Ben and Linda Bonanza

Ben and Linda came into town from Idaho Falls for a whole week, yay!  Ben presented at the American Nuclear Society's Annual Meeting in Chicago, which worked out great for us as that meant a nice long visit home.  We love having these guys here, it is the best!  Luke loves spending time with his aunt and uncle too.

Before B&L got into town on Friday, on Thursday night we had a last minute visit with the Richardson's as they headed through town again in their summer of travels.  Isabelle gets cuter everytime we see her!  We went to one of our downtown Lake Forest Thursday night concerts and had such a fun evening. 

Luke was very cute with Isabelle, I have visions of them playing together when they're a little older.

Ben and Linda stayed with us over the weekend and we packed in some fun activities, as usual.  On Saturday we had a nice breakfast out, then went to the Botanic Garden (they had never been except in the winter).  After the gardens Luke took a nap while Ben and Matt rented kayaks at the beach and paddled all the way down to Fort Sheridan and back.  Linda, Luke and I met them at the beach for a little while, too.

How many adults does it take to read a bedtime story?  Apparently, three.

"Psst...Daddy, are you sleeping?"

"OK, I'll sleep too."

 On Sunday Donna and Emil hosted a party so that the extended family could get a visit with Ben and Linda. The party was on the day of the Downers Grove local festival, including a pretty extensive car show.  It was SO HOT, but we walked all around the festival and had a great time.  We had to cool off with Luke's first snow cone:)

In Luke news, we have switched up his bedtime routine.  Since we had Dr. Joe Richardson, new dentist extraordinaire, at our house on Thursday we happened to learn that it was not good that we were still allowing Luke to drink milk right before bed.  Our routine was:  bath, milk during books to create milk drowsiness, bed.  Luckily we remedied our mistake before all of his little teeth fell out from the sugar eating them away all night long.  NOW the routine is:  milk during stories, bath, brush teeth, drink of water, books, bed.  He switched the milk order cold turkey, which was good, the bad news is that it extends our bedtime routine by like 10 minutes.

Other than that, what else to report?  Hmmm.  Well, Luke cannot get enough of being outside, seriously he is hardly ever inside.  He also is sort of anti-clothes these days, since the heat had gotten so bad.  He runs around in just his diaper and sun hat every chance he gets. Sometimes he'll let you put a shirt on him, but hardly ever allows shorts and/or shoes without some protest.  In our efforts to help Luke try to talk, Linda suggested helping him sound out words.  So these days before we give him what he is pointing at we try to get him to say at least the first syllable of what he wants (for example "watermelon" = he must try to say "wa").  It is a start, but he really is not interested in saying much.  He has to really want it, otherwise he shakes his head "no" to saying anything and then just gives up on the thing he wanted.

I'll close with a couple videos.  One is of Luke swimming with his new "puddle jumper" water wings.  The other one is of Luke "laughing" to the Hey Diddle Diddle  song again.  It never gets old to me:)

Noodles are more fun out of the water than in!

My first ear of corn.  I LOVED it, and actually ate too much of it (2 whole ears!) and had a stomachache that night.

Pinkalicious & Fantastic Fathers

Miss PJ debuted her mad dancing skills in a public forum via June 16th's dance recital, and she was awesome!  Her class performed "Pinkalicious" and they were adorable.  Just the costumes would have been enough to incite oohs and ahhs, but then they all started doing their synchronized moves and the cuteness factor was raised up about 50 notches.  Even though PJ's performance was only about 10 minutes, Luke actually watched almost an hour of the recital sitting on our laps, we couldn't believe how good he was being.  The whole event was well worth the trip up to WI and then we had a fun family dinner out afterwards to celebrate Paige's success.  

We went to K&C's house before the recital to hang out, and Cory & Matt randomly decided to go to a shooting range just for fun.  Slightly strange, but hey, Father's Day was the next day so if that's what they wanted to do....

On Sunday we hosted Father's Day/June Birthdays for the Mackus side of the family at our house, as is our T-R-A-D-I-T-I-O-N!!  This year, not usually a tradition, we had great pool party weather.  Yippee!  We had a wonderful day celebrating all the Dad's, especially Matty the wonder Daddy, and celebrating the June and July birthdays (Aunt Sue, Uncle Dan, Aunt Allyson, Ian and Paige).  

Best Daddy ever!

Luke holding Gram's hand, cute!  Notice how wet she is from giving hugs to a wet kid!

Lots of people and dogs enjoying the pool!

Birthday Boy and Father, Uncle Dan

Bucket is so big, but still a rambunctious puppy

Lovely ladies Melissa and Jessica

Dad's Father's Day gift from the kids - "What happens at Grandpa's stays at Grandpa's"!  That's for sure!  I have a sneaky suspicion it involves dessert and cartoons:)

Birthday cakes.  The candles were a little hard to keep lit outside, but these actors and actresses are doing a fine job pretending they're all lit.

Pushing the kids on the swings, a perfect job for Grandma and Grandpa!

I'll leave you with this cute clip of Luke one night during the week scootching along with an inner tube around his ankles and around his neck.  He is starting to do the funniest things!

Lake Livin'

We took full advantage of Jenae and the boys being in town, seeing them two more times before their visit was over.  On Saturday we headed over to Aunt Diane and Uncle Garry's for a fun lake day with the extended family.  Kristin, Cory and PJ came too!  We had a beautiful day for boating and catching up.  On Sunday I had a bridal shower for my friend from work Kate, then spent the rest of the day hanging out and getting things done around the house. While I was at the shower Matt took Luke on a long bike ride in the bike trailer, stopping at an awesome new park, going to Ft. Sheridan Beach and then stopping for lunch.  They had a great bonding day! I tell you, the weeks are going by too fast, I want to enjoy the summer and savor every activity!

All the boys playing ball

Sara and baby Lila

Lukers hanging out with Gram and Grandpa

Went for a dip while out for a boat ride.

My girls!  PJ is an absolute fish!

Cousin Jackson, just a tiny bit younger than Luke, was good at sharing his snacks (although doesn't look so pleased in this picture!)

River and Lennon on the beach, they spent a couple hours swimming with Matt in the lake.

Jackson has quite the hilarious personality

Luke taking a plunge in the hot tub.  Lennon was so sweet to take care of him.

All of Aunt Diane and Uncle Garry's grandkids!

At the shower on Sunday, work friends Connie and Julie

Bride to Be Kate

Luke and I snuck in a last visit with Jenae et al on Thursday night when Dan, Amy and the kids came into town.  Depicted here is Sara reading to the twins and Orrin.

Other news to report:

- The robin's nest in our front yard has resulted in three baby birds hatching over the past couple weeks!  Miracle of life at work by our front stoop!

- Grandpa Emil made the adorable sign for the play set "Fort Dukerson" that looks great!

- Luke is a total monkey, climbing up and on everything he can possibly get his hands and feet on.  This has resulted in some close calls and some real falls.  His pain threshold is amazing, he can completely crash and then just walk it off.  

- Luke is starting to enjoy the pool a little more now.  Despite hating swimming lessons he is beginning to want to be in the pool more and can scoop the water, kick his feet and blow bubbles. This kid could be a potential swimmer yet!

- Another Luke thing is that now almost every time we take his clothes off to change or for bath time Luke wants to stand up on his changing station and try to throw the clothes into the hamper.  If he doesn't make it on the first try he gestures and grunts wildy for me to get him down to retrieve the errant clothes (note- this is his way of communicating anything and everything he wants, by the way) and then wants back up on the changing pad to try to throw again.  Super cute.  

- He gives such sweet hugs, with back pats, and sometimes kisses when so inclined.  It is the best!  

Our strawberry harvest was great this year!  Luke learned how to pick "just the red ones!" after many trial and errors of ripping off all of the unripe berries from the plants.  I think he single-handedly ate every strawberry we got out of that garden this year.  So cute how he would run over there every day to get his loot.

Just relaxing on the swing...

The Dukerson in Fort Dukerson

After just one of the eggs had hatched.

Unicorn Sighting! (aka a free weekend)

With lots of fun social engagements always filling up our calendar, especially in the summer, it is rare that we have a weekend to ourselves. That's why when we checked the calendar and saw two full days of nothing planned, we were pleasantly surprised.  We took advantage with some lazy days of just hanging around the house and toolin' around town.  

When going out to breakfast we stumbled on this car show.  Matt loved showing Luke all the cool cars!

Luke didn't quite get the bean bag toss rules.  The bean bags go in the hole - not the little stinkers!

Dog park!

Unfortunately Emil landed in the hospital for a couple days with a bout of pneumonia.  We went to visit him and since we forgot Luke's shoes, he wore Grandpa's hospital socks around:)

Sunday we went to the Botanic Garden, so that means we have to see the miniature trains of course.

At the Botanic Garden we also went to the butterfly exhibit.  Butterflies were everywhere.  Luke seemed mostly unimpressed.

On Tuesday we hosted cousins Jenae & Jeremy with Lennon (6 yrs old) & River (4 yrs old), Aunt Diane and Uncle Garry, Uncle Mike and Donna & Emil.  They brought the pizza and we just showed up from work to a ready made party!  Pretty good deal!  Jenae & Jeremy are in town from Ft. Collins, CO for a visit and so we have to squeeze in as many visits as we can when they're here with their boys.  Despite the chilly temps, they wasted no time going into the heated pool for a little swim action. River preferred the playset, smart boy:)
 

Lennon, Luke (note indicator of where we wants to go - out!) and Matt

Luke loved getting swung by Aunt Diane and Grandma

Jeremy, River and Jenae  

On Wednesday I picked up my parents from the airport.  After almost 3 full weeks away, they made it home safely from their trip to China and Tibet.  We loved hearing all their stories and seeing some of their pictures and videos.  What a once in a lifetime experience!  Glad to have you back in the States!

One of Luke's souvenirs from China, how cute is this outfit?