Monday, May 4, 2009

Whirlwind Weekend

Our weekend went quickly from open to jam-packed. As of Friday night we had no plans except readying the house for listing and looking for garden plants at the farmer's market, by Saturday morning we had a mini-family reunion in the works! (We did get our heirloom tomato plants, by the way. Yum!)

James' youngest brother, Jeremy, has spent the semester studying abroad and returned to the US yesterday. We knew his parents and probably his grandpa were going to meet him at the airport, so we thought we'd get a hotel, let Joshua swim and make a night of it. What we didn't expect was that the party would grow and grow and be also able to get hotel rooms in the same hotel. But it all came together quickly and by Saturday evening we were joined by James' parents, his grandpa, his brother and sister-in-law, aunt and uncle and two cousins.

We enjoyed an evening together and in the morning manufactured a nearly-complete Wilson family welcoming committee for a very surprised Jeremy! It was a fun weekend that included the aforementioned hotel activities: chatting, swimming, kid watching, lots of pictures and general catching-up. We also went downtown and walked around (turned out to be a gorgeous day, 70's and sunny with a light breeze), stuffed ourself with Chicago-stlye pizza (I've now eaten at both of the classic places--if you've eaten pizza in downtown Chicago, you'll probably know where I mean) and heard tales from Jeremy's adventures in kosher eating!

Almost exactly 24 hours after our arrival we loaded up, climbed back in the car and made the trek home. We all scattered to our various homes around the midwest as Jeremy finished his trip back to see his sweet fiancee in Mississippi, and by bedtime all was back to normal. But it sure felt like we packed as much as you possibly could into one day--we made the minutes count! What's your favorite spur-of-the-moment or whirlwind trip you've ever taken? James and I seem to have most of our best adventures relatively spontaneously--maybe it's just part of having small children??? It's hard to plan ahead since we have no idea how the day will be going once it rolls around and the more time we have to think about it the more likely we are to do see the negatives. But, it's always fun when it comes together.

I'll put pictures in when I get them. As is usually the case when surrounded by the extended family, everyone else is taking so many photos our cameras don't even come out of the bag!

3 comments:

KRunyon said...

So glad you could have some time with family and a change of scenery. It sounds like a blast!

My favorite (and only?) whim was in college when I decided to drive to Cedarville (8 hours) by myself to visit friends. It was so spontaneous and wonderful!

Joylynn Rasmussen said...

My favorite spur of the moment trip wasn't really spur of the moment but for me, it was a rather quick trip in the planning since I like to plan months in advance for things.

Thor and I found out that Christene was coming to Boston from India for a conference about 2-3 weeks prior to her arrival and decided that we totally had to take a week long East Coast adventure, complete with stops in D.C., Boston, New Hampshire, a bit of Maine and then back again to North Carolina. It was a GREAT trip.

Anita said...

You are such a great blogger!! I love reading your posts. Well, far and away our best spur-of-the-moment road trip was deciding to drive to NC for adoption paperwork and getting to be at our baby girl's birth and bring her home.