A Summary of Our 2017 Travel Adventures

At the end of every year I like to take some time to and look back at the previous year and review my favorite outfits;  remember all the home, garden, and crafting projects I took on;  and also reflect on our travel adventures.  Our travel adventures is  always my favorite to review because I remember such happy times.  I also think one tends to forget vacations so quickly, so it's nice to go back and look at pictures and re-live them through memories.

 Here is where we have traveled this year:

With a new baby in the family, we made a lot of trips to the state of Illinois.  I always visit the kids by myself in February for one full week to help break up the humdrum of winter.  This past February was a blast as Ashley and I packed a lot in one week.   The highlights include the following:

We visited the The Garfield Park Conservatory

The Lincoln Park Zoo

Chicago

In the spring, we made our annual trek to Milwaukee to see the Easter Passion Play only to discover that they moved the date one week earlier...so we missed it!  Nevertheless we had fun catching up with old friends and our children. I also used the opportunity to take my daughter's maternity photos at the iconic Milwaukee Domes.

April brought our first road trip!  We went to Myrtle Beach for the week ending the trip with a day in Charleston!

Memorial Day Weekend brought another trek back to Illinois for my daughter's baby shower!

While in Wheaton, we decided to visit Cantigny Park since it was Memorial Day.  We thought we'd do something patriotic and we wanted to see their war museum and tank park there;  but they were closed for renovations.  We had a great time anyway visiting a gorgeous historic home and gardens.

Our grand baby ended up coming a bit early, so we were in Illinois for the 4th of July!

I ended up going back to Illinois at the end of the month to help Ashley with the new baby as she had colic.  We took Alethea on the Naperville River Walk for her very first outing.  It was such a relaxing and special day for Ashley as it was the first time she had even gotten out of the house and had some fun since the baby was born.

We had a lot unexpected expenses this year with our home, so we decided to cancel two major vacations and enjoy some staycations instead.  At the end of June we went to the Ellsworth Cheese Curd Festival and enjoyed tasting all the foods made with cheese curds!

We went to Memorial Park in Red Wing, Minnesota.

We have to drive 45 minutes to church every Sunday, so we decided to make the best of it by making 'Sunday our Fun Day!'.  We always tried to explore something locally every Sunday afternoon after church.

The Eau Claire River Walk

Mt. Simon Park

In September we took our second and last major road trip of the year.  We went to the state of Missouri and hiked in six different state parks, and visited the cities of St. Charles and Branson.

Elephant Rock State Park

Our fall was filled with weekend trips to see all the gorgeous fall color Wisconsin has to offer!

We went to the highest point in the state of Wisconsin:  Timms Hill.

Hoffman Hills State Recreation Area and Maiden's Bluff

Rib Mountain

And we finished out the year by seeing the Rotary Lights in LaCrosse and going to the Moondance Inn bed and breakfast in Red Wing to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary.

Even though we had to cancel two major road trips to make some much needed repairs to the house, it ended up being a pretty good year!  We made the most of it by having a lot of fun locally and I discovered so many wonderful things about my own area that I never knew before!  

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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