Chicago Cubs Baseball game...

We had the opportunity to watch the Cubs play before we left to at least be able to say we made it to the historic Wrigley Field before we moved away. One of my good friends from college, Davey Barney, and his family came to visit his brother. Davey's brother, Darwin, is the 2nd baseman for the Cubs, so we were able to watch the Cubs from some pretty nice seats!!

Making the drive into Chicago never gets old!

WRIGLEY!!!

You can just feel the history when you're there...

Darwin's first at-bat in the game. I've been lucky enough to have watched Darwin play in high school, in college when he was at Oregon State, and now in the Pros!

This guy was made famous from the TV show "Undercover Boss"

Davey and I - we go way back!

Kaui and the girls enjoying the game.....well, Kaila was asking me every 10 minutes, "is it done yet?"

Little Ben Barney!

Kaui with Ben...

The girls trying to play ring-around-the-rosy with Ben...

Clapping for the Cubs...

Time to get serious about the game; it was a close one!

What an awesome game! The Cubs came from behind twice to eventually win the game in extra innings. Darwin had the game-tying hit in the 11th inning that eventually led to Soto's walk-off HR!

It was a beautiful Chicago day for a Cubs game...

Family picture with Wrigley in the background...

One last picture of us with Uncle Davey in Illinois...

One of our last drives into the city, a city we grew to love...

We had an awesome time at the game. Thank you to Darwin and Davey for getting us great tickets!!

Walking down memory lane...

Before leaving Illinois we decided to sell our babyset (stroller, swing, highchair, carseat, & playpen) that we got as gifts for Kaila when she was born & also used for Kenna. It's not too often that we get attached to material things, but getting rid of this was a little harder than we initially thought it would be - many memories were made in these things! When it was finally bought off of Craigslist and driven out of our driveway, I seriously felt an emptiness come over me :( Then Cisco & I took a walk down memory lane. We talked about all the places the stroller went, how Kaila HATED the swing while Kenna tolerated it, how many messes the highchair has been through, how Kaila disliked long rides in the carseat while the carseat always made Kenna fall asleep, and lastly how the playpen was both of the girls' first bed! After our talk, I felt much better and realized that although our things were no longer ours, what was most important was that the memories remained :)

Goodbye Kasbah...

Father's Day...

As a special Father's Day gift, the girls made Cisco a "Following in your footsteps..." piece of artwork for him to put up in his new office...how sweet!!

Happy Father's Day 2011!!!

The people & things we'll miss about Illinois...

Phew! What a whirlwind of events the past 3 months! As you all know we made the transition from Illinois to Oregon in July. So we're a little behind on the blog, but this is our first step in getting you all caught up on our lives. There are many things that we will miss about Illinois......

This sign in Sycamore, IL says it all (Isn't that funny that there's an Oregon in Illinois?!)

We'll miss our dinners with the Aichers & Gilsons...
...and our many visits with the Gilsons...

*sadly, we missed the birth of lil' Eliana Elizabeth born on September 8th*
...and with the Aichers.
We'll miss our trips to the zoo & visits with the Flewellings. The girls will definitely miss Morgan & Ayla...
We'll miss our trips & visits with our adventure buddies, the Wogens. The girls will miss Ben dearly...

*sadly, we also missed the birth of miss Katherine (Katie) Shay born on September 17th*

We'll miss our Moms & Kiddos on the Go playgroup friends...
They were SO sweet & got us a cake...thank you Lindsay!
...and our Mama & Me playgroup friends.
We'll miss playdate visits & pregym classes with Regina & Vincent (We both started a pregym class at the YMCA when Kaila & Vincent had just turned a year old! A big thank you to Regina for introducing us to the playgroups)...
We'll miss playdate visits with Gretel, Javier, & Tea...
We'll miss playdate visits with Yuni & Austin...
We'll miss our neighbors, the Faivre's, and playing with Olivia & Natalie...
We'll miss the Newman Catholic Student Center, all our church friends, and Cisco's Men's Bible Study/Softball team. They so kindly got this cake for Cisco at their end of the season BBQ.
We'll miss the park right down the road from our house that the girls call "Castle Park"...
We'll miss seeing & catching fireflies (sadly, Oregon doesn't have them)...
We'll miss the possibility of seeing more Cubs games & watching our good friends' brother, Darwin Barney, play...
We'll miss the great city of Chicago & all that it has to offer...
...especially the many Lake Michigan beaches.
Lastly, we'll miss the very reason we were introduced to the Chicagoland area = Cisco's job at Northern Illinois University.

Empty desk :(
Cisco with some of his students for a farewell dinner...
A card from his students...
Class of 2011 KNPE students...
Cisco's department so kindly threw a farewell dinner for him & another one of their colleagues who was also leaving. I'm sure he will miss them all.

Thank you to everyone who has made our 3 years in Illinois very memorable. We learned a lot and grew a lot as individuals and as a family, while there. We will forever cherish the people, the experiences, and the place we called home for the past 3 years.