Chicago. Les Mills One Live

So. Bridget wanted to go to Les Mills One Live Chicago. It's basically a big fitness conference where you get the chance to work out with people that both inspire you to work better and depress you about how little you've done. This was her birthday trip. We went to Chicago. Carla was nice enough to watch the kids for us. 

We talked to others that had lived here and they recommended Lou Malnatis for dinner. Since we were going to a fitness conference, a place filled with skinny athletic people, we loaded up on cheese and deep dish butter crust. 

We went to a big presentation Friday night. 

Saturday morning we got up and went to body Pump. We were pretty pumped. Get it. Pumped?  Never mind. We got a nice good place in the back. 

We had fun. 

We got to meet Dan Cohen and Rachel FancyPants. They were really cool. But I bet they have never delivers a baby or relocated someone's hip (Rachel probably has and Dan has probably dislocated someone's hip.... He's probably cooler). 

Chicago skyline from the VIP lounge. 

Will is my hero. This guy is truly awesome. Good instructed and all around nice guy. 

These guys are pretty awesome too. They both instruct and run the pump program. 

Combat finale. It was crowded but pretty cool. I only got punched once... By myself. 

My artsy shot. 

Beard phun

Zoo Fun in 100 degrees

So Carla and I took the kids to the zoo. It was really hot and really humid but we had a good time. I may have put Dora in Teasa's shorts and vice versa. 

They love the meerkats. 

Dora is a great big sister. So nice.  

I'm couldn't peel Tessa away from the animals. 

The ostriches were trying to nibble on the fingers through the glass. 

Everyone loves a carousel. 

The children's zoo had snakes, turtles, and goats all for petting. 

Flamingoing home!!!

We had the missionaries over for dinner

Fun in the Summer

More summer fun. We have been swimming a lot. I don't take my phone into pool so not very many pictures. But we did stop for an ice cream break so here is a post freezer pop picture. 

Emmy is crazy

Dora and Eli. 

Notice the blue purple green glee. 

Pictures from church. Pretty girls. Handsome Eli. 

Eli took it upon himself to write thank you notes for all of his presents. Pretty cute eh?  Read them. They are funny. 

Happy Birthday Eli Sharking

Eli read the entire Book of Mormon with help from mom and dad. As a reward he got to choose an adventure. He chose to go shark fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. We got up really early on his birthday and took Grandpa Baker and Carter and went fishing for sharks. So Sharking?

Here is sunrise over the gulf. 

Two best buddies! Not too bad for getting up at 5am!

My buddy. 

Here is Rusty our guide. We caught 3 sharks. Smallest was 3.5 feet biggest was 5 feet and change and the guide said weighed 80 pounds. May have been exaggerated. They are fishers after all. 

This one we kept. The other two we released. The big one was really fun to wrestle in. Phone was in my pocket so these are the only pics we took. 

You can't just deadlift a large shark out of the water. You need to rope and pull it up. Here's how they do it. 

This was touching boat floor. 

Here is roughly where we were.