Out with the OLD and In with the NEW!

Last night I was brave and cut my hair off. Below are some before & after shots.

Here's my hair before I cut it! It was LONG!!
Here's what was whacked off...15 inches total!
The New - Do...
And here's a shot of the back.

Family Lagoon Day

When we got to Lagoon, we jumped right in to all the roller coasters. First was Jet Star 2 followed by The Bat, and then dinner which was provided by my work. After dinner, we all headed over to Wicked.

This is the four brave ones waiting in line for Wicked. Christi & I decided we weren't up for this ride.

Christi & Me waiting in the shade for Jake, Richelle, Karl & Steve to ride Wicked.

Here they are on the roller coaster "Wicked" as it's coming towards the end of the ride. They are on the front row (Karl, Steve, Richelle & Jake).

This is me after Colossus. I'm not a huge roller coaster fan and somehow my family managed to convince me to go on FOUR! I screamed the whole time on this ride!

Steve & Me after riding Colossus.

Here is Karl & Christi in front of the Carousel.

Karl had to leave because he had a scout camp out. We wanted to get a picture of all us before he left but no one would ask some to take our picture. So we've got multiple pictures...one without Steve...

And here we are...without Richelle.

After Karl left, we went on a haunted house ride, walked over to Pioneer Village and on our way we saw tigers and there was a train that went by and one of the tigers was roaring at the train. It was kind of cool, scary & sad. Once we got to Pioneer Village we had ice cream and rode the Log Flume (that we all got wet on). We left Pioneer Village and headed to the Tidal Wave. That was pretty fun and Jake got a video of us on it. Fun stuff! Our night was concluded with another meal at Denny's! Thanks for such a fun night at Lagoon...FAMILY!

Father's Day Weekend

After this weekend, I see that my brothers have already updated their blogs with the events that took place on Saturday with all 6 of us (Karl, Christi, Jake, Richelle, Steve & me). On Saturday afternoon we went up to Ogden to visit our Grandpa Lee. He's been feeling under the weather and we thought we'd take the great opportunity to visit with him and wish him a Happy Father's Day! We even got him a card that said Happy Father's Day from his Fan Club...all of us! He still had his witty sense of humor, so we know he must be doing ok to crack jokes with us. We had our picture taken with him.

We had planned that after our visit with grandpa, we would go back to Karl & Christi's house and have a BBQ! It was soooo good...that as usual there was a lot of eatting and no talking. That's what us Lloyd's are used to though, so it wasn't anything out of the norm. It was a very pleasant Saturday evening that was spent with family! =)

MOAB!!!!!!!!!

We left for Moab, Utah Friday afternoon. The reason for going to Moab this trip was due to Steve & his dad, Murray. They wanted to bike ride the famous Slickrock trail. So the past few weeks they have been riding their bikes and trying to get conditioned for this grueling ride. Luckily, there's a practice loop they did instead of the actual trail (because they might have died!!). They were both very proud of themselves and each other for their accomplishments.

We got down to Moab Friday night and we checked into our hotels. Steve & I are all for camping but because we going to be there for 2 nights we decided not to mess with all the camping gear and get a hotel room. We got the last room in our favorite hotel down there (Holiday Inn) so Steve's parents had to book a room at a different hotel. Let's just say that their room was GROSS! There was a weird smell, dirty towels & sheets, lumpy mattress, flat pillows, etc. The list just continues on how bad it was. Steve and I both felt pretty guilty since our room was a lot better than theirs. Anyway, after getting somewhat settled, we picked them up and went to our favorite Mexican joint in town, Fiesta Mexicana. They have really good food & drinks!! Yum..and so spicy! =) Our friends ended up being in Moab the same weekend so we met up with them for dinner which was fun.

Saturday morning...the parents had decided they weren't going to stay in their crappy hotel room another night if they didn't have to. They checked with the front desk at our hotel room and said they did have an open room for Saturday night. So they checked out of the other hotel and came over to our hotel! They were both very excited to be staying in such a nicer hotel!! So Steve & Murray loaded up their bikes and headed for Slickrock while us girls hung out in our room talking and watching TV. It was a very relaxing Saturday morning. Once the boys got back from their bike ride, we drove down towards the city center (which isn't very far) and had lunch. After our lunch and being stuffed, we thought it would be best to walk off our fullness and do a little window shopping. After shopping/walking for a few hours we made our way over to the visitor center where they show a 10 minute movie about Moab. After the movie we found animal puppets in the center that you can buy. So we all played with the puppets for a few minutes. Childish? No...it was fun!!

Steve & Murray on their bikes at the beginning of their bike ride on the Slickrock practice loop.

Steve & Murray after their ride on the practice loop. They both look pretty tired!

Steve looking like a dork...the sweater thing he was wearing went all the way to the ground. I think he's holding some kind of little girl toy. ..???

Sunday we woke up, had breakfast and packed up our stuff to get going on the day. We were going to head to Arches National Park but it was a unanimous vote that we'd rather come back down when we had more time. So we headed back to Slickrock because the boys felt they didn't have enough pictures. Elona (Steve's Mom) and I were the photographers while the boys posed on their bikes.

This is a picture of us after we got the truck packed up and ready to head back to Slickrock.

Here we are with the beautiful scenery behind us!

Here we are in Slickrock. What a cute picture of us!

Kind of a funny story, but this picture was taken of us at the visitor center in the middle of town. I thought the flowers were cute and there were these rocks to sit on..perfect for picture time!

We got home Sunday evening and Lisa, RJ & Reagan met us at Steve's parents house so we could hang out for a bit. We got to hang out with Reagan and she's SOOO cute! We even got to see her sport her cute sunglasses!

Thanks for such a fun weekend...Murray, Elona & Steve!

In Chicago on Memorial Day Weekend...

As I promised last week, I will finish what happened in Chicago.

Thursday, May 22...

We got to Chicago around 9pm on Thursday night. We took a cab to the location the surprise party was being thrown. It was at a local bar a few blocks from our friends house, called Belly's.
I think we successfully surprised the birthday boy. His wife had been planning this whole thing with all of us for the past couple months. It was awesome that no one ruined the surprise for him.
Justin is on the right (B-day boy)
Rachanee is in the middle (Justin's wife)

Friday, May 23

On friday we all got up and ready to go downtown to the Navy Pier where they have all sorts of fun things. We were going there to take an architechture tour of the city by boat. It was awesome to see the tall building and learn the history about Chicago and about the architechs that designed the beautiful buildings. It was a beautiful day as we took the train and walked the rest of the way to the pier, until the wind changed and the city showed it's true colors...the WIND! BRRRRRRRRR!
This is us on the boat waiting to depart on our little cruise. You can see the cool tall building in the background.
I believe this is the top of the Chicago Tribune building.
That really tall building back there is the Sear's Tower. It is the tallest building in Chicago.

After we got out of the cold wind, we went to a delicious restaurant called Rock Bottom. It was gooood! Then we all went back to our friends house and we all took a nice long nap! =) After our naps, the girls split from the boys and we did our own thing. The girls went downtown to the John Hancock building and watched the sunset & the lights come on throughout the city. It was azaming and looked somewhat 3-D.
The tall building in the middle is the John Hancock building. We went to the 96th floor called the "Signature Room" and just enjoyed the view!

Saturday, May 24

Saturday, Rachanee had planned a birthday party for Justin and invited friends from work to come down to the beach (at Lake Michigan) to play volleyball. It was very windy and cold so Trish & I did not play. After hours of volleyball we walked over to Lincoln Park and had a BBQ. I laid out on a blanket and slept under a beach towel while the boys played football.
Here's pictures of us trying to stay warm and eatting!! This outting event was also followed by a nice long nap enjoyed by everyone in our group. Naps are nice... =)

Sunday, May 25

Today was the day that we were going downtown to the Cadallic Palace Theatre to watch "Avenue Q" which is a Broadway Musical with adult humor & puppets. It was very, very, very funny!!

This is a picture of the river that runs through the city that we took from the train.

Here's Steve & I inside the theatre waiting to be seated for the show!

After the show, we walked down to Millennium Park and saw the famous Bean. It is a large sculpture that is seamless. It was pretty neat looking.

After we checked out the cool bean, we headed down Michigan Ave. which is the place to shop. I guess all the stores closed @ 6pm so it turned into a sightseeing walk.
Here we are walking down Michigan Ave. & stopped to take a picture!
Here's our friend Trish that came with us. We went back to the John Hancock building and had a snack. She ordered the s'mores which were delicious!

Memorial Day (Monday), May 26

Today was the day...our first Chicago Cubs MLB game! It was hot & fun! The Cubs played the LA Dodgers & the Cubs WON (3-1)!
Wringley Field
Ahh gee...can you tell I was eatting blue cotton candy??
Here we are...proof we were at the game!
The Gang...Memorial Day, Chicago, 2008!