Chicago 4th of July day 2

Up early and to some good news.. A man emailed Rebecca about her Ipad! He must have been next to us in line and he accidentally grabbed it, thinking it belonged to his wife. He will be sending it back to us in LA. yay!!

So with that behind us, we walked along the riverside, stopping to talk with everyone: Locals on their porches and momma ducks and their ducklings. The midwest is like that. Everyone says hello, even the ducks.

Eventually, we made it to the Windhill, a country style restaurant full of farm tchotchkes and down home cooking. And before long we made it back to the house for a full day of laziness!

First thing Olive wanted was the hop-skotch-sprinkle. Mom and I had to laugh as O kept leaning in to drink but then pulled out as she got water in her nose, only to repeat, over and over. It was pretty funny.

After the sprinkler fun, Olive took a spin in her purple car (an old hand me down from Ashley and Vicki. Thanks guys!)

After a short swim we packed up and headed down to Naperville to see my old college buddy Tim Tilton and his wonderful family. They were hosting a great patriotic BBQ and Olive wasted no time in having fun with the other kids. There was a kiddie pool, balloons, bubbles (and margaritas for the parents).

Rebecca was upset because her bubble machine needed batteries..

Someone busted out those 'punch balloons' and Olive tried to figure out the concept.. I think she took more licks than the balloon did.

But bubbles took over and soon all the kids were adding to the bubble party.

Like mother like daughter: Olive finally got her try with the bubble machine. She loved it! Rebecca got to try her margarita. She loved it!

Once the last bubble was popped, Olive decided to get back to figuring out these bizarre punch balloons. Daddy tried to help.

Tim gave her a couple pointers and gave her a lot of encouragement.

Soon it was time to go, so we thanked the Tilton's and headed back to G-G-mas and G-G-pas for dinner.

Another beautiful day on the lake!

Olive made friends with Mr. Owl.

Soon she was entertaining us all with her flag twirling routines.

G-G-ma brought Olive back to her studio for some private painting lessons.

And then let Olive get to work. She really enjoyed it!

Olive sitting with one of the great painting masters: Loisardo da Vinci!

Ash and O played with cars.

And cameras started flashing when she sat next to Grandpa with her little flag.

Soon it was dark and the mosquitos chased us inside. Olive greeted us with some lovely dinner music.

I shot some video of this and its pretty funny. She plays some bizarre stuff, but she takes care to push every button and key on the thing. So I give her points for that.

Grandpa then joined in to show us how its done.

Soon we could hear more fireworks popping outside. Ashley and Olive peaked at them through the curtains. Olive was funny because after a point, she had seen enough and just put her arm over her eyes. 'No more fireworks' she said.

G-G-ma surprised us with a baby birthday cake and we all sang for O's 2nd birthday. Vicki got her a nice collection of beautiful bows, of which O wore all at once. Thanks Vicki! And after another fun (and long) day of vacation, we watched an old family video ("the not so newly-wed game") and fell asleep.