Happy Father's Day!!!

I love shopping for Conal. Everything that I buy him fits and it always looks good on him. That is why I hooked him up with 7 new shirts for Father's day. What can I say besides Kohls clearance (I thought of you Carrie!)


Happy Father's Day Conal! You are the best hubby and dad! You rock!
Happy Father's Day Dad! Love ya!

Shedd Aquarium and the rest of the weekend

Conal worked on Friday evening so he had the day off on Friday. Yay for family time! It was a free day at Shedd aquarium so we packed up all of the kids and headed downtown to the aquarium. It is located right by Lake Michigan and it is so pretty in that area at this time of year.

Apparently, many Chicagoans had the same idea as there were SO MANY people there waiting in line to get into the aquarium.

We figured that since we had already driven all the way out there and paid for parking (which isn't cheap in the city!) that we would wait in line. This is when it got crazy. The thunderstorms weren't supposed to arrive until the late afternoon. Wrong-o Mr. weather man! After we were there for a few minutes we saw this:

heading right for us. To stay or not to stay? What can I say, we are crazy..........we decided to stay. It started mildly with a little thunder and a few rain drops, and ended with an all out down pour, thunderstorm and swirling clouds. Being the adventurers that we are we STAYED in line and got soaking wet. I mean, clear through dripping wet, where the guy behind us in line took off his shirt to wring it out wet. The worst part is that we had ponchos for everyone in the van but due to a misunderstanding, they never made it out with us. Oh well, the kids were great sports. Macy thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen and had all of the people in line around us cracking up.

We eventually made it in the doors

and were dripping the whole time we were in the building. Actually, we were still wet when we got home.

One of the great things about being married to Conal is that he rarely complains. When everyone else around us in line was complaining and getting upset Conal said "Now THIS is a great adventure!" That is definitely the attitude you have to have with 5 young kids. ha ha. You really are pleasant to be around Conal.

Unfortunately, it is too dark in the aquarium to get any good photos and you can't use flash photography. However, I did get a picture of this:

which if you look closely and beyond the reflection of my feet, is an anaconda. I was seriously creeped out by this snake and thought I'd creep you out too. hee hee.

Saturday was another busy day. After running errands all morning, Garrison, Hailey and I went to Samantha's (a girl in Garrison's primary class and the daughter of the YW pres.) baptism. I was glad Garrison got an opportunity to see a baptism since his is just around the corner.

That evening we took advantage of the beautiful summer weather. We ate Popsicles. Conal played kick ball with the kids.

Alexia gathered some sticks in the yard and kept rubbing two Popsicle sticks together to make a fire.

I couldn't resist giving her a bag of marshmallows when she asked for them.
Macy entertained herself by playing with a Popsicle stick and crawling around in the grass.

We ended a perfectly pleasant evening watching the fireflies. Awesome.......I still can't get over the fireflies!

School's Out for Summer

School is out! I love having all of the kids home. It's definitely a little more crazy around here but we are all enjoying it.

One thing that I enjoy about the end of the school year is that the kids bring home all of the things that they have been working on all year. Garrison and Hailey had been writing in a journal everyday at school. It was so fun to read about what they thought about things and also to be reminded of some things that I had forgotten. Garrison had written a bunch of short stories in his free time. Although this is by far the shortest and most simple story, it is my favorite.

It says: Nolan my grandpa. He is funny. He says where is Garrison? and I'm right there! He always says Holy Macro! He asks me what website I'm on and he says the opposite.

I laughed and laughed when I read this. He has my dad down to a tee! I knew exactly what Garrison was talking about. It reminded me so much of my childhood.

I called my dad to tell him about this and within a minute of talking to him (and before I told him about this) he said "Holy Mackerel!" I busted out laughing and told my dad what Garrison had written.

Another thing that I enjoy during the summer is "learning time". We have this all year around but at the beginning of the summer we have a family council where the kids make a list of things that they want to learn before the next school year. All of the kids get to participate and they even added some on Macy's behalf. They can put just about anything on the list. It can be something like learning to tie a shoe, ride a bike or play the piano to something like learning multiplication and division.

We also talk about things that we want to do and see while the kids are out of school. Our summer is getting filled up pretty fast!

We knew that things were getting out of hand when Hailey insisted that she learn how to golf this summer (sorry sweetheart, Mommy has never been golfing before and it's kind of an expensive hobby for a 6 year old), and that we all go on a cruise (isn't there enough to do in the Chicago area? After all, we do have a long list of things we want to do) and that Garrison learn how to drive. Um, sorry no. I have to draw my line somewhere.

What a Week

I'm sure that most of you know that the week of June 7th was a crazy one for the Whetten family. The short story (I'll let Conal give the details if he so desires) is that Conal's dad had a major stroke and nearly passed away. We fully expected him to once he was taken off of life support. One week later he is doing things that they said he would never do again and we are SO grateful for this miracle!

I just didn't want any more time to pass before I said thank-you!

• Thank you Cedric for the buddy pass to get Conal out to Idaho Falls.
• Thank you to Conal's co-workers for making it so easy for him to just pick up and leave in a couple of hours notice.
• Thank you Mom and Dad for being willing to have company on 3 hours notice and for picking up Conal and Macy late at night even though you were sick.
• Thank you to the YW presidency for being flexible, switching things around and taking care of things so that I could keep my head above water while Conal was in Idaho.
• Thank you to all of Macy's aunts and uncles who helped Conal take care of Macy in IF. It took a lot of convincing for me to let her go and I wouldn't have if it didn't mean so much to Conal. Thanks for taking good care of the both of them!
• Thank you to our family and friends who have checked up on on us, kept the family in your prayers and just let us know that you care.

If I have forgotten anyone or anything.........THANK YOU!

I must be a Twilight nerd to buy this candy just because it is Twilight candy when I haven't eaten any sugar in more than 2 months. I just couldn't resist (buying the candy that is........I can TOTALLY resist eating it).

Hailey insisted that we buy the box with Bella on it although Garrison thought the box with Edward was cooler.

The hearts say:

true love

I love EC

Dazzle

Live 4 ever

bite me

U R my life

bad guy

lamb

The two hearts in the left corner are supposed to sparkle like Edward. I wasn't too impressed with the sparkling though. I wasn't too impressed with the sparkling in the movie either. ha ha. I guess the book leaves more to the imagination.

Conal couldn't figure out what "lamb" was for. Come on Con! You need to read the books again. Well OK. I guess reading the books once is good enough for a guy. I wouldn't want you to get in any more trouble with the guys for giving in and reading the books just to get in good with your wife. Love ya Con!

Visitors from the North Pole

Ok, so we didn't have visitors from the North Pole. We had visitors from Minnesota which is pretty close to the North Pole. Just kidding. I'm only saying that because Craig cracked me up by telling us that it is SO warm here. Only the "frozen chosen" (or is it "chosen frozen"....whatever ha ha) are allowed to give each other a hard time about the cold. That IS an actual rule (or it should be anyway).

Craig and Jaclyn came to visit! YAY! We are glad that they got to come before they move back to Utah this summer. They even made it through in one piece. I imagine that being in a house with 5 kids can be pretty crazy for a couple without any kids. You guys were great sports! They even conformed to our family color code which is also now a new rule for visitors:




On Saturday we went to downtown Naperville to the river walk. It's so pretty!







When we first got there Garrison got down to the river first and I looked over at him and he had his feet half way off the ledge. Not knowing how deep the water was or how fast it was going I about had a heart attack. Later we saw a couple of these water snakes:

and Jaclyn said "well, that's definitely and incentive to walk further away from the edge!"

Along the river there was a bell tower. While we were there they were played The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, Yankee Doodle and My Country Tis of Thee.

I also saw two things that I am adding to "the list". This is the Naper Settlement which we didn't have time to go in to but from the outside it reminds me of Nauvoo. They have people there dressed up in period costume and you can look through the old houses.

Also, there was this super duper neato pool. Doesn't this look fun? First off, it is a HUGE pool and I mean HUGE. It also has a beach!

On Sunday (after church) we hung around the house. In the evening we enjoyed the beautiful sunset,

played some games and uh hem practiced some High School Musical numbers out on the back patio. Don't tell anyone though.

On Monday we headed out to Lincoln Park. It was pretty crowded but the kids were as happy as can be. I don't think Jackson complained once. He was too fascintated by the animals. This is pretty much what he looked like the whole time.
Here is a random Conal-eating-a-lion picture for your enjoyment and mine:
I wish I had more pictures at Lincoln Park but I neglected my picture taking duty. I know Craig and Jaclyn have some though.

After that we said Goodbye to Craig and Jaclyn in the rain. Thanks for coming guys! We hope you can make it out here again before you move.

By the way, if you are wondering why my picture taking skills have so greatly improved in a short amount of time...........they haven't. I used Craig and Jaclyn's pictures. =)

Look! I found a swide!

Some of our friends in the ward got a new clubhouse/swingset for their backyard so we got their old slide. We've always planned on buying a big playhouse, but since we don't know how long we will be here, we haven't wanted to put out the money just to leave it behind. We were glad to get something for the kids to play on outside.

Jackson and Alexia were both asleep when they brought it over yesterday and set it up. When Alexia woke up and went outside, she had a strange look on her face but didn't say one word. She just went over and started playing.

Jackson was hilarious. He went outside and started running the opposite direction until he saw the slide. Then he turned around and ran toward it, went down the slide several times and then came back in the house and said "Look! I found a swide!"

Since then the kids keep going down the slide and running back around to go down it again.

Sometimes they all try to do it at once.

I love hand-me-downs!........and I hope the excitement doesn't wear off too fast!