Rinns at Great Wolf Lodge

The morning after we got home from the beach, we flew to Chicago to meet the entire Rinn clan for a great Labor Day weekend together!  Papa, Nana, and Uncle Mike also flew to Chicago, where we met up with Jon, Kristy, & Griffin.  We caravanned north a few hours to Great Wolf Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells!

We all stayed together in a large condo at Great Wolf Lodge.  Most of the pictures from our weekend together are of these two cousins--they LOVED being together.

Apparently they thought the bathttub was just as much fun as all the rides and slides in the waterpark.  :)

This is one very happy Nana with these two boys in her arms!  :)

The bunkbeds in one of the bedrooms were a big hit with these two!  They went up & down the ladder countless times.  Isaac also tried jumping off the top rung of the ladder....

I think the funniest thing these two did together was try to get Michael to wake up every morning.  I really don't know how Mike slept as late as he did with these two boys running around.  Griffin & Isaac would keep pointing at him and saying things like , "Mike ni-ni," "he sleeping," "wake up!" and "shhh."  (Trust me, their "shhhh" wasn't quiet at all.)  They'd get a little braver and walk by the bed, then climb on the end of the bed, and finally attack him.  One morning they were both brushing his hair with Nana's hairbrushes!

The boys loved the jet skis in the kid's area!

all the Rinn boys together

Here's all the guys (minus the two little ones, of course) coming off Great Wolf's newest ride, the Howlin' Tornado.  I went one time and that was enough for me!!  :)  The ride starts off with a 6 story drop and then you fly up & down the sides of a large funnel.  Dave, Jon, Michael, & Kristy all went a few times together...and realized the reason that the tube started to double over on itself in the funnel was because they might have been slightly well over the weight limit--ha!  It definitely made for some fun memories.  :)

It really was such a fun weekend together!  We'll have to make this a tradition!

Our Trip to South Texas!

Earlier this summer, once we realized that we really weren't getting either of the babies we'd hoped to adopt, we decided to plan a fun vacation to the beach with Isaac.  We wanted to do something special with him and celebrate this precious little boy God has given us. 

We went back and forth about where to go, but finally decided to stay in Texas.  We'd never been to the Corpus Christi/Padre Island area. 

Early Saturday morning, we started the drive toward the coast.  Before the trip, we bought a portable DVD player for the car...Isaac LOVED it!  (Why didn't we buy one sooner?)  We arrived at our condo on Mustang Island just in time to make supper.  A family whose children I taught at Friendship Elementary stayed at this same condo earlier this summer, so it was nice to hear about it from someone who'd actually been there recently. 

 Even though we spent most of our time at the beach, the pools were fantastic!  One was a kiddie pool that was only 2 1/2 feet deep...perfect for Isaac's head to be above water.  :) 

Did I say how much Isaac loved going to the beach?  I wish this picture had turned out better, but when we woke up the first morning, Isaac found his swim diaper, swim trunks, swimming shoes, and shovel and brought them to us (no small feat when living out of suitcases)...we hadn't even eaten breakfast and he was ready to hit the beach!

A big change from the last time he was at the beach!

 Isaac loved to "dig dig dig" at the beach.  (He always says "dig" three times in a row.) 
And, if he was digging, he wanted Dave & I to be digging--or at least holding a "hovel." 
One afternoon, I started taking a walk down the beach while Isaac and Dave were digging in the sand.  After a few minutes, I turned around to find Isaac racing after me with a shovel and yelling "Mama hovel, Mama hovel."  :)

We planned our trip after schools in Texas had started, which ended up being a great idea! The resort was nearly all ours after the first night, and besides a few fishermen, we had the beach to ourselves, too.

When we weren't digging, we were in the water!  It was so warm and shallow quite far out.  After the first day, Isaac was brave enough to walk out on his own.  Dave could get him to laugh so hard when he bounced him up and over the waves!  He started saying "sand," "gull," and "beach" while we were there.

 

Our friend Corrie borrowed the book Heaven Is for Real to us for this trip.  Dave read it in one day!  He couldn't put it down or stop telling me about it.  Isaac was apparently interested, too.  ;)

On Tuesday, we packed everything up at the condo and took the ferry across the bay into Corpus Christi.  We spent the rest of our trip staying at the Omni.  I may have made a slight complaint about our room, and the manager offered us this room (for the same price!)...the views over the bay were gorgeous!

 

While we were in Corpus Christi, we spent half a day at the Texas State Aquarium!  We all loved it!  

Touching the stingrays

Watching the stingrays being fed

Watching the dolphin show



Outside the aquarium--USS Lexington is in the background. 
Dave visited the Lexington while Isaac and I spent the afternoon at the hotel!

Another fun place we visited was Snoopy's, a great restaurant right on the water.

For our last day of vacation, we drove down to Padre Island to the National Seashore.  It was gorgeous!



           We went to Landry's Seafood on our last night in Corpus.  Isaac loved the banana foster dessert!  (Okay, so did we--we ordered two!)

 



 

Wow!  I think this goes down as my longest post ever!  But, I wanted to write down all our memories while they're still fresh in my mind.  My heart is so full after such a wonderful week with my family.

Las Vegas!

ConExpo was held in Las Vegas in March.  If you've never heard of ConExpo, it's "just" the world's biggest exposition of everything construction-related, which also means it's one of Dave's favorite events ever!  This was his second time going.  It ended up being a family event, since my parents made a road trip of it so that my dad could go to ConExpo every day they were open.  (I think he gets a medal for being the first in and last out for the entire show!)  My mother-in-law was so kind to come and watch Isaac so that Dave and I could go, too!  

the outside portion of the Expo

 This was called the "Dancing Diggers" show.  They had a choreographed routine to several movie themes--it was hilarious! 

I spent all day Saturday walking around the show with Dave and my cousin Nate.  By the end, I was exhausted and had a huge blister.  Even though Dave & my dad had always talked about how huge ConExpo is, I really couldn't believe it how it just went on and on.  I'm sure Dave could add many more details, but my synopsis will have to do for now.  :) 

After the show closed on Saturday, Dave flew home to spend some time with Susie before she flew back to Colorado...and my weekend flipped from looking at machines and cranes to a girl's weekend!  For over half a year, my sister had planned on meeting my parents in Las Vegas when they were there for ConExpo.  She is a true Celine Dion fan, and Celine's new show had just opened the week earlier.  In January, she talked me into going, too.  It went something like this: Bethany, you're a mom now, so when are you ever going to do something like this unless I make you?  If you know my sister, you know that she can convince me to do anything.  :)

I have to agree with Emily that the show was unreal!  I'd never been to Las Vegas before or seen a show anything like this one.  The effects were amazing!  But, her voice was the most incredible of all!  This was my favorite song.  I sobbed through it...it didn't help that, during the song, the screens showed pictures of her beautiful twin boys.  (Some of the same footage of her children is shown in this link, too.)  After the show, we met back up with my dad and all went out for dinner.  So fun!