Revisited: Our Trip to the Midwest – Part 1 of 4

We’ve been invited to spend a long weekend in the mountains! This will be a nice break for the three of us, filled with friends, food and fun! I’m sure we’ll have all kinds of adventures to share upon our return. In the meantime, I’ve decided to re-run some posts that some of you may have missed.

Since this weekend’s fun is trip-related, I’m re-posting a re-cap of our trip to the Midwest. The three of us traveled through the Midwestern Trifecta and were able to see lots of friends and family. We traveled in July 2007, and at the time, my blog was still being written offline. I’ve since posted all the content, right after creating this blog upon my return from that trip.

I don’t know that I’ll have Internet access for the next few days, but due to the marvels of modern technology, it will be business as usual here at The Casual Perfectionist. Assuming all goes smoothly, you’ll be able to read a new re-run daily. (Please ignore the oxymoron.)

Will you see anything new in these re-runs? Yes! I’ve found some pictures to post along with the re-run! When I originally posted these stories on the blog, I didn’t include any pictures. So, enjoy!

So, without further ado…here is the first installment:

Click on the photo to enlarge. Clicking a second time will make it bigger.

This picture was taken at Daey & PaPa’s…

“What do you mean I have too many? You can never have too many.”

Our Trip to the Midwest – Part 1 of 4

We’ve been referring to our most recent adventure as the Tour of the Midwestern Trifecta, because we visited not one, not two, but three states in the Midwest. We were on a mission to visit my newest nephew and see other friends and relatives at the same time. As always, our trip was practically planned to the minute, and we didn’t get to see everyone we wanted to see. We knew going in that we couldn’t see everyone, and we’re thankful to have understanding friends.

We set out early on Saturday, July 14th and headed east. Of course, you have to realize that “early” means, leave the house by 8:30, and hopefully be out of town by 9am. The first leg of our trip was an 8-hour journey which wasn’t too bad. It’s weird to think that we spent a typical working day in the car, but it is what it is. As predicted, Claire handled the road trip extraordinarily well, and she actually seemed to travel better than we did!

We had awesome driving weather, and other than a little wind and road construction, it was perfect. Somehow, we planned the swapping of the drivers perfectly so that the only road construction encountered was when I was behind the wheel. Funny how that works…

We overnighted at my hubby’s parents’ house. That evening, his mother (Granny – a. k. a. Daey) and father (Grandpa – a. k. a. PaPa) had prepared a feast. We were joined by my hubby’s brother, Uncle Wah, and one of the cousins, Auntie M. Claire loves talking to Uncle Wah (her name for him) on the phone, but she is terrified of him in real life. It took a while, and she eventually played near him, but not with him. Every time he got too close, she’d run to the safety of Momma-Momma-Momma!

Auntie M. is a grandma at heart, and Claire took to her right away. It’s been seven months since she’d seen her, but Auntie M. is female and came bearing gifts. Claire is definitely more hesitant around men, gifts or not. Even Uncle Wah had brought some gifts for Claire, but it wasn’t enough to calm her fears. Poor Uncle Wah.

All of us had fun watching Claire explore a new environment and new toys. It wasn’t until after Claire’s bedtime that we realized how entertaining the evening had been. Amazingly, not one electrical device had contributed to it! Who needs TV when you have live entertainment? Dinner and a show, so to speak.

The next morning, after an early lunch, we continued heading east and into another state on our tour. The next leg of our trip was about 3 hours. We stopped for the night in a town about 45-minutes away from the farm where I grew up. We’d reserved a hotel with a pool so that my hubby could take my three nephews swimming on one of the days of our vacation. It was a basic hotel with a pretty nice pool, and I’d negotiated a good price. (My experience as a Front Desk Clerk comes in handy every once in a while. That was one of the most fun jobs I ever had while in college…but I digress.) It wasn’t extravagant, but we just needed a place to sleep (and a pool), so it worked out fine.

After checking into the hotel, we went over to spend some time with one of my hubby’s best friends from college, his wife and their two girls. My hubby and I used to live in this town, and we partied with these people (pre-kids, obviously) for years after college and before moving away. Times have changed, and our families have grown, but it was good to see them and catch up.

We retired to the hotel relatively early, and got a good night’s sleep in preparation for the adventure that awaited us…

Tune in tomorrow for a re-run of Part 2 of 4…