It’s already Day 4?  The day was rainy to start.  That was a carryover from last night as well.  It stormed pretty good here.  I know I woke up in the middle of the night with thunder and lighting.  I was sure the kids heard and woke up.  But no, I was the only kid who woke up.  Rich woke up once because the sump pump wasn’t turning off.  There was that much rain.

My alarm went off pretty early.  Yeah, I was going to work today.  Rich and Rick were in charge.  It’s not as scary as it might sound.  The kids got up around 7:30 or so.  I think we might be getting them trained.  After deciding what to have or not to have for breakfast, Rich packed up the lot and headed down to the river with them.  Rick got up a little bit later and followed soon after.

Since I was working, I didn’t get a firsthand account of the fishing.  We also don’t have pictures to prove the stories I got.  I guess the count is now 1 fish a piece for Bel, Sophia, and Cael.  Just to be different, Rich caught two turtles.  No fish.  I guess that would be too easy, right?

So with fishing under their belts for the day, it was time to head out on the next adventure.  Rich and Rick packed up the carload and off to Rockford they went.  That’s Rockford, IL.  The Burpee Museum houses some nice exhibits and has the next best dinosaur in the area.  Her name is Jane.  She had been living in the basement over the last few years.  Recently, Jane got promoted to the upper floors.

Turns out, Jane is an adolescent and not a full grown female.  From the kids’ perspective, she is only a little older than themselves.  She is more like some of their cousins then.  If I had to guess, I’d say she is probably about the age of Erica.  Maybe they should have called her Erica, right?

So the group toured the museum and took in the sights.  I guess there were fluorescent rocks that everyone examined.  The kids decided the primitive Indian exhibit was lame.  They’ve seen better.  You know how this generation is today.  Always have seen better.  Sounds like Cael has an interesting pronunciation for museum.  I gather is it something along the line of mooseum.  The joke I heard was that it was dedicated to cows or something.

Lunchtime was at one of Rich’s old favorites in the area.  They went into Beef-a-Roo.  The ordering was difficult to get correct, but it sounds like they only had to take a couple of things back for correction.  Now the kids can say that they’ve eaten at Uncle Rich’s favorite place.

Then it was time for the return trip home.  Between here and Rockford, there is a lot of farm land.  Yesterday, we saw a lot of horses.  Today, I bet they saw a lot of cows.  Probably smelled a lot of cows also.  Back at the house, everyone was tired, except for the kids.  Can you believe it?  They actually had to find something to do all by themselves.

Since the rain had washed the driveway clean, it was time to take chalk and go back out to decorate that plain black space again.  There were a couple of rainbows.  Another butterfly was drawn.  The pictures were colorful and filled in the spaces where each kid was setting.

Since it was warm, I got out the sprinkler for them to try out.  We didn’t get to do this last year because the weather didn’t cooperate.  It was a straightline sprinkler with lots of wriggling lines throwing water everywhere.  I enjoyed the little sunshine peeking through the clouds as kids were screaming and running around wet.  Then it was decided that they had had enough.

After getting dressed, we got Rick out of his room to cook the burgers for dinner.  He’s a pretty good cook.  Bel likes to give him a hard time.  She’s good at it, too.  Dinner was a little of this and a little of that to go with the burgers.  Green Kool-aid was the drink of choice tonight.  Thanks for picking that out, Sophia.

Everyone scraped their plates and we loaded up the dishwasher.  That is right after Sascha finished with prewash.  Then it was time for Bel to go down and practice guitar with Uncle Rich.  She’s getting lessons on finger practice.  It takes a while to stretch out those fingers to run up and down the fret board.  She already has her wish list for things that she needs.  Those all sounds like good Christmas gifts.

So the evening is young, but all the adults are still tired.  It’s hot outside.  We might just have to opt for watching a movie or two and hanging out.  Maybe there is popcorn in the near future to go with that movie.  Sascha says yes since that’s her favorite treat.

I forgot to mention that the kids are getting to be pretty good travelers.  They’ve been through 4 states in 3 days and one foreign city.  They left Michigan on Friday.  That took them through Indiana.  They arrived in Illinois.  They went to Wisconsin on Sunday.  Technically, the Ren Faire is supposed to take place in Bristol, England and not Bristol, WI.  Can you count time travel?  The Ren Faire takes place in 1601.  Uncle Rich says 1599 just so he can say, “Party like its 1599!”

As I’m writing this up, I hear Led Zeppelin come on the speakers downstairs.  I think the kids are getting a lesson is early rock and roll to go with the guitar lesson.  That’s good.  Uncle Rich has a wealth of music history knowledge that he likes to share.  I’m sure we’ll be hearing one of everything soon.

It stormed for a while and then it all passed.  We went outside to see the clouds moving on and the sun lighting up everything.