Naperville day 2

As we were leaving the gym the second day we saw these geese with all of their babies crossing the road. We actually had to stop because they weren't in too much of a rush...

We didn't really know where we were headed but we decided to go by Northern Illinois University just to check it out because it was close by. It was a pretty school...

Off the freeway around Chicago we drive over this huge quarry....

We didn't know where we were headed next but we stopped in St Joseph which is a town on Lake Michigan. We first stopped at a lookout.

After that we decided to look for some lake access and we found a beach to check out. We weren't planning on going in the water or anything but had our suits in the car so we put them and got a little bit of sun. We couldn't stay long because, without sunscreen, we would have been burnt to a crisp! This was a great place to stop on a BEAUTIFUL day! The water was chilly but we were in there for about 10 minutes. We sat on the sand to dry off and people watch. If the lake had waves like the ocean it would be perfect because there is none of that salty/scratchy feeling when you get out of the water.


The sand was busy busy!

After the beach we walked around the downtown. This cannon and fountain were right above the beach. I'm really only in the picture for scale...

This building was across from the fountain and actually had a wedding reception on the patio...

We walked around downtown St Joseph and it as a really cute downtown. Each year apparently, a lot of the local businesses all decorate something (along the lines of some sort of theme). This year was dogs so these were all over town on the sidewalks. They were all done by different artists and a lot of them related to the businesses they were in front of. We never heard the whole story but it was pretty cool...

It was an awesome trip and we'll most definitely be back to St Joseph to enjoy the sun and sand!

Naperville

o this weekend Mikel and I headed to Naperville, a suburb of Chicago. I was there to watch some volleyball (a high school girl I'm helping out) but after the tournament we headed to downtown. 

The volleyball tournament was in the morning and we headed to Naperville in the afternoon. The town has a huge beautiful park with a pool built from an old limestone rock quarry, some sand volleyball courts, paddle boats, statues and memorials, a skate park, and a 4 mile river walk trail.


For some reason I can't get these pictures in the right order but you get the idea!

We cruised around and found a place for dinner by the water.

It was a hot and sweaty day and the outfit I was wearing wasn't too flattering, but I had to share the pictures still!

These cute little geese came by our table!


Then we found a place that sells just straight cookie dough. They had a bunch of different flavors but we decided to go with just the classic chocolate chip. There's not way we could finish one together but it was good. Don't worry, it was made without eggs!

This is a mural of their downtown in the 1960s (I think)....

Overall, a very cute town (although it's actually not very small-- it's the 5th largest city in Illinois)!

busy busy busy

We have been super busy and we're actually out of town now but I wanted to post these pictures we took today. I'll have to write an update soon about all the busyness but that's not a right-now project (just imagine it including lots of school, mosquito bites, cookie dough, science nerds, travel, a swimming pool/rock quarry, and work).


We are in Naperville, IL which is actually a suburb of Chicago. There are tons of cool statues and memorials here and, in honor of Memorial Day weekend, I thought I'd share part of what we saw...

This one was a memorial for September 11th. The faces represent the victims and they were done by local kids. The steel is from the World Trade Center, the granite is from Pennsylvania, and the concrete is from the Pentagon. The 93 is for United flight 93 that went down in the Pennsylvania field.