Great Day for Great America

Last week I had to drive to Chicago for work. Driving into Gurnee I saw Six Flags from I94 and immediately called my brother Jim. He just mentioned he was off work for a few weeks and I Thought it would be great to go down there with the 'kids'.

I called him and he was completely down for the idea.

Later that week we got tickets, set the schedule and were set to go!

On Monday Mackenzie, Joel and I drove down to Jim's and from there we added Brooke and Reilly and off we went.

We got there before the park even opened. First row parking too. We waited for about 20 minutes before the let us in the gate and off we went. We got in line right away for Superman. Once the ride opened we were the 3rd set of people to ride. A great way to start the day!

We went looking for the next ride, another 8 minute wait and we had ridden two rollercoasters in 15 minutes! The weather was great we just figured we were too early for most of the crowds.

They day went on like this, the wait times for rides went from a long of 25 minutes to basically walk up and ride. It was unbelieveable.

After we hit all the coasters we hit all three water rides. The Yankee Clipper and the Log Flume. Jim and I reminisced about how these were some of the original rides we went on they first time we were at the park over 30 years before.

We were pretty much done by 6:30 - we had hit 19 rides in about 8 hrs. I don't think we could have scripted a better day.  Who knows the next time we will be able to do this again as everyone gets older. Hard to say, but we made the most of it.

Catching up

Lately this blog has been nothing but large life events, which is cool but doesn't let me talk about the other things going on or other cool things we have going on.

With the weather last week we finally got all the planting done. Side gardens, front garden, containers and back vegetable garden. 

Our old whiskey barrel planters had seen better days so we went out looking for new ones. After quite a bit of searching we found the barrel broker. This guy deals in used and new wine, bourbon, rum, whiskey any booze you can think of barrel. He got us a full barrel cheaper than any local garden centers and they are the real deal 1" thick white oak.

I cut that puppy in half and Boom!

We also went on a hike with the dogs. They did really well for the first time and they were so tired after 5 miles. 

We did a Gloriosos run to stock up on Sausage, sauce, ravioli, giardiniera and anything else for the summer grilling season. That is always a good place to go!  We came home and I made pizza on the grill.

Monday the gym had a "hero" workout scheduled. Workouts are named for fallen veterans as an honor. This was called "Murph". It consists of running a mile, 100 pull ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, then run a mile again. The real workout was also supposed to be done with body armor or a 20 pound vest, yea I did not do that.  I finished in 57 minutes. and my hands were destroyed from the pull ups.

Some of the 27 people that did it that day.  

A great weekend with great weather. Hopefully the summer will be more of the same, (maybe minus a grueling workout).