Monday, April 1, 2013

Fly Away: Oak Park and Chicago, IL in "Spring"


To the best of our memory, we've had 3 days of school canceled this year for "snow." And basically didn't ever get any real white stuff. So it would only make total sense that mom would wake up the morning of the first day of our spring break -- the day on which she had to fly with both of us for the first time by herself -- to three accumulated inches of the fluff. After checking no less than 17 times that our flight to Chitown was "on," we took off for the airport. Easy peasy check-in and security walk through (well, I tried to bolt once because I didn't want to put my trail mix through the scanner, but they told me I could keep my shoes on and I had to think fast for a new excuse to act up). Once we made it through, the United Airlines messages started -- flight delayed 20 minutes, delayed an hour, delayed an hour 20 minutes. You get it.

Mom inwardly cringed, but we surprised her by being TOTAL troopers. We sat nicely and colored and played with each other at the gate for the extra time. We ate our lunch without incident (well, except when mom dropped Cami's smoothie all over all of us (and a few bysitters) while warning us that if we didn't drink it up, we were going to spill it). Finally on board we asked (!) to be buckled in, perused Sky Mall magazine in a contest to find the most ridiculous object for purchase upon a promise that mom would make daddy buy the winning item (Cam won -- she found a toilet training seat for cats. seriously), waited until we were in the air and then watched our shows for the 2 hour flight. Mom actually read a book. She was flabbergasted.

Grammie B picked us up and we spent the whole week visiting our fam in Oak Park and Chicago where the weather was surprisingly warmer than DC. We got LOTS of quality cousin time with our seriously-missed cousins Jack and Graham (who recently moved to Chicago from DC) and explored lots of new kiddo haunts in the city. AND we got to celebrate our Grandpa's birthday with every single family member on that side of the family (from grandparents to grandchildren at least). All 16 of us. A family first (cousin Graham is just a year old). Daddy even joined us for the last few days of our trip. We had a blast.

Reports on our various activities will be forthcoming, but for now, here's a few shots of how we spent most of our week.


Grammie B let me bring home mom's childhood copy of Greek & Norse legends. BEYOND PSYCHED would be putting it mildly.


arting, of course


cam mastered the spiderweb at mom's childhood park (Taylor Park)


we rolled all the way down the sledding hill because, well, we come from the land of no snow and have never been sledding


we got to play with all of mom's childhood toys left -- tinker toys, playmobil, dollhouse, dollies, etc.


hanging at cousin jackie's


scared in suburbia -- why are people so nice? they must be trying to jack our double driving cart.


singing happy b-day to Grandpa B at his Twin Anchor's rib joint dinner -- worth the hype.


cam and cousin jackie. BFFs for life. it's all aunt carrie's fault that they moved (and we hope you are reading this)


our aunt allie -- the only one who puts up with our BS for an extended period of time. in addition to my continuous banter, cami appears to have realized this past week that she can talk. sure, she's always said what she needed to, but now she won't stop. she's either talking, singing or tantrumming (and none of them quietly).


the only pic mom could get before i literally took off down the block -- grammie and grandpa and all six grandkids.


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