Illinois wedding

 

Three weeks ago we spent a long weekend in Illinois to attend Jack’s cousin’s wedding and to visit with family we rarely see.  We also met up with my aunt and uncle, who coincidentally live fairly close to most of Jack’s family. 

Aside from the wedding, we didn’t do much, which was a wonderful break.  We got more sleep and did more reading than is normal.  Small town America also offered several other perks that are hard to come by at home:

• I had a walk-in hair cut that I’m happy with for $20, which I’d been meaning to do for months. 
• Similarly, we walked by a jewelry shop and a nice lady took a link out of my watch band for $5 with no waiting.  It has been surprisingly hard to get this at home.  Near us are three types of jewelry stores that don’t suit me.  Downtown has glitzy diamond stores that scare me a little bit.  The International District has store with no web presence.  So, I called one and the person who answered the phone didn’t speak any English, as far as I could tell.  Then there is the Central District.  I walked in to one store (actually I had to be buzzed in), and waited a few minutes behind a much more promising customer who was fondling the biggest roll of bills I have ever seen and sporting diamonds in every orifice I could see, before I decided I didn’t have time to wait.   So I was pretty happy to get his done in Illinois.
• Lastly we got to rake dry crunchy leaves.  I used to like raking leaves but we live in an apartment and my parents don’t have any leaves to rake any more either.  It was different from raking the soggy brown bran flake leaves of my PNW youth.  D got involved too.

This little girl wanted to dance with D but he wasn’t ready for that.  He was ready to say “cheers” a lot.

 

We were pretty worried about the flights but D was a champ.  He only napped 25 minutes on the day we traveled there, but still didn’t melt down.  He’s a good boy.  At 18 months, our flight recommendations are:

• fabric busy book
• stickers
• play dough (also for restaurants)
• crayons
• snacks at take off and landing and while buckling him in to his car seat