My Name Is Gordy...

and I am a blogger, it has been over a month since my last post! Seriously, where does the time go? September has been a super busy month, with the end of summer and everyone trying to squeeze in their events before the weather starts to turn.
WARNING; monster post, lots of pix, grab a coffee/G&T!
Every year, the rules are that everything opens up for summer on Memorial Day and closes on Labor Day (this year Sept 5th). With this in mind, I took a day off work in the middle of the week to do some stuff with the family, including a day trip to Six Flags Great America. Well I guess Labor Day came early in Gurnee, because the Wednesday that we went to Six Flags, August 31st, they were closed! WTF! Fortunately they were still open weekends and holidays, so we used our season passes to spend a couple of hours there on the Monday night of Labor Day. We even managed to get Addison onto one of the water rides, twice! Only a few pictures of the fun and games as it was a short evening.

Waukegan Air Show was our second event of the month. There are many air shows in this area every year, but this one promised something the others never did. The ability to get up close and personal with the aircraft, close enough to touch, though in most cases they asked you not to. The event itself could have been better organised; with the start time of 10am, but nothing in the air until 12, (NOT mentioned on their web site) we missed out on the air part of the show due to a prior commitment for Steve's daughter's 1st birthday. We will just have to go back next year. Needless to say there were plenty of pictures from the day!

Next on the calendar was the Highland Park "Touch A Truck" event. I had missed this last year, I think maybe because I had been here in Montreal (where I am as I write). Lots of big trucks for the kids to climb on, play with, honk horns, etc. The highlight for me was the two story cherry picker, where they you took you up for rides; although I was disappointed to get grease over my shorts and brand new shirt! It was a beautiful day, the views were spectacular, and even Addison who was scared on the way up did not want to come back down. Again lots of pictures of the whole day.

As the month rolled on, and we weren't even near the end yet, we headed to the Fall Festival at Heller Nature Center. We had done this event before and missed out on the hay ride, so the first thing we did when we showed up as early as we could was to ask when the hay ride finished. "Don't worry you have plenty of time". Imagine our disappointment when, once again, the hay rides seemed to finish super early with some BS about not being able to see in the twilight, despite the tractor having lights! Not withstanding that continued frustration, we had a great time, pumpkin patch exploration, painting with feathers, watching the bonfire, and Cooper had a blast playing in the cave/tunnel/den. Obviously some pictures were taken!

The penultimate event of the month was Addison's 4th Birthday shindig. We had planned a trip over her actual birthday (see below) and so we held the party a day earlier than the actual day. There was a pretty decent showing for a Wednesday afternoon. Lorraine had baked her trademark apple cake, food was procured mostly from Trader Joes, and a select group were invited. Addison got a good haul of gifts including her first ever princess dress, accompanied by a Rapunzel/Tangled doll with super long hair! Click here for the pictures.

Finally for the month we planned a short trip to Traverse City, MI, hoping to catch an early view of the Autumn colours. We were going Thursday thru Sunday, until I realised that I had committed to a business trip, flying early on the Sunday. Undeterred, we cut the trip by a day and headed off early on Thursday morning, IN THE RAIN, AGAIN. The last road trip we took to NYC, it rained the entire first two days, guess what, it rained the entire first two days, despite the forecast of "showers". However, we made the best of it and had a fun time exploring the local area around Traverse. We didn't actually spend any time in Traverse City, beyond sleeping, but we visited Sleeping Bear Dunes, Glen Haven, Glen Arbor, Deadman's Hill, and too many others to name. It did clear up for the last day, as we drove home :-). Click here to view the "small" selection of pictures.

In between all the high jinks, I also managed to find some time to visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens two or three times, took a bunch of pictures of the kids and finished my Photo Project 365, including rejects! Click the pics or links below to view any of the pictures you like the look of :-)




Did you make it this far? Well done!

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