Leah & Steve in Chicagoland!

For Steve's work he was required to attend the Annual 4 day NIC Conference in Chicago where they were going to put him up at a really nice hotel and feed him really well!! So I thought to myself, hey I need a nice vacation like that! And promptly asked if I could go too. Of course my sweet kind and smart husband smiled at me and said I could, he was initially worried that I would get bored while he was busy during the day and on a few nights...I breifly thought about that...
I would be able to wake up at my leisure, feed only myself, read, exercise, read, nap, watch what I want on TV shop, shop, and shop (he was scheduled to stay at the Hyatt Regency Chicago on the River...only 3 blocks from the Magnificent Mile..oh and it IS magnificent!)
The answer was CLEAR...I was going if he had to pack me in his luggage!!! Over the next few days we worked out the details for babysitters, transportation, and activities since we were going to go ahead and stay through the weekend! Everything went wonderfully! We had a SPLENDID time!
We left for Chicago by car (4 hour drive) on Tuesday morning and arrived at the Hyatt, Checked in and Steve scurried off to a meeting and I took a nap then hit "the mile" I only made it to the Nordstrom's Mall building where I fell in love with a coat! (it is now mine!) Then Steve and I met up, grabbed a Taxi and went to meed clients at a White Sox game where we learned that you really should only ever eat a hot dog at the ball park...most everything else was so grody!

The next few days encompassed much of my previous list, as Steve was off working/socializing with clients...basically it was WONDERFUL...not that it was wonderful not to have Steve with me just so wonderful to do only what I wanted when I wanted it done!

Friday was the last day of the Conference and the day we were to swap hotels...I found a darling boutique hotel that we got for a steal online: it was called the Allegro (it's a Kimpton hotel) it was 2.5 blocks from the Oriental Theatre where we had GREAT tickets (thankyou craigslist) to see WICKED (perhaps my FAVORITE musical)

One shot of our hotel room...It was a rennovated (40 million) old hotel so it had all the charm but was updated in a hip, smooth, classy style...lots of velvet!

I lOVE this show!! It was rainy as we walked to and from the theater but it couldn't get us down!

Before the play we were determined to check the Chicago Temple off our list of temples we've attended together and we had the luxury of not having to worry about a babysitter! We drove up there and had a wonderful afternoon! That night we went to the play and walked back to our darling hotel (the pic does NOT do it justice...) Then we slept in, got Jamba Juices in the morning and headed back to meet up at Matt's new place in Ann Arbor for the BYU game!

It was a perfect ending to a Fabulous week!

...on one of my reconnaissance walks around our first hotel I found the Theatre District and the Wicked marquis!

What's a real shopping outting without trying on stuff you'll never be able to afford?? A sad one! but other than that I had a blast trying on over $20k worth of stuff at Escada...this is the other coat I loved..but $3000 wasn't in our budget..rats...again the picture DOES NOT do it justice...I will copy and remake this coat one day! I had the most amazing standing ruff collar, off center buttons, a side slit vent and the back seam work was AMAZING...plus it felt like a million dollars on!

...this picture was for the boys...I took it at the LEGOLAND store...it was amazing the whole thing is out of legos...

I just thought this was so funny... all the pigeons sitting here as people walked up and down and by them...the didn't even budge!

Eleanor got tubes...

Our sweet little Ellie girl was dealt a bad hand with respect to her ears (thanks to her daddy!)!! This little girl has essentially been on antibiotics for the last 9 months! She has had 12 ear infections!! So it was decided that she was not going to grow out of it and that she needed to have tubes put in her ear drums to help her drain the fluid that tends to gather there...the tubes will stay in between 6-18 months and then we'll see if she has grown enough to fix the angle of her eustation tubes!!!

Here is our Princessa waiting to be given her gown! So happy...for now!

Getting checked in and settled took a bit so I was busy entertaining her with the camera and whatever I could find in my purse...oscar's sunglasses...a car...my phone!

It is about 7:20 and we left the house at 5:45 am...we had to be at the hospital 1.5 hours in advance...crazy...and E could not have anything to eat or drink after midnight...so she is getting restless...Finally Ellie got suited up for the procedure...she looks so stinkin' cute in blue!

...getting sleepy...getting cranky...

She did not want to go with the nurse and actually Steve almost didn't let her...he is a sucker for his baby girl...but we knew she needed to get her poor ears fixed so we let our sweet girl go to be remedied by Dr Rubin (who was wearing V-necked scrubs with no undershirt and a big fat gold chain...nice huh?...I wish I had a picture of him with her!)

It was amazing the procedure took about 9 minutes to do...and about another hour before we could be discharged...they had to put her to sleep so we had to wait for her to recover and stuff...and now she is feeling so much better! We got home and she took a 3.5 hour nap and when she woke up she didn't miss a beat! I think she is hearing better now though since she for almost the first time has no goo behind her eardrums...I am so grateful for Medical Help!

3 cheers for doctors!!!

Gordon's First Day

Here's our little school boy!

Gordon started his first day at Grace United Methodist Preschool on Wednesday Sept 3rd. He was so excited! For school each of the students were given a "book bag" for their work and assignments. They were told to decorate the bag with things that they like or things that they draw. Gordon let me help him put his "Super Gordon" emblem on (it's a G with a lightning bolt going through it...very "super") and he illustrated a battle between 2 sea monsters with a pirate ship and a pirate on it! He is so darling...we are so proud of our oldest son!! What a good example he is to his brother and sister!

And Dang handsome too!!!

Have a great day at school babe!! WE LOVE YOU!

Niagra Falls 07.20.08

On our way home from our Palmyra we decided to stop off and see Niagara Falls...cool huh?...yeah but we decided to do it one better and go see the Canadian side since we both had only seen it from the American side...using our basic knowledge of relations with our neighbors to the north we thought it would be no big thing....

So at the booth (which looked very official what will all the flags flapping in the wind atop it's buildings) just before you cross the bridge we asked all the seemingly appropriate questions...what do we need to prove citezenship?...drivers licenses? check!...is it okay if we don't have documentation for our kids? yeah, they don't usually care about kids if its just for the day (should have been a huge red flag but we were to blindly excited by the idea of our cross country trip to really think about it)! So we paid our $3.."how weird that it costs money to cross the border...but hey it's cheap!" and we merrily proceeded to cross the "big big bridge" (Oscar loves Thomas the Tank Engine) to the booths on the Canadian side.

Up walks the "Border Offical" in full S.W.A.T. style outfit with bullet proof vest on...a little intimidating even though the "official" was a girl! She then asks us for our passports...ummmm huh....so we then explain what the nice gentleman in the previous booth told us about it being no big deal, just show our driver's licenses and let them know that the kids are ours and we'll only be there for an hour or so! With big smiles on our faces we waited for her response.....

Without a smile on her face she began to correct our idiotic view of crossing international borders...told us that the "gentleman" who told us otherwise was merely a toll-booth operator, and let us know that there was no chance of just backing up and making a U-Turn (Steve suggested that!)...told us that we were having our license plates photographed and she was writing us up a ticket (I forgot what she called it...it was more official) and sending us over to immigration to be interviewed and photographed....WHAT?????

The "border official" then pointed out the armed guards that were waiting just at the end of the booth lines that would be watching us as we pulled "DIRECTLY" into the immigration office headquarters. Just for kicks, Steve (who is blown away by the formality and authority high "border official") decides to ask what would happen if we didn't pull into the immigration office headquarters and just decided to do a falls drive by....without enjoying the suggestion ONE BIT...the "border official" tell us that we would be promptly apprehended and prosecuted as internations criminals! Nice Steve...way to warm up the Canucks to the Ward Family!

So we pulled into the immigration station and told our story...pulled out every piece of info in my wallet (luckily I carry a large wallet with LOTS of stuff in it) licenses, children's shot records, insurance cards, a random copy of a Birth certificate I had for doctor's appointment, Social Security Cards, some pictures and our old Florida Insurance card that had everyone's names printed out. Once we dumped all of our "proof" we had to wait until it was examined and a file was created and serviced (about 20 min...thank goodness it was a slow day). Then Steve and I were called up and interviewed...they asked us various questions from our documents like past addresses, phone numbers, doctor's names etc. Next, the asked the kids who they were, asked them to point to their mom & dad, asked them what each other's names were.

Essentially we passed...we were reminded that crossing international borders is a serious issue... we were told that they would not be so lenient again...and they wished us happy viewing!

Phew!

So the next challenge was finding parking and braving the falls... Piece of Cake
The falls were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! It was really cloudy out so the mist was so heavy and we didn't get to see all the rainbows from the mist but it was awesome...the kids even appreciated it! We had just enough battery lest to get a few pictures then our camera died! So we have to treasure it in our minds! We will not soon forget our brush with the Canadian Border Patrol! Luckily the US was much more understanding (it helped that we had all the immigration documentation from Canada proving that we had been grilled once already!) They did ask us some US history questions to prove our citizenship which we both got...phew...and they did do the interviewing of the kids again!

All & all worth the 3.5 hour trip it turned into and next time we'll bring out passports

Palmyra Pageant July 2008

We left for our trip at about 7:00 Thursday night...grabbed some dinner on our way out of town and headed East! We made it until about 11:00 pm when I was already asleep and Steve couldn't hack it anymore! We pulled into the Quality Inn and went to bed! The kids woke up a little late...8ish since it was PITCH BLACK in our room (thank heavens for black out curtains...I need to get some of those for their bedrooms back home!) and were hungry so we went down to the complimentary QUALITY Breakfast (that was held in a bar attached to the hotel...curious? yes....Quality? hmmmm....the food was good but the place smelled like smoke!

Choosing our seats and laying our claim was hard work...the boys loved messing with the cones and chairs...I think they sat in a fair portion of the chairs that were set up in our section...finding the best ones! Thanks guys the view was AWESOME!

After our spot was staked we headed up the Hill to take a look around. It was a beautiful little hike through the woods (perfect for the kids) and a great view! After that we went over and did all the Church sites in Palmyra...

Our loaded stroller...Oh how lucky we are to have so many CUTE kids!

At the Cooper's Shop...notice that they are in the barrel inside the rope partition...leave it to the Dad's!


How much fun can you have trying to jump up and grab a branch that's just out of reach?

After hitting the sites we needed to eat so we headed into town to find something that wasn't fast food and we stumbled upon this little jewel.....

(of course Gordon had to climb the fence rather than use the cute little gate!)
The food was great and the portions were huge...plenty for everyone! Now that we were all fed and rested we decided to head over and wait for the show to begin!

Gordon and Oscar were so excited seeing all the Nephites & Lamanites running around before the show...they spotted this guy who Gordon was convinced was King Noah...and actually he was right! Good eye Gordy! It was funny though, once it was confirmed that this was indeed King Noah--Gordon tried to ask him why he chose to be so wicked!

...my best attempt to take a picture...since you're not supposed to use any flash my camera couldn't focus! It was such a great show! The effects were fabulous and the music was wonderful!

I bought a bunch of glow bracelets for the kids and they had a Blast!! It also saved our lives because you couldn't lose them...they were glowing from every appendage...which we needed since the field is SO huge and so dark during the show!

After the Pageant we braved the onslaught from Anti-Mormons...who frankly were mostly funny on their P.A. systems but also disturbing now that we have kids that understand what's going on... and headed the mile back to our cars...then drove the hour home to the "Crow's Nest Lodge" to CRASH! We were so exhausted from the last leg of the drive plus a full day of sight-seeing and all! The kids did remarkably we since Oscar didn't nap AT ALL and Ellie got 2 crummy car naps! Needless to say that all the kids were OUT within minutes of the drive!

Upon arriving at our accommodations...aka "The Crow's Nest Lodge" well after midnight we found that the whole place was locked up like Fort Knox....apparently the agreement to leave the doors unlocked was forgotten...so we had to call the owners and have them come over to unlock the doors for us! Lovely...luckily they lived close...and only had to listen to Oscar SCREAM at the top of his lungs for about 15 minutes (he is a BEAR when you wake him up and he's still tired!) we then transfered all the sleeping and screaming kids to their beds and all quickly went to bed!

The next day we had a lazy day at the condo and then headed back over to Palmyra to attend the Temple and visit the last few sights in town. We had some Ice cream at a cute little place called Brad & Dad's...it was a great day!

We got a pretty good family picture finally...at least everyone is looking at the camera!

Our dear friends the Buchanan Family met us in NY from Maine...we all used to live in Tampa but have since moved up north...it was so good to see them!

Time to go....Oscar led the way out...he was D-O-N-E!
We loved spending time here at the temple!

We stayed one more night at the "Crow's Nest" then headed out the next day after church. It was such a great trip for all of us! We'll definitely have to plan another road trip vacation for next summer we'll probably be better at scheduling in advance so we have more selection of accomodations! Who would like to meet in Nauvoo??