Staycation - Day 1 "The Aboretum"

It was Day 1 of our "staycation" (instead of a leaving on a vacation, we are hanging out in the area and having a staycation) and man, did we have some F-U-N!!!! Kevin is off all week and we are so glad. The weekend was busy, but fun. Kevin played drums at the west campus church and we had a couple of get togethers with good friends. A couple of minor incidents, but nothing out of the ordinary. Ethan split his chin open at church in the same place it has split open every other time! Nothing some liquid bandage couldn't fix. Abby on the other hand is quite the case. Last summer we brought our very first Epi Pen home, due to a nasty reaction to a bee sting. We have also had some trouble with Abby when she gets bitten by mosquites. I try to keep her sprayed with DEET, but this summer's bugs aren't too phased by it I guess. She is a mess. Her poor bites swell so badly they get rock hard and hot. Then when the swelling does go down, she's left with terrible bruising from her skin being stretched to tight. :( So after much research, I returned from CVS with Vitamin B1 (repells mosquitoes when taken 25-50 mg three times per day) and Zyrtec for kids. We've been using a lot of hydracortizone and calamine lotion to make her comfortable. Hopefully something will help soon!! She's a trooper despite how bad the bites look tho!!!

Today, we spent some time at the Morton Aboretum. I have never been there even though it's not that far away from us. They are having their 'Big Bugs' exhibit through July 21st, so we wanted to check it out! It ended up being the perfect day for it. The weather was so great! Plenty of sunshine, but not too warm.

I had to make these pictures into a slideshow because there were so many good ones! The Morton is quite a cool place and the 'Big Bugs' were so amazing. We learned a lot about bugs that we didn't know before and I had such a nice time looking at all of the gorgeous native plants and flowers. The kids loved the children's garden. There were lots of play areas and even little streams and treehouses to explore! It was quite a fun first day of vacation! We headed over to Buca di Beppo for a nice, heavy Italian dinner afterwards. The kids enjoyed their dinner and so did we!! The pistacio gelato is calling to me right now from my freezer!

Enjoy the pictures!!