Flooding of the Mississippi

Being here during the flooding of the Mississippi River has been an interesting experience. We usually hear about it in passing on the news but when you are here it is all you hear about. It has been crazy driving around town and seeing the streets flooded. Luckily our house has not been flooded but a couple of people in the ward/neighborhood have had their basements flooded. It makes me thankful for a built-in sump pump and an unfinished basement. We have had enough personal troubles with flooding.  

It rained all last week. I know that we broke some records but I can’t find them online. In one day it rained continuously throughout the whole day – nonstop. The thundering and lightning here is also something I have never encountered. The sound of the thunder is so loud since there are no mountains and not many trees to break the sound. It scares me sometimes. It has also scared Lilly and Herbert on occasion although we haven’t had any problems with it waking either of them up at night, luckily.

 

This is a little hard to see but those are houses across the river. They are now in the river.

 

There are whole neighborhoods that look like this

If you would like to see more pictures of the areas flood you can visit: http://host.madison.com/gallery/news/photos-quad-cities-flooding/collection_5b931fc0-6f51-5bc9-9961-a1220c398a3a.html#0

Best Friends

Lilly's best friend is named Maci. They are the same age and go to nursery together. They are super cute with each other. Lilly talks about Maci a lot and gets excited whenever we have a play date. They hold hands when they go to nursery and give each other hugs. Although, Lilly tries to give more hugs then Maci (Lilly is a little touchy feely). It has been fun watching Lilly make a friend.  

Easter

We had an extended Easter celebration. It started the week before Easter with the local Easter egg hunt. It was the funniest Easter egg hunt I have ever seen. It was scheduled for 1:00 – 3:00 pm. I assumed the hunt would start about 30 minutes after the celebration started so we planned to be there right at 1:00. Apparently the egg hunt started right at 1:00. As we parked our car we could hear the announcer telling everyone instructions. So we walked quickly to the egg hunt field and arrived right as they blew the start whistle. The field was covered in candy, eggs, and prizes. It was a ridiculous amount of candy. After everyone started it took about 5 minutes to clear all five fields. People were carrying around full Halloween buckets of candy. After the candy was gone everyone started leaving the park. Pretty much – the Easter egg hunt lasted 30 minutes max. They didn’t have any games or kids activities so really they should have said the Easter egg hunt was from 1:00 – 1:30.

Lilly did have fun spending 5 minutes gathering candy. She didn’t get much candy but that was preferable to me. They did have an Easter bunny so we spent some time getting a photo with it. Lilly acted the same with the Easter bunny as she did with Santa and she refused to look at it.

Lilly and her bestfriend Maci

On Easter weekend we had Lilly’s Easter pictures taken. Although we made an appointment there was still an hour wait. Lilly was so amazing during the pictures. She smiled and poised the way they told her. She was a star. I wanted the CD with all the pictures and to get it you have to get a package. It comes with way too many pictures and all sorts of extras I don’t need (like a tote bag with Lilly’s picture on it).

On Saturday we colored eggs. Holidays have been a lot of fun now that Lilly gets excited to do everything. She loved helping Mommy get everything ready to color the eggs and was really excited when she finally got to color one. She spent a lot of time with the white crayon and stickers.  

Sunday morning the Easter bunny came. There were some colored eggs hidden outside and plastic eggs hidden around the house. She was so cute the whole time finding everything. She would scream ‘egg’ and run across the lawn/house to get it. We got Lilly some princess items for her basket and some binoculars that she usually has hanging around her neck.  We really had a great Easter.

 

Lilly getting ready for Easter Sunday

 

Chicago

Our family went to Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Tyson ran the St Paddy’s Day 5K and we wanted to see the river dyed green.  It was my first time to Chicago so I was super excited. We left early on Friday morning and had our first stop at the Chicago Airport for Tyson’s international re-entry interview. He can now enter the country faster. He doesn’t have to go through customs each time. While we were waiting for Tyson Lilly found a little stage (what looked like a stage) and did a beautiful dance for everyone. At the end she even made sure to bow. I am not sure where she learned that.  

After the airport we went to pick up Tyson’s race packet and got some lunch. We had lunch at Potbelly Sandwich Shop. The food was yummy but expensive. After checking into our beautiful hotel we went to Sears Tower which is now called Willis Tower. It was a foggy day so it wasn’t too crowded. I thought it was worth only being able to see a mile just for the lack of crowds.

The Hotel

 

 Once visitors are on the 103^rd floor they are able to ‘step outside the tallest building’ by using the glass observation decks. The decks allow people to see directly below them. It was amusing watching all the people that were scared of heights trying to persuade each other on the deck but then when it was our turn our 2 year old went rushing out without a second thought. She saw some teenagers doing handstands on the deck so she immediately tried to do it too. It was super cute. She also liked looking in the binoculars and insisted at stopping at each one.  

 

What the deck looks like

Lilly doing handstands

 

After the tower we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street from our hotel. The food was alright but I ended up getting food poisoning. It was the worst experience in my life. I spent most of the night with extreme stomach cramps and vomiting. It felt like I was in labor. I was about 5 minutes away from making Tyson take me to the hospital. The only thing that stopped me was the fact we were in Chicago and I didn’t want to go to a hospital in Chicago.

Tyson’s race was early in the morning and I was still felt sick so I had to stay at the hotel. I felt so awful for not being able to make Tyson’s first race. If I could stand for more than a minute I would have suffered through it but I couldn’t … Lilly even had an adorable St. Patrick’s Day race outfit. Tyson was super sweet and got me some breakfast to try and gag down before leaving. Tyson did really well on his race. He finished and his time was where he wanted it to be. He enjoyed lapping people.

Tyson at his race

 

Lilly's St. Patrick's Day Outfit

After the race and Lilly’s nap I was feeling a little better so we ventured out to Michigan Avenue for some shopping. We stopped at the American Girl store. Lilly really loved the infant dolls but we thought she would grow out of that quickly so we didn’t buy her anything. We also visited the Macy’s and picked out Lilly’s Easter dress. Unfortunately, I only lasted two stores before I had to be done.  On the way back to the hotel we took a driving tour of Chicago. We saw the dyed green river, the sight of the Chicago World Fair, Lake Michigan, and downtown Chicago. Since it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend we also got to see all the partiers out in their green outfits. 

We then headed back to our hotel. For dinner Lilly and I had Wendy’s (I eat a plan backed potato) while Tyson went out to find me some milk. It was amazing how much better I felt after drinking some milk. I really appreciate Tyson taking care of me.

The next day we checked out of our hotel and went to the Shedd Aquarium. It was a nice aquarium but the line was very long and we had to stand outside in the cold. Another drawback was that parking was more expensive then admission for the whole family into the aquarium.  However, once we were in the aquarium we had a good time and we wore Lilly out for the drive home.  

 

Of course we couldn’t be so close to a Boston Market without stopping there for lunch on our way home. Yuuummmy!! I love that food and no food poisoning from them.