Wednesday, July 15

Wednesday was supposed to be our day in Chicago, but it rained in the early morning hours and the forecast was iffy, so we decided to go Thursday instead. It turned out to be a full day anyway...

The rain never came, and we headed to Valparaiso about 30 minutes away. First stop was an awesome playground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are Clara and I in the playground's bubble mirror:

 

And Mallory and I...She LOVED this mirror. It had tongue smudges all over it when we left. That's gross, I suppose. But let's look at the positive and just decide it boosted her immunity.

 

 

While the kids were getting their final playground minutes in, Court and I consulted the internet trying to find somewhere to eat. In the end, the old fashioned way of "driving around until you find somewhere interesting" actually worked better. Heehee. We were trying to follow the cardinal vacation rule of eating out --> "you can't eat at a chain restaurant!"

We found Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches. Looked great, and no one in our group had eaten there before. Apparently, in talking with the staff, there are 2 within easy driving distance from us here at home. Whoopsie! HA! We weren't too upset about it though, the atmosphere was great, the food was yummy, and the staff were very accomodating and friendly. One staff person even ran to a nearby restaurant to get a plastic spoon for Xavier, after we asked, and they didn't have one. Love places like this. :-)

 

Entertaining signage -

 

 

Then we moved on to Ceramix 101, where we created masterpieces on ceramic bisque. Our pieces were painstakingly selected (which took hours) and painted (which took countless more hours). Coat after coat after coat of paint. I think we were there approximately 15-17 hours total.

 

Xavier slept for about 14 of the 17 hours we were there.

 

It was fun, but the big bummer is, we may never see these things we worked so hard on. After being told we could pick up the glazed and fired finished products later in the week, no one was there when Will and Courtney arrived to pick them back up. There was a telephone altercation over promises broken, and now we may never have them sitting on our bookshelves and mantles to look at for years to come. :-(

Look how into this he was!! That's Lightning McQueen! It really is sad he doesn't have it right now. It was such a labor of love. :-( !!

 

SO! all in all - we spent in the neighborhood of $647 and 43 hours on 4 ceramic trinkets. With nothing to show for it. Waaah!!!

Blissfully unaware of the ceramic catastrophy yet to come, we moved on to the fun park. Go karts, bumper boats, arcade games and Benny's first game of bowling! :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...then back to the house for dinner and sleep to rest up for our big day in Chicago!