Dog Days of Summer

Cool Hand Luke

 While it IS the dog days of summer, the post title is actually a nod to the fact that we actually attended the local canine festival "Dog Days of Summer" last weekend.  We were feeling bad that Spumoni has been left out of many of our activities this summer, so wanted to do something just for him.  Neighboring town Libertyville had this dog festival going on so we went over there on Sunday.  It was really neat seeing the "dock jumping" competition, especially.  Those dogs have some kind of long jumping skills!  There were tons of dogs there, and of course we were stopped every two minutes to answer the always-asked question "What kind of dog is that?".

Spumoni enjoying his "doggy snowcone" which was shaved ice with gravy over it.

"I like this place"

Look at that jump!

After the dog festival we hit up another local activity, Greek Fest!  We went for the gyros, to be honest, but it was a cute little local church festival and Luke loved the kiddie bounce house.  He didn't want to get out.

Other big news of the weekend is that Grandpa and Gram bought an 18' speedboat!  On Saturday we accompanied them on their test drive and everyone gave the thumbs up.  It is a perfect boat for what they are wanting, which is something to fish on (for Grandpa) and to take the family out on boat rides/ski/tubing on occasion.  We are excited for them and excited for us, since they say we can use it too whenever we want!

It was fun just going on the test ride!

There she is!  Now she just needs a name!

Big plate of food at lunch after the boat test drive

We also hit a park last weekend.  We had such great weather!  The heat finally broke and it was a perfect 82 degree day.

Just reading myself a book.  All BY myself!

Luke Hearts Independence (Day)

Luke has been so increasingly independent lately, that I think he felt a special affinity for Independence Day this year.  He always wants to do everything all by himself, whether it is drinking out of a big boy cup or walking down the street trying to tug his hand out of yours the entire time.

In any case, we celebrated Independence Day with two fun celebrations.  On July 3rd we scrambled home from work to get up to Milwaukee for the annual fireworks on the lakefront.  All of us Mackus's were there for at least one more year of holding up our TRADITION!!  Luke seemed scared by the fireworks at first and almost choked me he was hanging on to my neck so tight, but after a while when he realized it wasn't going to stop anytime soon he loosened his grip and actually snuck a few peeks at the pretty colors.  It was a late night, though, we didn't get home and in bed until 12:30am!

Luke and PJ on PJ's NEW birthday wagon

Family pic:)

Carpenter Clan 

Grandma and Grandpa

Our picnic area.  It was one HOT night!

Awesome hour long fireworks display.

Then on the 4th of July we hosted our friends Doug and Jade for a holiday barbeque.  Actually, even though we had the get together at our house, they brought the full smorgasbord of amazing food!  Thanks so much, guys.  We hadn't seen them in a long time, and hadn't even met their new baby daughter Maeve yet.  She is already 3 months old and SUCH a cutie.  Big sis Stella is adorable and Luke just followed her around.  After a relaxing afternoon by the pool we headed to the park near our house to catch the tail end of the Kenny Loggins concert and the Lake Forest fireworks.  The fireworks were beautiful, too, but about half way through the show Luke crawled into his stroller on his own and indicated that he was ready to go home.  Two nights in a row of festivities and late bedtimes tuckered him out!

Doug and Maeve

Jade and her Hollywood starlet

Relaxing on the raft

Stella (with Luke looking on adoringly)

The Long Awaited Wedding!

 Last weekend we were excited to attend the wedding of my cousin Brian and his loooooongtime girlfriend Kristin (read: 11 years of dating!).  We are so happy they made it official!  The wedding was a beautiful and hot outdoor ceremony followed by a very fun, pink-themed reception.  It was awesome seeing my Mom's whole side of the family.  Everyone was there except for my two cousins in the Marines.  (Wish you were there guys, and many prayers for Warren who is still in Afghanistan.)  Luke got to spend the day and evening with Aunt Linda and Uncle Ben before they flew out the following morning.  

Kristin and Brian

Mr. and Mrs. Luyster!

Aunt Barbara (Mother of the Groom) with cousins Hayden & Tracy

Sisterly love

Meanwhile.. this pic from Ben and Linda, who took Luke to the Morton Arboretum while we were at the wedding.  They went with Gram and Grandpa, cousin Theresa and Great Aunt Irene.

Uncle David hosted a pool party the next day for everyone to continue visiting.  We had a great day!  Pictured are Mom and Dad with Uncle Bob and Aunt Kathy in from Baltimore. 

 The night before the wedding we had one last family dinner with all 7 of us before Ben and Linda went home.  Linda grilled out and everything was delicious.  Luke loved the beach ball gift that Ben and Linda brought him (a great find from when they rented a sailboat on Lake Michigan).

 These past couple of weeks our road has been under construction.  Luke, as many of you know, is obsessed with construction equipment so this has been like front row entertainment for him.  He literally sat at our front window with a snack and just watched the road work.  In the evening he got to check out the equipment up close!

 I think I forgot to mention in one of the past posts that our baby birds have flown the nest!  They got too big for the nest and then one day, they were just gone!  I hope Luke isn't getting any ideas:)

This is how crowded the the nest was right before they flew away.

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.