July 17

The next day, Julie and I picked up Marie from the bus.  We took her home, ate lunch and then Marie decided to take a nap.   Grandma and I went back to the photo albums.  I was loving the history stuff.  I also got to photo albums that I was in!  

I spent the afternoon asking questions and learning to identify relatives from old pictures.My Grandfather was adopted, and his adopted parents both remarried.  I now know the three sets of great-grandparents for my one grandfather.   The picture is my grandparents.  

 Marie woke up and caught up on reading.   My cousin Emily came over and stayed for dinner with us.  It was nice to see more relatives.  It was my first trip to Illinois in 6 years.  

After dinner, Julie, Carl, Marie and I went for a walk at Midway Village.  We walked  along a bike path that took us to a Vietnam War Memorial.  There was a helicopter parked there and a nice stone memorial with all of the names of the soldiers from the area.  We continued to walk and share stories from our travels, as lightening bugs flew all around us.  

When we got home, I took out the guitar and played for Grandma, Carl, Julie, and Marie.  I played for an hour or more and played Marie and Julie to sleep.