learn how Lego's are made. That was neat but we were shoved in a closet basically with no air flow-so I didn't stay long. After that we went and saw a 4D film-that of course was Lego men and woman-that was pretty cool and actually better 3D effects than any other 3D film I have ever seen.










Then we headed to the cafe and had a little snack-they boys rode another ride over there and then they just got to play with Lego's and play in the big play structure. It was SO much fun. We got to see Darth Vader and R2D2 which was what the boys wanted to see more than anything. Plus they got to get a little Lego thing in the shop.

After that we went and had the anniversary dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and OMG.....it was so good and the desert- I mean cheesecake as big as my head. I had the Vanilla Bean cheesecake with raspberry sauce. It was to die for-and I felt like it afterward :0)

Then we headed home via Jim's parents van-because one train ride with the kids is enough their first time. :0)

It was a super fun little day vaca...the boys had a blast and I know we will be going again. I would like to hit the one in the city next time though.

Until next time

Liz

Memories

My Grandpa Moore (mom's dad) and My Uncle Greg (mom's brother)

We come from good old dirt poor farmers-Family Photo
(My Grandpa Moore is the on in the bibs with no shirt)

My Brother Jake and I (my grandma o. made this dress)

My mom (the little one) and her siblings

My Favorite Picture of My Grandma Dee (Mom's Mom) I love this woman

Jake and I

Taking a bath at Grandma Dee's House

My mom and me!! Isn't she pretty!!

My Grandma Dee, Jake and I at X-mas in Aroma Park

Jake and I

My Momma

Me-I love this picture and outfit

My Daddy and me Hiking-I love this picture of us

This is where it all went wrong-Now you know where the nudist side and I guess the nature side of me cam from. :) Dad and me in Virginia!!

I love this picture of me and my Grandpa O. (Dad's Dad) (I love this man) I was his little girl-his fav :) (Well that is until Taylor was born several years later)

Grandma O (Dad's mom) and me. I miss her so much.

My parents having a blast-can't you tell by dad's expression. :0)

My mom holding me while dad and Aunt Kathy look on

My Dad (hippy) :0)

My dad

While I was looking for a picture of my little brother for his B-Day, I came across a bunch of great old ones.

I hope you enjoy!!

Liz

Aug 23rd 2011

Jacob Michael Oliveira
28 years ago today!!
I love you Bookie Doo!!

Today is my little brothers 28th B-day. I wish I could tell him Happy Birthday but his is in Colorado hiking on a mountain top. So I hope he is having a great B-day with Dad and his buddy Matt up on a mountain top. :0)

Yesterday I worked super hard and cleaned my house (well all but the bedrooms ) and then had a few friends by last night to play cards. It was SO much fun and very much needed. Of course I didn't get to bed until about 2:30 this morning. I am too old for that. :0)

Today I decided to take off a day of cleaning since my good old pregger body can't handle two days in a row of intense work apparently, so I decided to start the boys scarfs. Well I got about 6 rows of Alex's scarf and then passed out for three hours....I was obviously very into my knitting. :0)

I don't know what I have planned for the rest of the day. I am going to make something for dinner, but I don't have a clue what. I have a picture I would like to load of little Kian Michael. I hope you enjoy it.



Until Later,

Liz

First day of School Aug. 18th 2011

Hello All

Well I know some of you must have thought I fell off the planet and too a point I did for a little while. :) FB was getting my attention (what little I gave to the computer). I did think I should update a little on what has happened since the last time I wrote. So here it goes......

Since Jim's job loss at the U of I last year he got a job working in Decatur at Decatur Electronics. He liked this job a lot and the hours were great. The only problem when they hired him they decided about 2 months later they were going to move the company to Arizona. So they left early this year. Jim then got a job working at Tate and Lyle in the tech department again and they are relocating the IT dept. to Poland in about 4 months so once again Jim will be moving on. The poor man has had three jobs in one year all because the businesses keep losing funding, or they relocate. So he is trying to keep his head up as much as possible.

Jack is now in second grade even though I didn't write anything about first grade because I haven't been on in a year. He joined Cub Scouts last year and LOVES it. He got third in Best Design for his Pinewood Derby Car. He got a trophy and a metal. He got to move on to Council. He also had Peanut League this past Spring and he loves b-ball. He also got to try his hand at golf and tennis. Both which he liked a lot. We had a great summer, but I know he was happy to start back at school today. He get's to take the bus this year and he is very excited. :)

Alex had a great last year of Pre-K at Faith Christian School. He started his first day of Kindergarten today. He was very brave even though I could see he wanted to cry. I did well myself, and I had a few tears well up in the car after but did good during. Alex got the play T-ball again this Spring and loved it. He got to be on his buddy Alaric's team. We had a great summer going to the pool, trying to stay cool.

The boys had there first stay over at my brothers this year as well. They LOVED it. They stayed up and played Lego's for hours!! Both boys also taught themselves to swim. They go under water now and they love their goggles. We went to our pool a lot this year as well as my folks pool. We went to the Lincoln Museum this year and to the Zoo's in the area. We are going to Lego Land on the 27th of Aug and I don't think Jack can wait that long. :)

As for me, nothing real new. I am still working at Hill. I did have another ankle surgery this Spring and I think we may finally have gotten the problem solved. We do have some big news. Our family is expecting another little boy into our family on Jan. 3rd 2012. His name is Kian Michael Mortland. We are excited and were a bit surprised. :0)

I am going to try to do better on updating this as I think it will help with a lot of aspects in my life right now to have a blog that I need to keep up on as much as possible. Of course FB may win out in the fight. :)

I will also try to get a few photos loaded up as well of some recent adventures. :)

Until Next Time.......

Liz

So..............

So we have been so crazy that as you can see I have not updated my blog in two months. I am SO sorry to anyone that actual reads this thing. I made this blog so I could have a sounding board and I never use it.

So what have we been up to for the past few months. Well Jim loses his job on Aug 15th with the U of I thanks to our state being corrupt and broke so thanks again IL for your crapiness (is that even a word?) So needless to say Jim has been looking since March and has had two interviews (that's it), so we are a little overwhelmed with that bit of news in our lives, but there is nothing we can do that we aren't already doing so I guess we will just keep on truckin.

We had a wonderful 7th wedding anniversary on June 7th. We had a night alone without the kids and watched movie all day and night and swam and hung out in our hot tub in our hotel room, it was wonderful and our tradition that we have done since our second anniversary. It was a nice release from real life.

We had a great 4th of July. We went to the German's 4th of July Party (our first year) and it was a BLAST. The kids had a great time and I know that Jim and my folks and myself did as well. It was laid back, and super fun celebrating with all our friends. I know we can't wait to do it again next year. Thanks German Family.

Let's see then we went up to Chicago and went to the LGBT Pride Parade. It was awesome and I have never felt so much happiness and love in one place. If I had to experience what the 60's and 70's would have been like with "free love" "no war" this would have been as close as I think I could have gotten. I truly have never seen a group of people so happy and proud and I tell you, if we were all a little more open minded we could be just as happy and proud of who we are and where we come from. I think the LGBT should run the country. :) It was a once in a lifetime event for us that I hope to make more than than and go every year.

Then we went for a mini vacation to Key Lime Cove and Six Flags in Gurnee IL. OMG it was SO much fun. Key Lime Cove was amazing. It is an indoor water park with some of the neatest water slides and water activities inside a hotel that I have ever seen. They had a lazy river with a wave pool, a hot tub, fours water slides, another type of water slide, and then the kids play area which is a giant jungle gym in the water. It was so cool. The had an arcade, and a place that little kids could go to do activities and feel somewhat normal in all the chaos of the trip.

Then we headed over to Six Flags and my kids got pictures with Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig. They loved that part. Then we rode rides in the kids area, and my children rode an actually rollercoaster. I was SO impressed with them. They loved it. We also did the log flume and other bigger kid rides. It was a lot of fun, but we were very tired by the end of the day.

We also had VBS in July and it was so much fun. I did the crafts for the older kids at MUMC and it was a blast. I love doing art projects but I will admit that 2nd graders are the worse. :) J/K they listened worse than the 1st graders. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. I spent many hours preparing for all the crafts and then I would have 2 hours to have 150 kids do those crafts 20 mins each class-it was rewarding and fun but truly exhausting. :)

Alex had some tests done this month as well to make sure that his heart was happy and healthy and it is, however that makes it almost impossible to get a name for the joint disorder that we have (of course I would rather him be healthy than anything else). So we will just keep an eye on it as he gets older and deal with what we can in the hear and now. He will have to start doing some physical therapy and he will have to do leg work to make his tendons and muscles strong.

Other than that, we have had a pretty good summer. I will admit that I am SO ready for our children to go back to school and I am sure they feel the same way. We look forward to more pool days, zoo days, Curtis Orchard days, and Prairie Farm days until the summer ends.

I hope you all find your summer going great and I hope everyone has a safe fun rest of the summer.

Liz

P.S. I will try to get some new photos up as well. We have been really bad about that lately.