On the road again . . .

I'm back!

Just returned from a little road trip to Central Illinois last night.   My beautiful cousin, Angela, was married near Bloomington, IL on Saturday and we drove up on Friday to join in the festivities.  I'm so glad we were able to go.   Not only was it a wonderful  wedding, but it was awesome to see so many of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  You have to take advantage of these happy times to gather, you know?

It usually takes me 7.5 hours to get to my parents house, so I was thoroughly disappointed to find it takes 6.5 hours to get to Bloomington.  Really.  Seems to me there should have been about a 2 hour difference, since that's how long it takes to get from Bloomington to my parents.    But alas, that's not quite how it works.  The kids were complete troopers on the trip up.  Since we ate before we started and I packed a slew of snacks, were were able to get up there with just one stop.  They read, played their video games and watched a slew of videos.  Bassam was behind the wheel and I was probably the antsiest one in the car.  Somehow it goes much faster for me when I'm the driver.   I swear, I was checking the GPS every fifteen minutes to check our progress. 

We arrived in Bloomington around 6:30, checked in the hotel and headed out to dinner (pizza at Monicals . . . yum yum yum!).  We also had a to make a stop at Target.     Shortly after we got on the road, Gracie realized she forgot Baa Baa.   She had gathered him with all her stuff, but somehow didn't make it out to the car.    Safe to say, this opened a floodgate of tears.  This went on for a good 15 minutes, before I was able to calm her down by telling her  we would stop at a store and get her a new cuddly when we got to Bloomington.   This thrilled her because Bassam has told her no more stuffed animals, and she has never met one she didn't love.   But of course, Baa Baa is her first love.  I don't think she has ever spent a night without him.   She lamented his absence several times during our trip, but we reminded her Baa Baa was watching over the house since Charlie was away at "camp" (aka the kennel).    Anyways, we purchased a new horse who has since been named Beezus and were able to settle in to sleep at the hotel. 

Well, kind of. 

My kids love hotels.   But as a parent, I find them completely un-restful.  Since we were in a regular room, we basically had to go to bed when the kids did.  And since there is clearly some kind of hyper-activity gas being pumped in through the vents at hotels, my kids have a very difficult time going to sleep.  They bounce, they giggle, they toss and turn.    And no matter how late he goes to sleep, Matthew is awake at 5:45 am, which means we're ALL awake at 5:45 am.  Nice.

After breakfast, we took the kids swimming and then off to the Children's Museum in downtown Normal (just a block away from our hotel) with my parents.    It was an AWESOME museum.   The kids had a ball and we were able to spend a couple hours there with no problem.  The admission is a bargain at $6 (although my cousin gave us coupons that let us get in for $5), and my parents and the kids were free because they used their membership card from the DuPage Childrens' Museum, which has a reciprocal agreement.

Before you knew it, it was time to get ready for the wedding and then the reception.   This would be a great place to show the scads of pictures I took at the wedding, but alas, I was the person who hauled her camera to the wedding and took a grand total of 4 pictures. Hmmmm . . . not so helpful. I will say that my cousin was a gorgeous bride, the ceremony took place in the very old and beautiful Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rutland, IL (my dad's church growing up) and the reception was a fun-filled evening of food, dancing and elements from the periodic table.

Yes, you read that right.

Angela and Erick are both scientist-types and when you picked up your seating card, it had an element listed on it to indicate your table.  So clever! I was at the Lithium table, which I thought was cute until Bassam reminded me it was also a medication for people with bi-polar disorder! :)

It was definitely a late night and my kids were on borrowed time.  Still they had a great time, especially Matthew, who fancies himself quite the dancer.   They immediately bonded with their cousins and were running around with Henry, Oliver, AJ and Ethan like old friends.  As I watched them dance and play I realized that's how Amy, Theresa, Paul and I must have looked years earlier when all my Aunt Carol's kids were getting married.

Matthew gave us an early wake up call again on Sunday, so we got dressed, finished packing and had breakfast with my parents.   By 8:00, we were on the road headed back to Nashville.    Unfortunately, the trip home was even longer, as we had to take an out-of-the-way detour to Fairview, TN to pick up a very happy Charlie. 

By 4:00, were were home.  Bassam and the kids were over at the Brown's house (keg and trampoline, respectively) and I was throwing in laundry.  

Yes, things are back to normal.