Midwest Road Trip

The last few weeks have been a marathon of moving, getting rid of stuff, and errands.  We probably sold about 80 things on Craigslist before having a sidewalk sale to get rid of what we could before taking the rest to Goodwill.  Our friends Kyle and Janelle were nice enough to let us crash at their place for a few weeks as we closed on the house at the end of March.  We were really quite fortunate to have received an acceptable offer on the house within 8 days and to have sold the house so quickly with no major issues.  Despite our getting rid of a lot of stuff, we still moved about 4 vanloads of stuff to Kyle and Janelle's.  Next, we re-loaded the van with the things that we wanted to save for the future and took a road trip back to both of our parent's houses.  Fortunately, they live within 3.5 hours of each other, so once we got through Kansas, we were both close to home.

First we went to Higginsville, MO where Jill is from.  I hadn't been back in a few years, so it was great to see everyone, and I mean everyone.  A majority of both sides of my family live in Higginsville (pop >5,000), so there was a lot of people to see.  We also spent an evening with my friends from the volleyball team at Washburn and another evening with a few of my friends from high school.  It was the first time Mike has met most of her family and friends, and he did a very good job of keeping names, faces and stories straight.  We had an all around good time with everyone and were both very happy to catch up.  We even got to see my uncle chase down a muskrat in the pond with his camouflage vehicle and shoot it with a gun.


(With college friends)

 Once we had our fill of chocolate chip cookies and steak, we headed to Mike's parent's house in West Des Moines, IA.  His sister and 20 month old niece (Claire) arrived that afternoon from Chicago and we had a great time catching up and seeing how much Claire has developed.  She is at such a fun age!  We also go to go shopping  with Mike's mom to pick up some last minute items needed for the trip and make really nice fake IDs, also with Mike's mom's help.  Mike's brother-in-law got into town Friday night and the crew was complete.  Most of the weekend was devoted to playing with Claire and being amazed by how darn cute she is.  Once the weekend was over and they went back to Chicago, the house got a lot quieter and we were able to enjoy some great dinners and conversation with Mike's mom and dad.


(Mike's family)