Visiting EVERYONE (and his brother....)
While we only went to three different houses (in three different states) I almost feel as if we went to a million different places. In Michigan we saw a few old friends and my brother and his wife (hi Anne!!). I can't truthfully say that I missed Michigan too much. Mark and I agreed that we missed the people, but we definitely didn't miss waking up cold! We have only lived in Florida for two months and we are already spoiled by the warmth!!
I must admit that, of all the non-human things about Michigan, I miss Meijer the most. The worst part about moving (besides leaving all your friends behind) is having to find a new grocery store. I'm used to the wide aisles, the placement and the products that Meijer has. I have only visited two new grocery stores, and have not been impressed. Part of my discontent is not wanting to take the time to figure out where everything is. I want to be able to take my list and get in and out of a grocery store quickly. I HATE, with a passion, having to go down EVERY aisle just to find where some stockboy put the Cheez-Its. And it's never where you expect it to be. Why can't all stores stock their wares the same? It would be so much easier...
Any way, grocery store issues aside, Michigan was fun. Anne and I were able to hang out, almost like old times. We even did a Christmas morning, with presents and a big breakfast and sitting around in our pajamas until one in the afternoon. It was lovely!
From Michigan we went to Illinois to spend time with Mark's parents, his sister, brother-in-law and our nephew (the cutest baby in the world, by the way). We had loads of fun. Mark's parents took us out to see King Kong (by the way, thanks a lot, Peter Jackson!! I SOBBED through the WHOLE movie. Three hours of crying). We also did multiple Christmases with various members of Mark's family. It was a fast paced three days, but we had fun.
And then it was off to Iowa! Miraculously enough, it was only on our drive to Iowa that we hit any kind of even minor bad weather. We went through about an hour of misty rain. Up until then, everything had been very clear.
Iowa was more laid back than Michigan and Illinois. Most of the people we wanted to see came to us, which made for a very crowded house at times (at one point we had three cats, a dog, and 14 people). I am very proud of Pepper, who proved that despite her small size and lack of tail, she can intimidate other cats. My parents' cats are almost twice Pepper's size, but when we put them together, all Pepper had to do was hiss once and the other two hid. We never tried to see if Pepper could take on the dog. Nick is a hunting dog, so we weren't too sure that it would be too safe to see if my cat could beat up my aunt's dog...
Christmas was splendiferous. We had a lovely breakfast, complete with crispy cinnamon rolls. Church was fun. My parents bragged about their musical children and the long and short of that was I had to bring my French Horn and play with a mini orchestra. I wasn't sure how that would go, as I am not much of a sight reader... But the other musicians were very good and everything worked out well. As for the notes I missed, well, we'll just call it "modern music" and no one will really know much of a difference...
We were sad to say goodbye to our families, but having already driven about 1600 miles, we needed to leave. So on Monday afternoon, we bid my family farewell and drove, once more, to Mark's parents'. Randy and Brenda took us out to an early dinner at one of Mark's favorite pizza places, Monacal's, and then sent us to bed. And that was how, in a little over a week, we visited three states and all immediate relatives. Whew!
But little did we know that the fun was just about to begin...
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