It was nice weekend, somewhat more relaxing than many of the recent ones. Our friends Joel, Emily & their 5-month-old daughter, Cora, came for the day on Saturday. We went downtown for Maxwell Street Days and to eat lunch. It was HOT. HOT, HOT, HOT. Later on that night we went to the air conditioned mall to walk around a bit. Evan played for the first time in the play area, and only got trampled once.

Sunday we visited Aunt Barb & Uncle Jim. Evan showed off his new walking skills - he is now up to 13 steps. We visited Eric at the pool and Evan swam and had a good time. Check out the mohawk!

I'm sitting on the porch with Evan and he's playing with a toy. He pulls himself up, turns to me, lets go of the toy, and takes TWO baby steps towards me. All by himself! Pretty soon he'll be asking for the car keys. I'll be sure to give him Eric's.

UPDATE: 45 minutes later he takes SIX steps. I was grinning from ear to ear.

chi-town.

A long weekend in Chicago. Lots of shopping, walking, sightseeing and sun. We left Saturday afternoon, did some shopping around the Woodfield Mall area, and had dinner. Sunday we had a lazy morning around the hotel since nothing was open. Evan enjoyed the pool:

After some more shopping, we headed to Wrigley for the game vs. the SF Giants. Even though Evan's first MLB game wasn't the Brewers, we're ok with it being at Wrigley Field.

After the game we went to Navy Pier to walk around for awhile. The weather was beautiful and we listened to some live music and enjoyed people watching.

Hanging out at the hotel:

Monday, on the way home we stopped to visit my great Aunt Alice. She turns 94 on Wednesday and is completely independent. She is truly an inspiration and probably the sweetest lady I know.

One of my dad's cousins gave me these hilarious pictures of when he was a kid...I love looking at older pictures. I've been working on restoring pictures of my grandparents and great aunt and uncles, so I will post those later.

Those other days...

Saturday we went to our friend's house (thanks Janelle & Darrin!) for a grill out. The kids swam and played pretty much the entire time.

Sunday we went to the outdoor pool and Eric took Evan down the slide for the first time. I think Eric was more scared than Evan (not to worry - Eric went very slow so as not to freak me out). Later in the afternoon we went to a neighborhood grill out. It seems that's all we did this weekend!

I took the day off from work on Monday so Evan and I went to Barnes and Noble. He just loves to play with the trains there. I love the outfit! Thanks Aunt Kate!

the 4th of july.

One of my favorite holidays. I love the nice weather and the family picnics. But most of all, I love the parade and festival at the local park. It's a family tradition dating back to before I was born. I couldn't wait until I had a child and would be able to make him a float and pull him behind in the parade. Don't ask why, but I decided the theme for Evan's float would be Shrek. We were thinking that Evan wouldn't sit very well in it, but he did great! Lasted the entire parade. Here are tons of pictures from the parade and then the festival.

Getting ready for the cake walk!

After the parade we all headed to the Ripple's for a BBQ and swimming. Thank goodness for good weather and their two HUGE mosquito traps/machines.