CHANGING SEASONS

We have never lived near family since we have had kids, so the reason I started this blog is so they could keep up with our lives and watch the kids grow. With that in mind, I want to welcome my cousin Melissa to my blog. Melissa, I am going to put more pictures on this post than you will probably ever want to see.

On to the business at hand...We had a great family mini vacation this past week. We started at Six Flags. The kids all loved it. Rachel has always loved the "high and fast" rides as she called them when she was really little. Rachel, Hailey, P.K. and even Aaron got in on the high and fast rides. Hannah was able to ride one roller coaster. The train around the park and the carousel are more my speed.

This is just inside the gate to the park in front of the carousel.

Hannah and Hailey on the carousel.

The Mardi Gras King and Queen.

Aaron and the Batmobile.

This place is full of foam balls that can be shot out of cannons. Guess which "kid" had the most fun here.

Aaron is behind the blue rail under P.K. When he saw me he starting yelling, "Let's shoot mommy."

P.K. had a little too much fun shooting at mommy.

Hannah thought throwing balls at mommy was fun. I guess I should have put the camera away and taken cover.

Hannah won a stuffed Scooby Doo playing a game. As soon as she saw the statue of Scooby, she started calling for us to take a picture.

The girls got to meet Dorothy the Dinosaur...


and Wags the Dog from the Wiggles. Aaron didn't want to get too near any of the characters. Hannah on the other hand wanted her picture taken with every character we saw.

Rachel's face is hilarious in this shot.

I love Hannah's expression in this one. She is not afraid. I think she was just being silly for her daddy while he was taking the picture. She has no fear.

Mommy, Hannah and Aaron on the train

The next stop was a tour at Jelly Belly. The kids and I had taken the tour several times when we lived nearby. At the end of the tour everyone gets a free package of samples. In the gift store there is a booth with more samples including flavors such as booger, vomit, pencil shavings, earthworm and rotten eggs. Rachel tried the pencil shavings flavor and Hailey tried baby wipes. On one of our previous trips Aaron tried earthworm. I thought he was going to vomit. I'm not sure how much one would get paid for the job of taste tester, but it can't be enough.

These pictures are made entirely of jelly beans.

The gross samples.

Our last stop was at Gurnee Mills Outlet Mall. The kids and I also spent quite a bit of time here when we lived in the area. There is a store with a reptile zoo in the back. We didn't go through the zoo this time, but we did get our picture taken with an Albino Burmese Python.

Aaron was having no part of touching the snake. Here are the girls.

P.K. and I had a turn. The snake was very active. I couldn't believe how strong it was. They had a bottle of sanitizer sitting nearby and I used it!! P.K. said I probably get more germs from Hannah. Oh, well.