Trip to IL Day 2: 9/4/10

This morning the kid woke up on Michigan time. They are used to waking up about 7:00 MI time, so that means they were awake at 6:00am this morning. ugh! :-( Our plans for the day had us leaving the hotel about 9:30, so we had some time to kill in the hotel room.
Marc spent some of his time playing on his DS some more (he has really gotten attached to it this weekend).When I was curling my hair this morning Samantha came over and said, "Mama, Sam too?" and mimicked curling her hair. I thought since we had time, and she was interested, I curled her hair for the first time. It turns out that her hair is so fine that the curl doesn't hold. It probably held, a little, for about 2 hours and then it went back to normal. Very fun and "girly" though! ;-)
Well, 9:30 finally came and it was time for us to head north to WI. Of course, since we were in WI, the land of cheese, we had to stop at the Mars Cheese Castle. Yum.....cheese! :-)
We then headed off to the free Jelly Belly factory tour. How can someone who loves sweets as much as I do pass up the chance to drive 15 minutes from the hotel go through on a cute little train and learn how they make the yummy little pieces of heaven?! ;-) To top it all off, they gave us each a small sample variety pack...for free!! ;-) Outside of the building there were 2 Jelly Belly VW Bugs painted all over with Jelly Bellys. Too cute of an opportunity to pass up and not get pictures of the kids.
One half of the building was the tour entrance and the other half was the store. While we waited for my cousin Susanne and her 2-year-old daughter Kate to get there we went into the shop to look around. To our happy surprise, they have what they called the "Sample Bar". This is where they have containers of everything the sell that you can request a taste of. I can only assume that it is there for 2 reasons. 1) To let you try something you are thinking about buying (we did that), and 2) To give you a taste of something yummy to try and convince you to buy something else that wasn't in your plan (we were going to do this and then forgot to buy them. ;-) )
After Susanne and Kate arrived we walked over to the tour side of the building to get in line for the next tour. We dressed the girls (whose birthdays are 11 days apart) as twins. All 3 kids loved the giant stuffed Jelly Belly.
Since the tour takes place in a building where food is manufactured, everyone had to wear a cute little paper hat. The kids looked the cutest in them so I took a picture.
or 2.
or 3. ;-)
After the tour, and LOTS of shopping, we headed to lunch and then to the hotel for a nap, the kids, not us. ;) Well, maybe me too. ;-)
After nap we headed over to my Aunt Sari & Uncle Gary's (Susanne's parents) house for some family time. Of course, when we hardly ever see each other, gift are usually exchanged when we do see each other. ;-)
Marc got a new shirt and 2 new DS games from Grandma Terri and a cool volcano set from Great Aunt Sari, Great Uncle Gary and Susanne.
Samantha got a cute outfit and a neat snap-on dress up doll from Grandma Terri and 2 new dressed from Great Aunt Sari, Great Uncle Gary, and Susanne.
After some chit chat, some gifts, and a little inside play time, all the kids, big & small headed outside to play.
and pose for pictures of course! ;-) My Aunt has a beautiful garden and my Uncle built a nice gazebo (more commonly called the gazebo for h*ll) which made for nice pictures.
and there was a cool 3 trunked tree that made for cool pictures too.
My Aunt has this grape arbor that had tons of grapes growing on it. She said they were too sour to eat this summer anyway, so the girls enjoyed picking them, squishing them, and then throwing them on the ground for critters to eat later.
Then they found the bird bath. And boy, did they have a blast splashing around in the water!
Then it was time to get cleaned up for dinner. They made yummy hot dogs/hamburgers, fruit salad, and corn on the cob. All the kids wanted to eat outside in the gazebo. After us parents got the kids'; food ready, we went back in t get our own. When we looked out, my Uncle was the only "adult" sitting at the table with the kids.
Apparently the dinner food (and desserts) gave all 3 kids more energy. They spent time running over energy in the back yard. We managed to snag a few cute pictures of them by the tree.
The girls definitely had fun playing together. They look at each others pictures/videos on the computer all the time so it was fun to see them actually playing together. They gave each other a very sweet good-bye hug.....
and then of course they had to give each other knuckles too.
And to top off the evening, there was a fun, big group hug!
I think the day of food, family, and fun wore my little kiddos out!
It was great to see Susanne and Kate! We haven't seen them since the girls were 9 months old...and they will be 2 1/2 years old in October!
Thanks for letting us crash your weekend Oostas! :-)