Ben and I got bored this afternoon, so we decided to make cookies. We like to try new recipes together. Today we made no bake cookies and snickerdoodles.

tie dye!

Jenna, Allie, and I did some tie dying this afternoon. Most of our stuff turned out pretty well. Jenna went crazy and dyed as many things as possible, including a sweatshirt that wasn't so much tie dyed as blotched with random colors.

Museum of Science and Industry

Upon arriving at the museum, we immediately got in line for the coal mine tour. We had to wait a little while before our tour began. It was pretty neat to see both the old and new machinery used to mine coal.


"While fixing a clock, Foucault accidentally proved that the Earth rotates. Foucault was making a small metal rod to fix a broken piece of a clock. An accidental bump set the rod into a back and forth motion. Curious, he rotated the rod to see if this swinging motion would also rotate. Instead, the rod continued to move back and forth along its original path. Soon after his discovery, Foucault proved to the world that the Earth rotates at the Paris Exhibition. This accidental discovery changed many people's view of the world."


We came across a small climbing wall that definitely wasn't meant for bigger kids. We could have climbed up into the ceiling if we had wanted to. Or disabled the sprinkler system.


The bathrooms have the coolest hand dryers! They actually dry your hand without you having to touch anything gross.


Lucy, Kathleen, Mom, and I went on the Green Home tour. It was really cool! We couldn't take pictures inside, so we took lots outside.


We had ice cream and water for lunch! We had a huge breakfast before the museum opened at a nice little diner close by. While we waited for the train that afternoon, we brought out the snacks that were hidden in our backpacks (apparently, you aren't supposed to check food into the bag check at the museum. We did anyway).




"The hug shirt creates the feeling of being hugged using actuators embedded in the shirt to simulate the warmth, pressure and duration of the hug and even the heartbeat of the sender. A hug can be sent from another Hug Shirt or from your phone as a text message."



This is a U-505 German submarine from WWII. It was captured by the U.S. Navy just a few days before D-day. Aunt Lucy bought us tickets so we could tour the inside, which was really cool. Our tour guide was awesome! He kept the tour interesting and kid friendly. Sailors were on the sub for three months at a time. In that time, they never showered or changed their underwear! The sub could be submerged up to 36 hours, in which time the toilets couldn't be flushed. There were 59 (?) men on the sub at a time, but beds for only 37 of them. One room of the sub still has the original flooring. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

My favorite summertime sandwich

Cream cheese, fresh cucumber, homemade bread, and a little bit of salt.

Dori was able to visit for a couple of days. We had so much fun! Saturday morning, we ran my mom's booth at the farmer's market. We sold out by 10:30! As we were pulling away, it started to rain. Great timing. We went antiquing in Grabill that afternoon. It's really cool to see what used to be normal. We tried on some cool hats that didn't quite fit our heads and sat in $75 chairs. As we were eating ice cream at the local ice cream place, we decided we would try our hands at homemade apple dumplings. After a little research online, we found a recipe that was somewhat to our liking. We ended up ditching the dumpling recipe for pie crust, which turned out very well. We also cut out some of the butter to make it a little healthier. They were a big hit! Dori and I plan to perfect our recipe during school this year - maybe add honey instead of sugar and use whole grain flour instead of unbleached. Who knows, maybe we'll even open a business ;) Dori brought her longboard, so we bombed some of the hills on my road Saturday night. We had been out riding for about an hour when I wiped out. I was going pretty fast, so I ended up losing quite a bit of skin. I also kind of ruined my jeans and shirt (maybe they'll just be my longboarding clothes from now on). But the pain was well worth the fun! We ended the night by watching "Father of the Bride." It was rather strange to fastforward instead of skipping scenes (it was on VHS).

We headed to church early Sunday morning because Ben and I were playing for church. Our piano duet offertory went well. We were even asked to play it again so the congregation could sing along with us. That was a little bit hard for Ben, so I ended up not really playing and just helping him keep on track with the singing and guitar playing. I showed Dori around my Grandma's place after church. We were so hot from our walk that we decided to just chill (literally) in the basement when we got back. After lunch, we sat around and read/took naps. I also cut Caleb's hair somewhere in there. The Junior Youth and MYF came over around 6:30 for swimming, hotdogs, and an outdoor movie. It was the first time I had ever experienced an outdoor movie. My mom hung a sheet from the monkey bars on our swingset and pulled it taught with clothesline wire and clothespins. The wind calmed down enough for the movie that the sheet really didn't move too much. It was so nice outside that Dori and I decided to sleep outdoors. We piled up a couple of blankets and made a little bed for ourselves out in the yard. It was nice to just lay there and talk and look at the stars. We were a little dewy this morning when we woke up, but the sun was shining so it wasn't too bad.