The girls were awake by 6am this morning. Even with the white noise from the fan, I could hear them stomping to the bathroom. When I came out, I found Phoebe crawling out from under the bed. I left Jada to sleep, and I took the girls down for breakfast. They had the standard waffle maker, but their eggs and sausage were conveniently disc shaped to fit perfectly on an english muffin. We came back up to the room, and had the usual arguments about who should go first on the piano. That’s what finally woke Jada up. I got Ellen going on the piano while Jada went down for breakfast and a walk on the treadmill around 7:30am while I turned on the Tour coverage. I forget that we’re 2 hours ahead of Oregon, because I was expecting the Tour coverage to start at 5:30am like it does back home, but it didn’t start until 7:30am. It’s only the first stage today. They don’t count the prologue as a stage really. Fabian Cancellara surprised nobody by winning the stage yesterday. He’s the reigning world time trial champion, in case you didn’t know that.
The girls went on down to get second breakfast around 9:30am. I fell asleep on the bed while they were out. We’re just so exhausted already by the trip. We called over to my bro’s house to check to see if everyone was up before heading over there around 10am. We spent all day over there. My sister-in-law made lunch for everyone, and I mean everyone. Since it was July 4th, her whole family was over as well as ours, so it was a nice large family day. The kids all played well together. They played down in the basement where all the toys were including an air hockey table that the kids started having modified air hockey battles where they start with 1 puck and add up to four as the game went on. It was fun to watch and play. I don’t even know what else they played down there while I was upstairs. We had family pictures which unfortunately coincided with a time where Jada had just fallen asleep (as I said, we’re just exhausted from the trip). I woke her up and she joined us for the big group photos. After that, the kids went outside and played on the slip and slide (or is it slip’n’slide), so that was good for some entertainment. We got the girls some early food so we could leave to get them to bed closer to their normal time tonight. The girls unwound by sitting around watching a Disney Theme Parks promo video. Phoebe snuggled in with her Uncle Allen (we think Allen misses having a little girl since his little girl is a teeenager now), and Ellen was sitting between their two dogs without any problems. We made plans to meet up with the family for a trip to the zoo tomorrow morning, and we stopped by the Jewel to pick up some bread for lunches. Then it was showers for the girls and to bed by 7:15pm, so not too bad. We just hope that they actually sleep. As I type this, they are still awake and bothering each other as always. I just wish that at some point they’ll be used to sleeping together and just fall asleep. I guess I’ll just have to start bringing in their sleeping bags and put one in the bed, and one on the floor.
July 5: Elgin, IL, Chicago, IL, and back to Elgin, IL
I actually made it to the fitness room this morning around 5:30am and did some rather uncomfortable core work on the floor before doing some cardio until 6am when I came back up to the room to collect the girls and head down for breakfast. Jada went off to get herself some time on the treadmill while we ate, and then she ate just before everyone showed up at the hotel for our wagon train to downtown Chicago. We didn’t have an I-Pass (for our Oregon readers, that’s the pass for the toll-way so you don’t have to stop at the booths to pay the toll like we did without one), so everyone else slowed down enough to wait for us to catch up before the next toll booth. It was a nice gesture so that we’d all arrive at Lincoln Park Zoo at the same time. We were going to the zoo (zoo zoo, how ‘bout you, you, you) in the morning. We had the whole Pearson clan there. Phoebe somehow got the youngest of our crew to pull her in the trailer pretty much all day. The kids all get along really well too. We saw the apes, big cats, reptiles, and the children’s area had a really neat climbing structure suspended above the ground and up to the ceiling. It was sort of a suspended maze. Phoebe wasn’t sure she wanted to go through it at first, but her cousin, Noah, went and helped her get started. Then she went through it again. By the time we got out of there, we still had the bears and rhino’s to see. We decided to take a break and eat lunch on the grass picnic style near the flamingos. Unfortunately, the polar bear wasn’t out which was the Elgin Pearson’s favorite.
It was getting really hot as we passed 1pm. We ducked into the gift shop to pick up some postcards, a sticker, a magnet, and a couple of shirts for the girls. The plan was to go over to the Michigan Lake beach across the road from the museum, but I had also made plans with my friend, Matt, to meet up with him in the afternoon. We just took a little too long in the zoo to have time to make that last stop. The girls were disappointed not to get to go to the beach with their cousins, but they like Matt too. We got there, but my address was a little out of date, and I couldn’t raise him right away when we arrived where we thought was right outside his apartment building. His door was actually on the back side of the building, so that was a little distressing at first. We went up to see his apartment since we’d never gotten to see it on previous visits. Plus the girls got to meet his cats. Jada had been worn out by the morning, and she fell asleep on his couch. It was just 2 weeks ago on the eve of this trip that the doctor told her she had bronchitis, and she should rest for 2 weeks. So she still needs some rest every day. While she slept, Matt showed us around his apartment. The girls played with Scout and Waffles, his cats, looked at his guitars, and we then we went out on his back porch. It’s a neat apartment building that he says is in the shape of an S when viewed from above, and all the porches on back are interconnected. By the time we came back in, Jada was awake. We took in an early dinner just down the street at Giordano’s, one of my favorite Chicago pizza places. It’s just in the next block from his apartment! We ended up eating around 4pm, and we just hung out there until a little after 5pm before heading back to the hotel. We let the girls swim for about 30 minutes, and then we gave them showers. We put them to bed a little after 7pm, but it’s now a bit after 8pm, and they’re still awake and messing around. I say this every night, but I hope that eventually, they’ll get used to sleeping in the same bed together. Ellen is just not able to ignore her sister, and Phoebe knows that she just has to keep her going, and she’ll play.
July 6, 2010: Long Grove, IL and Elgin, IL
I was up early to visit the fitness center again. I did some lunges and then got on the exercise bike. Those bikes really aren’t meant for people who also ride regular bikes. The saddles just aren’t comfortable at all. They’re way too wide. I spent about 20 minutes on it which was about 10 minutes more than I could bear. I went back to the room, but the girls weren’t awake yet. After I took a shower, Phoebe was awake. She got dressed, and we both read while we waited for Ellen to wake up. Phoebe sat on the toilet lid while I sat on a chair outside the bathroom in the light. Ellen finally woke up at 6:40am, so she slept in pretty well. We all went down to the breakfast. Jada stopped by to let us know she was heading to the treadmill, so we headed back to the room so I could watch the Tour de France coverage on Versus, and the girls could do their piano practice. I also seemed to nap a little bit off and on after Jada took the girls back down for her first breakfast and their second breakfasts.
We headed over to visit our friends who are the parents of Phoebe’s godfather, Pete, in Long Grove, IL about 30 minutes from our hotel. We took a bunch of back roads to get there avoiding the toll road. Pete’s mom, Pat, had set out some bracelet making things for the girls, and her husband, Bill, stayed home from work in the morning to see us too. It was great seeing them again since we usually only get to see them when they visit Pete. They took us to lunch at the Long Grove Cafe. It was really good. Phoebe, of course, got her usual mac and cheese and Ellen got a cheese burger. I had the BBQ chicken, and Jada had a really good spinach pie. (Not as good as Pete’s). We went back to their house to finish the bracelets, and then we let the girls run around in their back yard while we chatted.
We went back to my brother and sister-in-law’s house around 3pm for the rest of the day. The girls had so much fun playing with their cousins. They get along really well. Ellen taught her younger cousin, Noah, how to play chess, and now he thinks he might decide to participate in his school’s new chess program. Phoebe learned how to hit a wiffle ball pitched to her. All I did was adjust her stance a little bit, and she was ready to go. Shelly made a really yummy dinner for us, we said our thank you’s and good bye’s, and we were off again to the hotel to pack and get ready for our next big driving day (Hello, Cleveland!) We had to clean out our big cooler. Just too much time had passed even though it was probably still cold enough. We dumped it and emptied the garbage into one of the cans near the vending area (tying up the bag first so it wouldn’t reek, although with all the cigarette smoke smell that keeps collecting in the hallway, I can’t imagine anyone would notice). The girls were so tired, they fell right to sleep tonight, finally. Though I keep hearing one of them coughing all of a sudden. We’ll be up early tomorrow.