SWEMB BIRT Wisconsin Dells Day 3

 Keegan made us a delicious breakfast before we hit the road.  I did a quick load of laundry so that we could all have clean bathing suits for the Wisconsin Dells!  My boys had been looking forward to the Dells for years!!  The Iverson's had told us about the Dells on SWEMB BIRT 1 so we knew we had to add it to our itinerary.  I am so glad we did!!  

On the way to the Dells we stopped in Madison, Wisconsin and toured the capitol building and ate at Craig and Blair's favorite restaurant, The Tipsy Cow!  We ordered fried alligator and it was tasty! The burgers were delicious according to Edward.  I had a breakfast sandwich with asparagus and an egg!  After lunch we headed to the Dells!

We spent the entire afternoon and evening swimming at nearly every single spot at the Dells.  They have 5 indoor water parks and 4 outdoor water parks.  The boys loved going from slide to slide and just playing in the wave pool.  This was a super fun stop on our trip.  

 

SWEMB BIRT Indiana Dunes Day 2

 Day two took us on a fun adventure to Indiana Dunes National Park.  I had never heard of this park until I started researching for this trip.  This park was a little out of the way but not too far.  We stayed in a wonderful hotel that fit all of us perfectly.  We slept in a bit then headed to hike the Three Dune Challenge.  This was a little harder than anticipated because it was quite hot and steep.  It was only a 1.5 mile loop but the steep incline made it difficult.  The boys hike quickly because they were all ready to get into Lake Michigan.  The lake was beautiful and seemed just like the ocean except it didn't have any waves.  The beach was soft sand and no bugs.  For a Monday in the summer, it was pretty empty.  The boys played and played for hours.  We had stopped and bought sandwich stuff for lunch to eat at the beach.  I am so glad we did because food on this trip was expensive.  

Chelsea and I sat in chairs and chatted away while the kids ate and played.  As soon as they were done, we took out door showers and jumped in the van to head to a candy factory.  This was a really cool stop where everyone got some yummy snacks.  

After the candy shop we drove over to budget rental car where the salesman REALLY helped us out.  He looked up my account and saw that I DID, in fact, pay for the toll pass and that the lady at Chicago midway charged me for gas!!  So he gave us a toll pass and took off the extra charges.  Spoiler, I was still charged $96 for who even knows what when I turned in the van!!

We then headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to stay with Melanie's friend Keegan.  She was so kind and her four boys gave up their beds for us!! I just can't believe it!  She also made us a delicious dinner with dessert!!  The boys were in heaven.  We sat up talk to them until 10:00 before we passed out in bed. It was a perfect day!

SWEMB BIRT Chicago Day 1

 This year, SWEMB BIRT was quite a bit different.  I usually travel with my friend, Melanie and her kids, but she had a pretty bad back injury in the spring that just kept getting worse.  She made a sad call two weeks ago and said she wouldn't be able to do the trip.  She couldn't even walk, let alone sit in a car for hours and hours.  I was devastated.  I thought about it for a few days, then offered to take her boys with my boys.  I mentioned to my college friend, Chelsea Anderson, that I was going to miss my trip and she offered to go!!  I am so grateful she accepted the challenge of spending 8 full days with 5 boys ranging age from 15, 13, 12, 10, and 7! We really had a blast.  The trip was much different than our other SWEMB BIRT trips; however, it was still incredible. 

This year, we planned a trip to the midwest.  I have never been to many of the states we traveled and I was looking forward to visiting three more national parks this summer.  We flew into Chicago arriving at 8 AM which means we left our house at 4 AM to catch our flight out of Albuquerque.  My boys had spent the week prior at FSY and both came home with sore throats.  I grabbed some medicine and packed them up on Saturday so we could make our flight on Sunday. 

Luckily, when Melanie and I planned this trip, we planned to fly in and out at the exact same time.  So we walked over to the gate that the Iverson boys were waiting.  Our first big adventure was to get the rental van.  The girl at the rental counter ended up charging me extra for a few things I didn't want and I didn't know it until we picked up Chelsea and started driving on the toll roads.  I had paid for the toll pass and the girl at the counter didn't give me the toll pass.  So Chelsea called budget rental and they said we didn't buy it, BUT I KNEW I DID!  Either way, we knew we had to stop and add Chel as a driver so we made plans to stop at the first budget rental car we saw on the road.  

Our first stop was downtown Chicago.  I booked us a boat architecture tour.  We arrived a bit early so we went to a delicious deep dish Chicago style pizza joint then walked over to our boat.  The boat tour was an hour and a half.  That ended up being a bit too long for the kids.  They got sick of seeing the buildings about an hour in to the tour.  We finished the tour then walked to Chicago 360.  It is a building that has a Tilt.  We stood in line for 30 minutes to ride the extremely disappointing tilt.  After walking through Chicago, we jumped back in the van and headed to Indiana.