Chicago!

Since the Young Women were evacuated form camp a couple days early, Samantha actually had a day or two at home before heading off to Chicago.  Technically, it was Amelia's turn to go visit, but we felt like she was still a little young to travel alone, so Samantha was lucky enough to get to go again.

It's always hard to watch your kids head off on their own like this, but they were so excited!

There's their plane.

Off they go.

They did so many fun things. (They did have to help make beds and help check people in and out of the bed and breakfast, but anytime they weren't doing that they were playing.)  They went to OZ Park, the aquarium, icream, American Girl, Delightfuls (a bakery they visited nearly every day), The Fudge Pot, Tilly Sue's (an antique shop where they found lots of fun jewelry), Merchandise Mart, just to name a few...

Fran signed Samantha up for a cake decorating class.  She was in heaven.

Of course, we didn't just sit around at home although the house was significantly quieter and cleaner!

Nice trail runs,

a bunch of huge rainstorms - downpours, really,

and this poor little baby quail that we rescued 3 different times from 3 different window wells around the house.

Unfortunately, our rescue attempts didn't end happily.  Despite all of our efforts to return the baby to it's family, it was was just too little to be on it's own for that long.  We were all very sad.  But we maanged to stay busy while the girls were away for the week.