Pinstack Bowling with Aunt Mary

We were so excited to hear Aunt Mary is in town this weekend! She wanted to spend an evening bowling and playing games at Pinstack Bowling and the kids were thrilled to be included. I had previous plans with Liz, Jenna, Sereen and Lanae to meet for dinner at Cheesecake Factory and the movie Me Before You. Thankfully I was able to meet them for a delicious dinner and then head over to catch up with the rest of my family. Derek, Bryce and Clara were having a blast running from game to game and all over the arcade portion of the building. Mitchell, Tyler, Andrew and I dominated a couple games of Lasertag. At one point, Bryce snuck off with Aunt Amy and Danny to get some food and he was in heaven having a whole plate of chicken strips and fries to himself, as well as the undivided attention of Aunt "Mamie" and Danny. ;) It was great to see Aunt Mary; Val; Aunt Veronica and Andrew; Aunt Jenn, Uncle Tim, Dillon, Tyler and Ally; Beth, Declan and Jilli; and Gamm and Papa. I think I just missed my mom, but we had a lot of fun hanging out with family and playing games together. Clara turned out to be kind of a good luck charm for Gamm and Aunt Mary at one of the games, Derek scored 500 tickets in a single round of a game, and Bryce was obsessed with the Transformers game. At the end of the night, Aunt Mary took all the kids, (Derek, Bryce, Clara, Declan, Jilli, Ally, Tyler and Andrew) into the prize room to pick out prizes. Altogether, I think we scored over 13,000 tickets! It was a super fun (super late!) night with my family. :)

 Derek loved playing this giant Connect 4 game

 Clara's great-grandma and great-great aunt ADORE her. 

 My lovely sister, Val and my lovely Aunt Jenn!!

 Derek, Ally and Dillon had fun playing this game together

 Mitchell was Phaser 22, I was Phaser 28, Andrew was Phaser 26 and Tyler was Phaser 33. Blue team for the win!

 Bryce loves Danny, Aunt "Mamie" and food. Triple score!! :D

 Who knew fishing was such intense work?!

 Derek's face when he got the biggest fish, haha!

 Mitchell helped the kids with another fishing game

 Aunt Mary, Gamm and I!

 Derek and Bryce loooooved playing this Ghostbusters game. They shot ping pong balls at ghosts.

 Bryce, Aunt Mary, Clara and Derek! :D

 Clara and Bryce took out the Decepticons on the Transformers Game. Mitchell eventually jumped in to help them out.

 Papa kept his eye on Bryce while he perched on the rotating entrance wheel

 Papa, Bryce and Danny

Bryce loves Hulk

Chicago - Days 3-5

We've been pretty lazy since Beth and Jilli went home. ;) I finally got around to scanning all the photos and it's been an AMAZING experience. Aunt Mary has a lot of photos of her mother's side of the family, including a scrapbook her mother (Margaret Jane Snyder) put together. There are pictures from 1910 in that book!! Also crazy cool - Aunt Nancy has her parents' wedding photos. There are about 70 of them and they're in great condition, aside from the cardboard being water warped. Aunt Mary and Aunt Nancy were a huge help in identifying the people in the photos and, with their help, I was able to sort them into decades (roughly) and Snyder or Lachus family piles. Mom helped me set up Aunt Nancy's super cool scanner that scans up to four photos at a time and creates individual files for each photo. That made scanning the smaller photos much faster. 

Aunt Mary, Mom and I headed out to do some quick shopping and checked out Dollar Tree and a Dollar General-type store. Their Dollar Tree was so cool! I snagged some cute hand mirrors to embellish for Clara and the girl cousins, and scored an entire set of ninja turtle key chains for the boys (I know Mitchell, Austin, Jared and Colton will be jealous. Ninja turtles are their thing). At the Dollar General-type store, I found a cool ship model that the boys will love. They love pointing to the giant ship model in Jeff's office and they'll be thrilled to have one of their own. I also found a Chicago PD car to go with Derek's police officer picture I took on Saturday. ;)

All too soon, it was time to go home. Mom and I caught the 5 pm flight home to Dallas on an international plane, which was really cool. Screens were built right into the backs of the seats and the flight plan (and our current location on the route) was displayed at intervals on the cabin dividers. Super useful. Bobby picked us up from the airport in his very spacious SUV and then we went to BJ's Brewery for a late dinner. Turns out Val still had my car keys in her car but I didn't have to wait long at Mom's for her to come back after the Stars game (hockey) had ended. Bobby and Mom stayed up to keep me company and we had an entertaining conversation. :) Finally, I snuck into the boys' room to ruffle their hair and give them a quick kiss (I know I would've woken Clara if I tried to go in her room) before I snuggled up next to my sweet husband in my very own bed with a laptop full of family photos just waiting to be edited and a brain full of some very happy memories. Thanks for an awesome trip, Mom, Aunt Mary, Aunt Nancy, Beth and Jilli!!! I can't wait to go back!!

Lily is a pro at sleeping on her back

The spread! Sorting and scanning party!!

Some of the pictures were so warped, we had to put this bucket of scanned photos on top to keep the lid down.

Sorting into piles by decade. The Lachus pile is on the right and the Snyder pile is on the right at the other end of the table. 

Mom bought some "happy Jesus" candles for Aunt Mary since her other candle had a picture of a sad, crucified Jesus on it. We lit the Jesus candle and Mary candle while we were working. :)

Oh. My. Word. Mitchell asked for only one thing... pizza from Giordano's. His favorite is the spinach pizza and boy, is it good! Mom picked up 4 frozen pizzas that we packed into our luggage and got a spare cooked one for lunch. Delicious!!

Lily loves to walk around with her babies in her mouth

I FOUND THE WHOMPING WILLOW! Hogwarts must have a charm on it to disguise is as an old Chicago house. ;)

Mom and I on our flight back home!

Helloooooo Dallas! Did you miss me? I sure missed my babies!

Chicago - Day 2

Today we went into Chicago to see the St Patty's Day Parade... and see the Chicago River dyed green! We walked around the river and watched the boats spraying the bright yellow dye for a while and then headed into the Sheraton hotel so Aunt Nancy and Mom could rest while Aunt Mary, Beth, Jilli and I walked a few blocks away to watch the parade. We weren't too sure about where the parade started and stopped, but we walked around for a while before we got to where we were trying to go. I was glad to get the walking credit on my fitbit, haha! Turns out, we picked a spot at the very end of the parade, but we still got to watch the mounted policemen and the politicians and some floats pulled up right in front of us. 

After the parade, Aunt Mary took Mom, Beth and I to get massages at her favorite Asian massage place. It was definitely an interesting experience to get a group massage. We all went back into a large room with 12 plush chairs. Aunt Mary and I sat together and Mom and Beth sat together in the row behind us. A man slipped a black strap from a machine next to me around my forearm, plugged a black box into the same machine and dropped the black box into a the bucket of water my feet were in! I found out later the black strap was a grounding band, but it was still a little unnerving to watch, haha! It was a nice massage though! We kept our clothes on, but my legs, shoulders and neck felt great afterward. Thanks Aunt Mary!

Later that evening, Aunt Mary and Aunt Nancy cooked a fabulous homemade dinner with delicious steak, salmon, baby potatoes and green beans. Soooooo goooooood! We had a birthday cake for Jilli since she and Beth are flying back to Dallas in the morning... yum. :) Rhonda came over to spend time with us and we all played Golf (the card game) after dinner. We saw Linda briefly when she came to pick Rhonda up. It was great to see them again!

I laughed so hard when I saw this statue of a uterus on our drive into the city. The statue is called "Being Born."

Giant treefrog over this Rainforest Cafe! So cool!

City workers sprayed bright yellow dye into the river... they had a lot of fun, too!

Mom and I in front of the Chicago River

"Chicago Rising from the River" by Milton Horn (1954)

I wore my "Wicked Witch of Ireland" socks for St. Patty's Day. ;)

I knew Derek would get a kick out of seeing a picture of police officers. Two of Chicago's finest were very kind to pose with me!

A sample of some of the street art we saw in some spots. Love it!

Mom, me, Aunt Mary, Jilli and Beth in front of the river. So much green!!

We spotted Nessie floating down the river with a leprechaun and... King Arthur?

My lovely Great-Aunts - Aunt Nancy and Aunt Mary!

Mom, Aunt Nancy, Aunt Mary, Jilli, Beth and I - we're all in a picture! 

Aunt Mary rocks!

We met up with my second-cousin, Olivia, and her boyfriend too. Yay family!

New York Fire Fighters joined the Chicago Fire Fighters for the parade

Every fire engine needs a dalmatian!

Aunt Mary is the selfie queen. :D

Jilli enjoyed her perch from my shoulders and kept us informed of the approaching parade line-up

We're buds. ;) She's 2 years older than Derek and weighs 15 pounds less.

Aunt Mary took my picture in front of the GIANT POTATO!!!! Yum!

Jilli, Beth and I posed with one of the members of the bagpipe brigade

Happy birthday Jilli!

She was determined to get that last candle ;)

Playing some Golf with Mom, Aunt Mary, Rhonda, Jilli, Aunt Nancy and Beth!