Grandpa Ed and Grandma Sandy's House
John was able to actually use his vacation this year, but it just happened to be all at the same time! We decided to use it to go visit Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Ed whom we haven't had a good visit with for a very VERY long time. The kids loved it and John and I loved having the time to visit as well. John and I did leave the kids for a week to go gallivanting around Barcelona for a week - but I think all parties were okay with the arrangement!
We did so many things but probably not as much as we would have liked to.
We made it to the 'Rocket Ship park', John was able to mow the yard with his long lost friend, Laynie was being poised as a piano protege, we were able to go through the
Children's museum Downtown Chicago, go to the Lego Store (where Tyler was making friends), visit with Uncle Jason (who the kids, especially Laynie love), and to see the Brookfied (?) Zoo . While we were gone the kids played in the Tee-pee and had lots of fun playing with the next door neighbor, made it to Cantinie (sp?) and lots of other park dates I'm told. And no trip would be complete without a few visits to the bass pro shop, which was fine until the kids wanted to see more fish, but they did enjoy seeing fish that they helped catch (or almost catch I don't know) when they went fishing with Grandpa.
All in all, we had a great time as did the kids and the few pictures here are not able to do justice to the 3 weeks we had with Ed and Sandy. Hopefully I'll get some scrap book pages done before the year is out!
Brookfield Zoo 
Grandpa 'taught' Laynie how to wink, which has now become her signiature smile! 
The lego store, and Tyler's new friends!
Piano Protege and Music enthusiasts
Children's Museum
We did try to get a family picture, but as none of us are very photogenic it wasn't the best photoshoot, but we did get pictures before the kids got too upset which was nice.