Naperville, Illinois

Adam in the Miata with Aunt Therese

Uncles John, John and Tom

Playing cello with cousin Alicia in St. Louis

Adam climbing at the St. Louis Children's Musuem

Future engineer!

The Golden Dome of Notre Dame

Adam with his cousin Natalie who is goalie for Marquette University. We got to see her team play against North Carolina at Notre Dame. Natalie held the number 1 ranked US women's college team to only one goal. Go Natalie!

Adam's first day of Kindergarten. Could his smile get any bigger?

Ben's first day of 3rd grade in front of May Watts Elementary School.

Mom, Ben and Adam in front of their new home.

Our new home

You walk into the living room/dining room area. The kitchen and family room are to the left while the 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms are to the right.

The back fence opens up to the May Watts Park

Our built-in pool and backyard

The end of our trip in front of our new home and new car. We made it!!!

We have now been in Naperville 6 weeks and will be moving into our new home next Saturday. We have truly found a great place for all of us. It has been wonderful being closer to family. My brothers Roland and John have both done babysitting duty, we traveled to St. Louis to see family and even saw my niece Natalie play soccer at Notre Dame. The boys have thoroughly enjoyed time with aunts, uncles and cousins. We have also been busy exploring Chicago and just this past weekend had Chicago style deep dish pizza at Gino's East in Lincoln Park after visiting the Museum of Science and Industry. We could live here for years and still not see everything. Mom is finally getting used to all the freeways. Even after driving for 4000+ miles, the freeways of Chicagoland are second to none. To top it all off, they film everything. I got a ticket sent to my PO Box in Livermore with a picture of me making a right turn on red. AARGH! At least this one doesn't go on my record.

Our new home is located not far from downtown Naperville. While I had planned on renting, this house was too good to pass up. We back up to a parkway that leads directly to the boys' school. All the kids in the neighborhood walk to school and the boys seem to be thriving. Mom is busy volunteering and making sure everything is on track. I have also been busy getting things done on the house before we move in. It is a bit of a three ring circus, but I keep telling myself it will calm down soon. I've been fortunate in having a lot of help from a great crew of folks which has made my life easier. Besides buying a new house, I also ended up having to buy a new car. I actually finalized the house sale while sitting at the car dealership! We are now the proud owners of a new Mazda 5 which makes me happy everytime I drive it. The boys also enjoy the DVD players in the headrests. It's a wonder we ever get out of the car.

So, we are starting our new life in a new town with a new car, new house, new school and new furnishings. I know that this will be a wonderful spot for us which was exactly what I was praying for all along the way. We found the home of Ben's dream (literally) and are close to family. I'm sad to see this Blog come to an end, but it truly was a Grand Adventure. I believe that if we had known where we were going to end up, we would have been keeping our eye on the endpoint rather than enjoying the ride. It was a trip we will always remember and I'm grateful for all the love and support along the way. Just wait for the next summer's blog when we go on our next adventure!

Chicago

Building with real tools at the DuPage Children's Museum


Adam, Ben and Uncle Rollie in Chicago

Lake Michigan

The Field Museum

Sue, the largest T. Rex skeleton in the world. It is the real thing except for the head which is in a separate exhibit upstairs.

Believe it or not, this is a Giant Ground Sloth.

The Water Taxi for Lake Michigan

View of the city from Lake Michigan

Travelling the Chicago River

View of the city from the river

View of the Sears Tower from the river. This is the tallest building in North America

We finally arrived in Naperville after 4000+ miles and 6 weeks of our Grand Adventure. Our first day we visited the DuPage Children's Museum in Naperville where the boys got to build using real tools (including a saw!) The adventure continued with a visit to Uncle Rollie in Chicago. As he has lived here close to 40 years, he was the perfect tour guide. We ended up taking public transportation because as we learned on our trip the journey is as much fun as the end point. We took a city bus, a train, a subway and our feet just to get to The Field Museum where there was an entire room of Dinosaurs. We got to go into a real Egyptian tomb and saw all sorts of mummies. We also visited the Pacific Islands in honor of Ben's love of all things Australian. There was a special Pirate exhibit, but we decided to save that for another day. We then took a water taxi on Lake Michigan to Navy Pier where we hopped on another water taxi for a trip on the Chicago River right through downtown. To top it all off, we took the Elevated Train and another bus to return to Uncle Rollie's. It was a great way to see the city which is going to take quite a bit of time to explore.

Spam and Wisconsin Dells

Trying to beat the clock while in the Spam production line

Ben riding across a tightrope at the Tommy Bartlett
Exploratory at the Wisconsin Dells

Look, no hands!!

Ben in a spacesuit as we got to go inside the actual Mir Space Station

As we drove through the Northern Plains States, it became a little more challenging to find places to stop. We visited the Information Center in Minnesota and they recommended the Spam Museum in the town of Austin. As they had a picture of Big Foot holding a can of Spam on the flyer, the boys decided they had to see it. While we did not find Big Foot, we did have a great experience at a totally interactive museum. Adam even tried the turkey Spam that was being served and said it was pretty good. The boys got to see how many cans of spam they could pack and cook and also found out what goes into making some of their favorite foods like bacon. There was even an exhibit where famous chefs showed how to make their favorite Spam recipes. To take a further step back in time, we stopped at a drive-in A & W that hooks the tray on the car window. We even got to meet the 90+ year old owner who came to chat after seeing our California license plate.

In Wisconsin, we spent the night in the Wisconsin Dells. I had always heard of the Dells but never knew what it was about. It is actually cliffs and rock formations that are cut out by the Wisconsin River. That being said, the true claim to fame is Noah's Ark the largest water park in the world coupled with 20+ other water parks and a million kid activities. I found out the best way to torture your kids is to take them to a place like the Dells and show them all the places you can't take them by yourself. There was no way I could take the boys to these huge water parks alone. We did, however, find a great hands on exploratory that even had one of the two original Mir Space Shuttles. The boys now want to visit Egypt, Australia, Hawaii and the Wisconsin Dells (with another adult!)

Corn, Corn and More Corn

He finally gets to touch the corn!

I know Adam is in there somewhere, because I can see the yellow SpongeBob crocs. Can you see him?

Had I known that Adam would be so crazy for corn, I would have stopped at the Corn Palace. As it was, we bypassed this South Dakota tourist spot as Mom was very tired of looking at cornfield after cornfield after… Adam, however, was very persistent about walking in a cornfield and yelled for me to stop every time he saw one (believe me, that was a lot of yelling). I finally took a detour into Iowa on a two-lane road, so the boys could say they had been there. I pulled over into a cornfield and let Adam walk inside. I have made a solemn promise that we will stop at a corn stand in Illinois and get fresh corn as soon as it is harvested. It better be soon or I will never hear the end of it.

The Badlands

This Big Horn Sheep crossed the road right in front of our car

Adam's experiment - Part I

Adam's Experiment - Part II

Adam's Experiment - Part III "The Clay Ball"

Climbing yet again - they just can't help themselves

No trip to South Dakota would be complete without seeing the Badlands. They were truly bad for me as I got a speeding ticket trying to get Ben to the bathroom! Oh well, for 3000+ miles of driving, I guess that isn’t so bad. The Badlands got their name from early visitors. The Lakota Indians called the area “mako sika” and the Spanish called it malpais both literally meaning bad land. The French trappers also called it "les mauvaises terres à traverser" - "the bad lands to cross". After visiting the area, I can see how it got its name. The ground literally falls away under your feet and is like dry clay. Adam, ever the experimenter, decided to see what would happen if he poured water on the dirt. It did actually turn to a thick clay-like material. Having been to a few National Parks lately, we also noticed that the Badlands looked a little like the Painted Desert because of the different colored layers. It also has a resemblance to Bryce Canyon because of the hoodoos. All in all, it was a very interesting place.