Zoo's, Museums....how have we been keeping busy?

Over the past few months we've been able to do a few activities making life feel more normal than it has in a long time.  This post is just a collection of those photos and memories from the past few months.  First, the girls and I met Erin in the city one day and explored the Field Museum.  Our original plan was to take the girls to an outdoor circus show in the city, but the weather proved rainy and the event was canceled, so we changed our plans and booked ourselves a time slot at the Field Museum.  

One thing that's been super interesting about living during COVID is that the social distancing efforts put in places like the Field Museum and the zoo and other places where people gather actually mean that if you are willing to spend the effort to organize something, your time there is SO much more pleasant because the crowds just aren't there anymore.

Both Erin and I weren't totally sure how the Field Museum would be...it was our first fully inside event since before COVID happened, but honestly, we got there right when it opened and we had a lovely time and we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.  Of course we saw other people, but there was plenty of space for us to feel safe.  

Up next....Brookfield Zoo.  Can you believe that I'd never been there before?  We planned a date with Jenny and Jack and the kids and the weather literally could not have been better.  AND!  Ryan was home to join us as well.

The dinosaurs were so cool at the zoo.  They were sprinkled around everywhere and once Hazel and Dax got over being scared of them, they really enjoyed themselves.  Its so nice to have Jenny and Jack living in Naperville now!  I'm so looking forward to a time when we can plan more and more things together.  The kids play so well, and we're always so thankful when we can find a time to get them all together.  I can't wait until camping with cuzzies in 2021!

 

Finally - cookie decorating with the kids!  If I'm honest, this was batch #2 in which I tried very hard to replicate batch #1 that Erin coordinated.  Her cookies were much better, her frosting tasted better, the cookies were moister and the decorating was much more professional.  But, the point of the activity was the give the kids something festive to do...and they loved round 1 and 2 so we'll call this one a win too.  And, well, since this batch didn't turn out to be my favorite, I can easily pass up the container sitting on the counter.  I'm pretty sure I ate 2/3 of the cookies from batch #1.  

Erin - I think we should start planning a Thanksgiving batch.  And by that I mean, can we!?  I need some sugar cookies in my breakfast menu.  

Carving Pumpkins

We McGrath's carved pumpkins last weekend when Ryan was home.  It was nice to do them a little early so that we could enjoy them for a few weeks before Halloween gets here.

This year each of the girls drew their own faces and they even did most of the carving themselves.  Though the gut scooping fell squarely on Ryan this year - but he had a power tool to support the job.  There is not a single job at our house that doesn't involve a Dewalt tool these days.  

OH!  The new technique of the year was shaving the pumpkin down to make transparent skin for the light to shine through.  Over the last week or so the girls have been very into a pumpkin carving competition on the food network so I'm certain they are learning lots of new things to incorporate for next year.

From left to right the pumpkins are Hazel's, Ryan's, Abby's and Erin's.  Erin and I were meant to co-carve this year, but I took up clean up responsibilities early and she did the hard work on the pumpkin.  

Here's to 10 years (and camping!)

 

Well, it's official!  We've made it to the 10 year mark and we're still going strong :)  I'll never forget, when we were planning our wedding, and thinking through dates Dad told me "the first two weekends in October are always beautiful".  Well, he sure wasn't wrong!  The day we got married it was bright and sunny and warm!  In the 80's.  The leaves were changing colors and you could tell that Fall was in the air, but it was one of the last few warm days of summer.  Well, fast forward 10 years and we got another great weekend!  

For quite a few years now we've planned an adult only trip to Madison with Jamie and Zach to celebrate our anniversary.  We've stayed in hotels, camped, even rented a very strange AirBnB....but this year, COVID was just more than I could handle and in those months during the spring and early summer where everything was being canceled I decided I didn't want to screw around with having to make a plan and two back up plans, so I booked us a few camping spots in Sturgeon Bay figuring it would be pretty unlikely for them to cancel camping too (one of the few activities they said was "safe" early on).  

Just like the years past, Jamie and Zach joined us, but this time we brought along the kids and the dog and just made it a big family weekend!  And boy, did we luck out on the weather.  It was beautiful, albeit colder than I was prepared for!  I don't know, the season change caught me off guard this year.  I think it's partly because it was mid-70's for the majority of last week, and on Friday, when we left home for camping, it was 80 degrees!  By the time we arrived at our campsite in Wisconsin though, it took me less than 10 minutes to be rummaging through my bag in the camper looking for pants and a sweatshirt.  Somehow I thought to pack three extra t-shirts, but not a single coat, hat or mitten in sight.  It was mid 50's during the day so we got buy with pants and sweatshirts, but by the time it got dark, it got COLD and we used a lot of wood to keep the fire warm enough for us all.

We hiked, we geo-cache'd, we laughed, we ate...we drank beer and ate smore's and soaked up our final camping trip of the year.  

We camped at Potowanami State Park in Door County Wisconsin.  We've camped there a few times over the years but it didn't bring back any memories for me until we got to this spot in the hike.  It's called "The Old Ski Hill" because, I assume, this cleared area was once a small ski hill.  When we came out on the overlook the kids were excited and wanted to walk down the steep hill on the path.  I made them all raise their right hands and vow to not whine about walking back up it.  And, true to their word, not a single whine or request to be carried....they made it all the way down and back up again!

Oh yeah, and did I tell you that we're a geo-cache family now?!?  HA!  Ryan started it earlier this summer when we were camping with Joey/Andy and Mom/Dad in Iowa and let me tell you what....if you have little kids that aren't too excited about hiking, then you need to get yourself a geo-cache app and get them excited about it because it's really changed our hiking game!  This summer we've hiked the local forest preserves and found all of the geo's near our house.  The girls really enjoy the treasure hunt of it and it's fun for adults too!

We found the coolest geo-cache item this time around!  The boxes usually contain a little notebook to write your name/date on, logging that you found it, a pen/pencil and then a few random little kid toys or trinkets that previous "finders" have left behind for you to look through.  The idea is that you take one thing, and leave something in it's place.  Well, we usually try to get the kids to leave the stuff in there, because, really, who needs more trinkets?!  But this time we found a little koala bear attached to a necklace with a dog tag on the other end.  The dog tag had a tracking code on it and a website listed so we decided to take it from the box and when we got back to the campsite I did a little research.

Turns out, you log the tracking code and the person who started it, can track the tags progress from geo to geo.  This owner even gave the tag a "goal" saying that it wanted to travel to Arizona, California and a few other places before returning "home" to the Bloomington/Champaign area.  So, Ryan will be taking it with him when he leaves for California this weekend and he'll deposit it in a geo-cache in California for someone to find and help it along on it's journey.  How fun is that!?  

Anyways, enough on that subject.  HA!  Long story short, we had a great time with friends, as we always do and I'm so thankful that we're able to still get some peaks of "normal life" into our days and weeks.  Who knows what the fall/winter will bring, but for now, we're grateful to be able to spend the weekend with friends, doing the things we love most.  Not necessarily a romantic 10 year anniversary weekend, but I wouldn't change a thing about it!