Trip to Illinois...Just a few hundred highlights!

We finally reached Illinois Tuesday night.  We were all so happy to reach Patrick's apartment.  We spent a lot of time in Patrick's apartment pool.  The kids loved having a pool to swim in for hours.  We also got to go out to lots of yummy restaurants while visiting Dad. 

 While Patrick was at work we would go to  different museums...this is the Family Museum in Bettendorf, Iowa.  It was a hit with the two younger kids but the older two were not thrilled to play at a little kids museum.  Luckily the apartment was only 5 min away so I took them home and stayed to let the younger kids play...in fact we went there two days. 

 This fun car was donated to the museum and the kids could play in it and try to shift the gears.  They loved getting to see how cars looked back in the 1920's. 

 Patrick is stationed right on the Mississippi River on the Iowa/Illinois border.  So we spent several night walking along the river seeing the sights.

Casino Boat on the Mississippi

Lily Pads on the Mississippi River...they were so BIG!

Dillan, Mikayla and Tristan on the Mississippi boardwalk.

 Playing at the John Deere Tractor Pavilion at night...there were so many bugs the kids just wanted to leave...if you look at the picture above the blur in the lights are a ton of small bugs. 

Nate Taylor and one of the cats

One day while Patrick was at work we went to Rockford, Illinois to visit some old neighbors that lived by us in Louisiana.  They have three boys that our three youngest kids loved to play with.  It was so fun to see Ralph and Aimee Taylor and their kids for the day. 

Dillan and Nate

Jacob, Tristan and Mikayla

 One of the kids favorite museums was the John Deere Tractor Museum in Moline, Illinois.  They spent several hours climbing on the tractors and reading how they worked.  It was very interesting to see how the big columbines and tractors operate.

 We visited Pat at work several times...one time we meet him at the Army "petting zoo" aka the static tanks and big guns on display that you can touch. 

 This was Tristan and Mikayla's favorite tank since they could climb on top of it.  It was nice they were entertained while we could read about the other tank and missile displays.