Part 1.c Nelson Vacation: Chicagoland

Finally, here are pictures from our Chicago portion of our vacation. I know, vacation was over a month ago, but I've got to catch up. Then I can tell you about all the fun stuff we've been doing recently. :-) Mostly we hung out at Grandma and Grandpa Nelson's house. The first 4 pictures are at a local park. This was the first time the boys had been on a spinning playground toys. What are those things called anyway? After spinning round and round, Blake's first attempt to walk was followed by a full body face plant. It was kind of funny, I have to admit and no he wasn't hurt other than being surprised that he couldn't just walk. Here Cedric and Blake share Grandma and Grandpa's hamock down by the river. This is a picture of 6 month old baby Zoey, my neice's daughter. Isn't she cute? We also went to the Brookfield Zoo. Here is a picture of Blake playing at the wolf exhibit. Aaaaoooooooo!

There was a baby polar bear....aaaaaahhhhh so cute!

And here all the boys enjoy the merry go round at the zoo.

This is Jim's prized photo from the butterfly exhibit. What do you think...should we enter it in a photo contest or what? It looks good enough for National Geographic to me.

We stayed with our friends Mark and Deb one night and they taught us the art of pirate poker and other crazy made up poker games. I'm not much of a poker player anyway, but the pirate game was crazy. Lets see, if you get a 6 you walk the plank and are out of the game, if you get a Jack, someone has to give you a card....or something like that. Plus, there were funny and loud sound affects like the sreeching bird to go with the game. Too much fun. I laughed more that night than I had in the whole past year, I think.

Coming up next...the final chapter of our vacation Part 1.d, fabulous Seattle.