Weekend Day 2

Ok these are in descending order, but you can get the idea.

I thought it would be cool to take Roger to the places that I took his daddy, so I planned a day at Lords Park. Turns out their petting zoo closed for the season on Friday.
Plan B we head out to the Randall Oaks petting Zoo instead.
Sharen warned me that it's not worth the money, but we went anyway. She was right, but Roger didn't care.

Roger the Llama

There are signs all around to be careful that the goats will grab your bag of feed. (small bag cost a $1)

 

While Roger was feeding this guy his brother grabbed Mikes bag as he was walking by. Ate the food bag and all.

 

 Roger got to pet a ferret.

 Sharen told me about a huge playground there, that you have to walk to. We stopped here but this did not feel right. This place was small.

We drove to the next parking lot and got out and walked down a path.
OMG good thing we did. She was so right. Roger and Mike had a blast. Someone needs to tell Mike that he's grown up now. This is only 1/2 of it.

 

Roger going down the tube slide.

 You guessed it - Mike soon followed. Bumped his head, but he made it down. I was pretty sure I would get stuck. I stayed on the open slides.

Then on to the tetter totter.

We were having so much fun and we had the place all to ourselves.
But it was so hot out, we put it on our list to come back, and headed home.

Roger has been asking if Uncle Brian could come play legos with him. He wanted me to call and invite him over. He was already planning on coming over for dinner so he just came early.
WITH MORE LEGOS IN HAND. They built a conveyor belt, a dump truck and a excavator that actually picked things up.
Mike sitting in the background is putting together a house that Roger dismantled.

We took a short break from building to venture outside in the heat. Roger had to show Uncle Brian his motorcycle.
He was very proud to ride in the street. His Mother gave him permission as long as he listened. It's a dead end street that sees maybe 10 cars a day.

I took this walk with him earlier in the day and when we got to the end of the block he turns it off so we could sit and enjoy the scenery. The neighbors must thought I had fallen down or something. I'm siting in the street next to Roger on his cycle.

Weekend with Roger Day 1

Hi there,
We've been very busy around here being Grandparents.

Roger was visiting us for the weekend.
How do you keep a 4 year old busy?
Our first stop was LEGOLAND. He was VERY, VERY excited. He loved the Chicago  - his favorite parts were the city park and the construction site.

 We rode the dragon ride. I really thought he would get scared - it's in the dark and you have to shoot big spiders. Nope, he grabbed the gun and started shooting.
Then we got in line for the 4-d movie. This was Rogers first time in a movie theater. He wore his 3d glasses for the whole thing, but got a little scared when the rhino jumped out of the srceen and climbed up on Papa's lap. I jumped too. He didn't get wet when the bad guy fell into the moat, but I did.

You have to build a car to race down the slide.


Papa and Roger hard at work

I had no idea, Looking for inspiration



Trial runs

Roger's and Mike's didn't make the jump, but stayed together - Mine, Fell apart at the bottom.
"That's OK Meemaw, at least you tried."

Roger wanted to go on the pedal ride. Papa said OK. After Mike got off he remember how hard it was on his knees to pedal. He went on this a few years ago with Kaylyn and it wrecks your knees.

 The playground was pirate themed. Roger shooting the canon.
LEGOLAND does this right. They only let a few kids in every 15 minutes. I got tickets for the first entry at 10:00 so we didn't have to wait for anything.
I was thankful to Mary for putting him something bright. Wasn't too hard to spot him. That  was until a preschool group came in with orange t-shirts on. Ugh...

 We lost sight of him for a minute. Then I see him in the cubbie hole under the pirate ship playing with another boy in the bigger soft legos.

 On the way out there is this dude.
"Do you think we can make one of these?" Probably not, but we can try.

I was very proud when we stopped for a snack and Roger picks out the fruit cup. Could of grabbed chips or candy.
The rest of our afternoon was playing with a overwhelming amount of legos back at the house. Thanks to Uncle Brian.
Helping Papa putting back together a bull dozer that Uncle Brian had bought and built.
Roger loves to dismantle almost as much as putting them together. I have to admit I had no idea how to use the "tool" for getting these suckers apart. Roger showed me the way.

 This is the extras. Yup that is 2 boxes of extras.

It was so hot outside we stayed in and played legos - ALL DAY.

Water Park

We wanted to do something special for the ones who were headed back to school, so Mike suggested going to Yorkville to the water slide park.
Kaylyn and Logan (Dylan, the sophomore, was busy) slept over and on Saturday Mike took them to the water park. I opted out!
The headed out early to grab some shade by the wave pool.

Kaylyn striking a pose

Logan chilling

Mike had a ball riding on ALL the slides with them. Then he got smart and rented tubes for the wave pool for them so he could catch his breath out of the sun.
The majority of his Sunday was spent napping.

Birthday and Bears

Sunday, Mike and I went our separate ways.
Mike took Dylan and Logan, the football players, to Bears Training camp - first trip for the boys.
Mike and I took the kids to Plateville 30 years ago. Mike said things have really changed - from laid back farm fields to crowded, commercialized everything

And I met up with Bryan and his family to celebrate his birthday.

I have stored all of mine and Mike's LP's, including the Disney ones that Bryan listened to as a kid, and all of Lester's 45's that he had in his Jukebox, because Bryan showed interest in them.

I thought it was time to unload the vinyl, so we bought Bryan a record player for his birthday.
It also can play CD's and cassettes. More crap out of our basement into his. It also has the capabilities to transfer it to a computer.

The boys were very curious just how it worked. Bryan tried to explain it all. "This is how Grandma had to listen to music."
I took a few of the stored albums, CD's and 45's with me to check out how this thing sounded.

Roger thought it was cool that the black round things came from Uncle Lester. "That's my middle name."

 More music and more dancing.
Video will NOT upload - Boo Hoo!

Before the party, I met them at church - so when they were getting ready Roger insisted on wearing a white t-shirt underneath his button down shirt - Just like Daddy.

Roger, I am sure dreaming of taking it all apart to see how it works and just what all these buttons are for.