Crazy Schedules and the World's BEST House Guest!

As mentioned before, Kevin's little sister Janna came to help us out while we were at the RAGNAR. But a lot more went into it than you would think! Janna flew in on Wednesday the 19th after long flight delays and hung out with us for the evening. The next afternoon she drove us to the airport, by herself, in Chicago traffic, in a place she's NEVER been! Then went home BY HERSELF (Something you couldn't pay me to do) to rest until the next day when Natalie would drive in with her kids. Natalie got to our house Friday afternoonish and her and Janna spent the rest of Friday and part of Saturday getting prepared for Natalie to leave for Greece on Saturday night where she would meet Brian who had been in Bulgaria for a week or two! WHEW! Did I mention that Janna also had to drive Natalie to a DIFFERENT airport and drop her off after dropping our car off at the Midway airport so we could get home! And she did it with two little kiddos in the car! Man! She is so much more mature than I am! :)

On Sunday afternoon we arrived home to a spotless house with Wes and Sydney quietly reading books on the living room floor! Is life ever really like that? Not once Brooklyn walked in the door. We got home and there was an immediate explosion of screaming, laughing, giggling, and well...suitcases. But not to worry, for the next few days, between Janna and I, we were able to keep the house clean, the kiddos fed, naps in order, and diapers changed (about 15/day) and still managed to fit in fun trips to Waterfall Glen, two parks, the pet store and the zoo!

It was really quite a fun and wonderful experience. The kids were a handful of course, especially since Brooklyn never had to share before and all three of them had "magic diarrhea" all week! But it all worked out like clockwork. We would bathe, diaper and feed those kids in an assembly line and get them out the door with barely any effort. And every night when the baby woke up it was a race to see who could get her first. That NEVER happens! I got to sleep in several times.

Not only did Janna make it WAY easier to have 3 kids ages 2 and under, but she cooked us food, ate nothing but cereal, cleaned up after herself...and often times us, took up no space at all on the living room couch, and she kept the house at a perfect temperature all day every day! Weird thing to say maybe but it mattered to me and Kevin. :)

Here is Kevin and Janna with the Kiddos at Waterfall Glen. They loved every second of it until we had to leave.

The day before Janna went back home, Kevin and I got some babysitters and took Janna downtown so she could at least pretend she had a vacation! We rode the train in and then took a water taxi to the middle of town.

Here we are enjoying the breeze on the deck. It had rained all day and we didn't know if we were gonna make it, but the rain let up as soon as our train stopped and we were lucky to experience downtown Chicago with NO tourists...or people for that matter... since they were all hiding from the weather. It was perfect and the temperature was great for sight seeing!

We took some cool pics by this statue but they are all on Janna's camera. Oh well, still a cool statue!

Kevin and Janna cheesing it up like they're related or something...Kevin got to be a classic "Hanks nerd" for that whole week! Computer games and all! :)

I think this is where Obama gave his acceptance speech. Not that most of you care or that I really know since I never pay attention. But wherever that took place, I'm sure lots of other cool stuff happens here!

THE BEAN! We had to go there. And look...almost NO people!

This fountain changes pictures all day. Sometimes it is a waterfall or rushing stream. Sometimes it has many alternating faces. This one is spitting at Kevin! Pretty COOL!

Here is that place again...We went to the bathroom here...it was huge and underground!

Anyway, We had a wonderful time with Janna and are SO grateful that she decided to come out and see us. If any of you are looking for a GREAT house guest, invite Janna over for a few days. You won't be disappointed. The saddest day of the whole month of August was when she left. Me, Brooklyn, Wes, and Sydney watched her hop into the car with Kevin from the balcony (we were on the balcony, she didn't jump off it) and as she drove off I'm pretty sure that we were all crying! Brooklyn was screaming at her daddy to bring back "my Janna" and Wes and Sydney were clinging to the bars crying for her to come back. Yeah...bad idea on my part to let them all watch her go. You live and you learn! :)

I will do another post with pictures of the things we did with the kids and the days after Janna left. Until then, I would like to leave with a special shout out to Tyler (Janna's husband) who sacrificed time with his beautiful wife ON HIS BIRTHDAY just so she could be out here with us! You are the BEST Tyler!