Eldredge Family

To tie a tie

2026-07-29T17:26:28.449-05:00

I decided it was time for Jake to learn to tie a tie, and bought him some. But the first Sunday with the new ties, Jason had morning meetings, so I wondered who would help him. Usually, people are getting ready right up to (and past) the time we need to leave, and I hadn't thought to ask either of his brothers to plan some extra time to help. But this morning, in a sweet tender mercy, Logan was ready early and was happy to teach Jake! I'm so thankful for these small reminders that God is in the details of our lives.

A bit of Me and Jason

2026-07-22T17:21:00.000-05:00

Jason and I have had a busy summer too! We have the missionaries and a new member over about once a week. We love our sister missionaries. The one on the right is headed back to BYU in the Winter, and she is a Chemistry major like Ali will be. We hope they'll get to hang out once they're there together!

Jason got to fly out to Utah to see his nephew Jeremy get married. Of course, there are restaurants which must be patronized when one is in Utah.

He had fun spending time with grown nieces and nephews (and their spouses) while he was there. We're excited for Ali and Logan to be out in Utah with these fun, successful, faithful cousins they don't really know well. Ethan has been put in charge of a Utah cousins group chat, and we hope they get together every once in a while.

I got a paddleboard, and on the few not-too-hot days we've had, I've loved going out on a little lake near us.

This is Issac, the new member we meet with often. I got to tag along on a different day than this one, and was honored to be baptized and confirmed on behalf of his mom and Grandma.

Grace

2026-07-17T16:52:00.000-05:00

We've all gotten to know Grace better this summer and are always happy to have her around. On this night, we'd planned to all see Toy Story 5 together, but it was sold out, so we ended up eating ice cream instead- and then the kids went and saw the movie without Jason and me the next day!

Eli's Summer

2026-07-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

Eli has had a good summer too! He works at 3 Chefs (an Iranian restaurant) 2-4 times a week, goes to the gym 4-5 times a week (usually with friends, sometimes with Ali), had friends over for a burn-your-school-stuff fire, plays volleyball at the church, watches movies at friends' houses and at the theater, goes fishing with friends, and went to the mall with his siblings. He is very independent and hardly ever asks me for rides, even when it means biking through the pouring rain and coming home soaked, as pictured below!

Logan's Summer

2026-07-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

Logan's summer has been spent with Grace! Unfortunately and annoyingly, Crumbl cut his hours this summer, contrary to expectations, from 3-4 days during the school year to at most one, and often no shifts at all each week! This has left him plenty of time to spend with his girlfriend (and really best friend) Grace. They eat out, get pedicures, watch movies, went to Six Flags (pictured below), go downtown Chicago, visit Ali and Eli at work, take Jake on outings, do crafts, go shopping, cook meals together, go to movies, and hang out at her house. He also picks her up for church each Sunday, takes her to her weekly meetings with the missionaries, and they read the Book of Mormon together each day.

Ali's Summer

2026-07-07T16:33:00.000-05:00

Ali has had a great, well-balanced summer. She works 2-4 shifts at Bruster's Ice Cream each week, goes to the gym 5-6 times a week (often with friends, sometimes with Eli, sometimes alone), and spends a lot of time with several different friend groups. With friends, she has celebrated birthdays and graduations (including one overnight at a hotel), gotten lots of ice cream, gone places to watch the sunset, gone shopping at the mall or other places, seen movies, gone hiking (pictured below), played pickleball, gone swimming, hung out and watched movies or done crafts, played at Top Golf, gone bowling, eaten out, and probably more!

Happy Forth of July!

2026-07-04T16:05:00.000-05:00

We had a happy 4th of July! It might not be a perfect country, but I am so thankful for all the freedoms my family and I take for granted.

Cute sparkles on an even cuter girl for her holiday work shift.

Logan and Grace joined us for fireworks! It poured all afternoon, but the town of Oswego did their show anyway. We just had to walk through a lake-I mean field- to see them!

Happy 7th Max!

2026-07-03T16:15:00.000-05:00

Our puppy is 7! It's true I'm not really a dog lover, but Max honestly is the best dog ever. We dog-sat this summer, and this other perfectly fine dog reminded me of this fact! He is so chill, so patient, so obedient, and so trusting. I am so thankful for him. He got to go get a pup-cup to celebrate his birthday,

Jake Outings

2026-06-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

Summers sure look different around here than they did a few years ago. The teens are often gone doing their own things, so Jake and I adventure together, just the two of us. Hey, it's cheaper that way, I guess!

Blackberry Farm was still a hit this year. I wonder how many more times he'll want to go? Jason and I keep saying this summer how sweet it is that we still have one little one (though he doesn't like being called little!). We're enjoying his sillyness, innocence, and remnants of his little-kid-ness for as long as we have it, knowing the days are numbered.

Phillips Park pool and our friend's pool have been frequented.

We met a friend of Jake's at a huge indoor slide park.

And Six Flags, which is always a favorite outing for Jake, right behind summer vacation in fun for him.

I sure love this kid!

Youth Camp

2026-06-22T15:46:00.000-05:00

I went to Youth Camp again this year (for the third year in a row, but who's counting). I do love being there with my teenagers, and I do really love the camp we go to, which is on Lake Geneva. Each day that I'm there, I find a half hour or so to sneak away and walk along the lake (there is a public path that goes around the entire lake). It was quite rainy one day, and we had a tornado warning, which was very scary for some of the girls, but overall I think it was a success.

I'm always thankful for the other leaders there!

The best days are the ones that overlap with the boys!

I sure love these teens!

Graduation Party

2026-06-15T15:40:00.000-05:00

After Costa Rica, we had one more thing to do to wrap up graduation- a party! I was planning to keep it really simple, but then Ali had a few ideas, and so it became a bit grander. The biggest add was a balloon arch- how hard could it be?- I thought. Well, it was time-consuming, but easy enough to blow up the balloons (thanks to help from the teens) and string them together...but connecting it to the wall was another matter. Lots of time, help from Jason, tape, and prayers later, it was up and beautiful!

I loved how the memories table turned out too.

They had tons of people come, and I wasn't expecting that to make ME feel so loved, but it did. We sure have a great group of friends.

San Jose

2026-06-08T10:22:00.000-05:00

On our last full day, we drove back to San Jose and went on a little walking tour of downtown. It was the only time to rain was kind of a bummer, but the kids were good sports. We saw a couple of markets, parks, and theaters, as well as two truly beautiful churches. Honestly, overall, it was kind of an underwhelming city (it's not what people come to Costa Rica to see), but I think it was good for the kids to see what other cities look like so they can appreciate ours!

We decided to stop at McDonald's for lunch to compare...menu items were familiar, and it tasted exactly the same as at home!

We left for home the next morning, tired and happy- it was a great trip!

Tamarindo

2026-06-06T19:29:00.000-05:00

For the last part of our trip, we drove several hours to Tamarindo, a town on the Pacific Ocean. Everyone loved the beach- it was one of our favorite parts of the trip. Our hotel was up on a hill about 5 minutes from the beach, but there was a shuttle that ran hourly into town and to the beach. They also partner with a Beach Club that we had access to, which was so nice: we had a bar so we could get ice water, bathrooms, lounge chairs, and a private beach area. The trees went so close to the water that we could easily be in the shade while still fully at the beach, and the water was so warm. The beach had pretty impressive waves, lots of seashells, and we just really enjoyed ourselves.

We typically spent the morning at the hotel pool, went into town for lunch, and then went to the beach until dinner, and then went back to the hotel pool. Rough life.

Animals and Flowers

2026-06-04T18:25:00.000-05:00

We kept a list of all the animals and birds we saw on our trip:

Animals: Ant Eater, Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Lizard, Cows, Horses, Termite nests, Long-nosed bats, Crocodiles, Howler Monkeys, Rat Bull Snake, Emerald (Jesus Christ) Lizard, Blue Jean Frog, White Linated Bat, Black and Green Frog, Tilapia, Toe-toed Sloth, Glass Frog, Godi, Red Frog, Coati, Eyelast Pit Viper, Land Crabs, Catfish, and Kitten.

Birds: Chicken, Buff Rumped Warbler, Great Kiskadee, Yellow Bird, Peacock Bird, Great Curassow, Parrot, Tucan, Aningha Aningha, Tiger Heron, Lordas Parakeet, Scarlet Rumped Tanager, Yellow Tanager, Hummingbirds, Vultures, Swallows, Russet Nape Wood Rail, Jackamar, Boat Billed Heron, Stripped Owl, Blackbelly Whistling duck and ducklings, Green Heron, Chackalaka, Black Throated Oreal, Common Black Hawk, Tri Colored Heron, Warbler, White Ibis, Osprey, and Scarlet Macaw.

Here are some of our favorite pictures:

And we loved trying to capture how pretty all of the flowers were:

La Fortuna Tours

2026-06-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

Our trip was made up of several small tours. People showed up to drive us where we needed to be (always on time), and then they showed us around each place. It was often just our family, or at most two or three other people with us. It was lovely!

One of our favorite things we did on the trip was a raft float. We saw so many animals on the tour, and the abundance of wildlife is one of the things that makes Costa Rica unique. I'm going to do a post next of several of the animals we saw throughout our trip.

Another highlight of the trip for me was the hanging bridges tour. It was a bit rainy during our tour, but we were mostly under leaf cover, and since we had rain gear, it was just atmospheric. There were about 10 bridges we crossed, a few of them about the length of a football field! Jake found out he is a little bit afraid of heights, but he did great crossing the bridges anyway. The views were stunning.

One free morning, Jason took Eli and Logan down the road to a place people like to cliff-jump, while Ali, Jake, and I enjoyed a morning at the hotel pools.

Another tour we did was a sloth-spotting tour. It was raining again (but again, we weren't too bothered because we were in a jungle, so mostly protected), so that meant that the sloths were huddled high up in the trees. We saw them through the scope, but they weren't active. Too bad. We did see lots of other animals, birds, and flowers on our walk, though, so it was still a good time. (Can you spot Jake in this picture?)

One evening at our hotel dinner, there was a dance show. The dancers were quite good, and our server told us that some of the dances they performed were traditional Costa Rican.

Costa Rica!

2026-05-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

For years, Jason and I knew we wanted to take our family on one big, epic, foreign trip before Ali and Logan leave our home. The original plan was Egypt, but it got too complicated and expensive. Then it was Jordan to see Petra, but then the war broke out, and they cancelled our tour. So then...we decided on Costa Rica! It ended up being a very fun trip, and we were so glad for the experience and the adventure together.

We didn't have a direct flight (we get spoiled living near Chicago, so we usually do), but they were both fairly short flights, so it wasn't too bad. As we were getting off our first flight, the Pilot invited Jake into the cockpit and let him sit in the driver's chair!

The day we got there, we just went to our hotel in San Jose and relaxed. But our views from the hotel told us this was going to be a pretty country.

The next day, we had a several-hour drive to La Fortuna. We stayed in a hotel right across from the Arenal Volcano. It rains a lot there this time of year, so sometimes we couldn't even see the volcano because of cloud cover. We were very lucky that the day we had our hike around the volcano, the skies were clear, so we could get fun pictures! You could even see the steam that is always coming out of the top, but it is often hard to see because of the clouds.

Thanks for Coming

2026-05-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

It was so fun having my parents here for graduation, and then for a couple of days after Mexico. They made sure to visit Ali and Eli at both of their places of work, took Jake to the store to buy him a belated birthday gift, and went fishing with Eli.

My dad also helped me with my ever-present puzzles.

My mom altered dresses for both Ali and me!

Come back soon!

Jake Graduates from Elementary School

2026-05-22T16:59:00.000-05:00

We had another graduate in the family this Spring- Jake graduated from Elementary school! We've had kids here for 13 years, so it is the end of an era for our family! They must have started a new tradition after our other kids left of doing a clap-out for the 5th graders on the last day of school. The parents are all waiting in the gym where they end after walking the halls of the school with all the other grades and teachers cheering them on- I loved it!

Jake was lucky to have Mr Fair as a Principal; he does such a good job with the kids. Here's a quick story that shows why I like him: One afternoon, Jake came home upset. He told me that at the end of the day, he was with a brand new student waiting for the bus, and Mr Fair came by and said something like, "Watch out for this kid-he's trouble!" and Jake thought he was serious. I told Jake I knew for sure that Mr Fair was joking, but that I could email him to double-check if Jake wanted me to, and Jake said that yes, he'd like to make sure. So I emailed Mr Fair, and within a minute of sending it, Mr Fair called my cell phone. He apologized to me for causing Jake heartache and asked to speak to him. He reassured Jake that he had been joking, was sorry he hadn't made that clear, and that, in fact, Jake was an amazing kid. See? Great Principal.

Our fifth-grade team has the kids rotate for different subjects to get them ready for Junior High, so here are all of Jake's teachers: Mrs Fisher for homeroom, Mrs Ricca for ELA, Mr Rogers for Math, and Ms Sack from last year because she is his favorite:)

We had a few friends over for our annual end-of-the-school-year ice cream party and called it a wrap!

Mexico

2026-05-18T16:44:00.000-05:00

My parents took Ali and Logan to Mexico for a graduation gift- pretty great gift, I'd say!

They did an ATV jungle tour that included ziplining and swimming in a Cenote.

They enjoyed their beautiful beach-side resort (except for the fact that not just once, but twice, Ali accidentally ate something with nuts in it!)

They took a tour to Ek Balam and got to see the cute village of Valladolid.

They had a fantastic time!

Graduation

2026-05-16T17:54:00.000-05:00

Wow! We have two High School Graduates! It was such a fun weekend celebrating this wonderful milestone with them. Jason's mom and my parents came to town, and it was such a fun weekend. We started with the Elementary School clap-out. The graduates go to their old Elementary School, and the little kids all line the halls as the graduates all walk past-it's so cute! I was looking forward to this even more than the actual ceremony. I was working at the Elementary School that afternoon. I knew that meant I'd be a bit limited, but I knew I'd see them and knew that others could get pictures. But some of my TA friends came in after the parade and shooed me out to be with my family- it was so thoughtful of them, and it really touched my heart.

Last year, Jake realized he'd be there for Ali and Logan's clap-out, and he's been excited for it ever since.

Favorite teachers: Mrs Kamin and Mrs Fisher.

The BIG DAY!

The youngest brothers are the best sports, so the older brothers let them have a moment in the sun.

Then last, but not least, was Seminary Graduation. I was almost more proud of them for graduating from Seminary than High School- four years of Early Morning Seminary is no joke!

How it started:

To how it ended:

Well done, Ali and Logan!

End of Elementary School Things

2026-05-15T17:39:00.000-05:00

There are also a lot of end-of-elementary-school things we did this month! Jake's grade had their big Decades project that we got to go see. Jake learned about the 1960s.

He and I went to the last Fun Fair and saw this sign in the hall he had made.

And he participated in the end-of-year spirit days- his Napoleon Dynamite wig on crazy hair day was a big hit!

Senior Things

2026-05-13T17:35:00.000-05:00

There were lots of end-of-the-year Senior things. Being the totally different kids that they are, Logan didn't do many of them, and Ali did all of them. They both wanted yard signs, though.

They both were awarded things at Awards Night, but Logan chose to get his from the office the next day. They both got a medal for graduating Suma Cum Laude, and Ali also received her scholarship and her service hours cord.

Ali enjoyed Senior Brunch after graduation practice.

And Jason and I enjoyed our last ever band concert (7 years of these!). It was amazing to see how far these musicians had come.

Still Fishing

2026-05-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

Eli still goes fishing often, and he has gotten quite good at it! He catches something almost every time he goes out.

Prom

2026-05-09T17:26:00.000-05:00

Ali went to Prom with several friends, and she looked lovely, of course! We made her bouquet and were quite pleased with how it turned out.

Camping

2026-05-01T17:21:00.000-05:00

Jason took everyone camping...Jake and I stayed for the dinner, s'mores, and ghost stories, and then went home to sleep! It was a really beautiful night.

The moonrise was particularly beautiful! It was red and huge as it rose, a blood moon that pictures couldn't quite capture.