Peoria

Last week I traveled to Peoria, IL, with my sister and mom to visit my other sister and her family for a week. It was a 14-hour drive to get there, but it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it might be. I did, however, get to experience some lovely swollen ankles and feet from sitting for so long. 

We did lots of fun things while we were there! We made Oatmeal Scotchies... and Crystal showed us her totally impressive baking skills!!

The three sisters all wore the same shirt (that we bought separately). Crystal and I wore ours on the same day, but we wanted to take a picture of us all matching, so Holly put hers on too. This was taken after a 5-hour shopping and dinner outing. It was SO fun! Probably one of the biggest highlights of the whole vacation for me.

 We went to Wal-Mart! The girls both got a new toy from Nana (my mom) and we picked up some groceries.

We played outside! It was surprisingly not humid for the majority of our stay. One day we got out the slip 'n slide and watched the girls play for about an hour. It was fun to see them get so ridiculously excited about something.

We played on my iPhone and iPad! Brielle and Aislynn both very much enjoyed getting to play with electronic gadgets. After a while, I had to start suggesting that we use our imaginations to have fun instead.

We sat around being cute! Aislynn woke me up on this particular morning by jumping on my air mattress. It was startling, but cute. :) Then she put her little doll to sleep in an oh-so-fluffy Kleenex bed.

We went to Monkey Joe's! Monkey Joe's is a fun place with lots of bouncy things and slides. Apparently my age and size were not the only things restricting me from getting to play, too.

We made banana bread! We found a recipe similar to my mom's (which is totally delicious), and were pleased to find out that it was quite yummy! Brielle and Aislynn thoroughly enjoyed getting to eat a little of the batter.

We went to Steak 'n Shake! This restaurant is all over the Midwest, and since I was the only one of the group who had never gone, we decided to make a stop there for dinner one night. I had a scrumptious burger and then shared a Mint Cookies 'n Cream shake with the two littlest girls. I even got to wear a totally awesome hat!

And then, it was the last night there. It came so quickly!

Thanks for letting us crash at your pad for a week, Brendon and Crystal and family! It was so much fun to spend time with all of you, and I hope we get to see each other again sooner rather than later!