I promised cute...

Last weekend was quite the adventure: I flew home on Thursday afternoon and was greeted at the airport by Mister Marshmallow with the whole family and Zinsser inside. I jumped in and it was road trip time - Chicagoland, here we come! The kids were in a good mood, mollified by the DVD player, and Zinsser proved himself to be a stupendous road trip dog, sitting quietly in our laps the whole trip.

We pulled in to the Residence Inn Schaumburg just after 10, and Bam was there to meet us. I cashed in a few Marriott points (well, 90,000 of them to be fair) to pay for two rooms for three nights. Zinsser is a welcome guest at this hotel, and promptly marked his territory in the park behind the inn. Isaac was overtired, and needed some extra comfort, so Dad was with Bella on the hide-a-bed, while Mom and Isaac got the "real bed". This was to be the case for the rest of the trip, by the way.

Friday was mostly for fun - a lazy morning, a Portillos lunch, a visit to Grandma, and 3 hours at a Toyota dealership. Ok, maybe that last part wasn't fun. Last year, we had some "dead battery" issues with Mister Marshmallow, and you know, you don't want a dead battery in an electric car. At the time, they recharged it and tested it, and it was good to go. So when we popped into the car at the Senior Home, I was a bit surprised to find electrical problems.

The funny thing is that in this car, a dying battery looks a lot like a hollywood movie where "the hacker" is bringing down the network: Dashboard lights pulsing on and off, the displays (mileage and navigation) powering on and off, with lines of static, and rebooting rapidly... I was waiting for Isaac to morph into Agent Smith, really. Then it all went dead. So I had to call for help, while the rest of the family grabbed a ride back to the hotel with other relatives and swam the afternoon away.

Long story short - I got a new battery, and had to wait quite a while for it, because they needed to reprogram a bunch of stuff as a result. Do not mess with the hybrid. NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE. I got it.

Lilli and Rich and Bridget came by for pizza and chatting: Bridget was talking about her job as an Apple Store Turnaround Specialist. She gets moved to underperforming Apple stores and gets them back in shape. What a cool job... and of course she has an iPad that she loves.

Oh - sidebar - that "problem" you read about with the iPad and the security: It's not the iPad - it's ATT. And because I use my iPad with a Sprint hotspot, I'm not at risk. Not that there was much at risk really - just an email address and the knowledge that this person with this email address owns an iPad. So the next person who tries to say "the iPad got hacked" goes to Jimmy Jail. At&T got hacked, not Apple. THE END.

I was exhausted from the day and asked nicely for a little nap at 5. Sometime around 6, Isaac came in to say hi... and I didn't hear from him again. At 6:15 I got up and discovered him flat on the ground with a didda - he literally just fell down and went to sleep in the middle of the hotel floor. OF COURSE we picked him up and put him into our bed.

Saturday was the big day (and yes, the hide-a-bed WAS comfortable, thanks for asking). In the AM, Bella got to go with Lilli to the stable and watch her ride AND she got to ride a pony too. Isaac and I swam for an hour, then went to Five Guys: He is now a huge fan of peanuts - I crack the shells, and he opens them up to remove "The Babies" which he lines up and then eats.

In the afternoon: The big event: Bailey and Ty, my friends I've known since they were 3 months old, graduated from High School and are off to college. So we crashed their Graduation Party.

They were completely shocked to see us, in a good way. We had sent decoy cards and gifts, and Ty's first words on seeing us were "but you sent a card! We thought you weren't coming!!!" Of course, we were dressed as pirates (Palatine Pirates!), with eyepatches, hats (I had a combo hat/wig), and red-black pirate clothes. Bella had a parrot, and we all had big inflatable swords. And in a move that could best be described as "awesome" - there was a moonwalk at the party.

I repeat: There was a moonwalk at Ty and Bailey's graduation party.

Isaac spent the next three hours in that jumper, emerging only to take in fluids. 3 solid hours of nonstop jumping. He was the happiest guy in the world. Bella was jumping too, but she was also off with some kids her age talking about things first graders talk about... I have no idea. When we got home, Isaac still took a little time to get to sleep. IN OUR BED, did I mention? But we were able to transfer him to the hideabed, at least until he woke up at 3 and kicked me back to the hide-a-bed. But those were some nice hours I had.

Bella went to bed a little later because at 9pm who should show up finally but Papa! He was on a business trip to Indiana, and got back Saturday night. When he came in, Bella walked up to him without saying a word and held him for a solid minute with her eyes shut. She loves her Papa, and Papa loves her.

Sunday had the kids up early to play with Papa, some more swimming in the AM, then packing up. I went to get Burritos from Chipotle and Burgers from Portillos to fuel us up. We hit the road just after 1, and got home around 8-ish. Again, the car DVD player was a good good thing. We got word about Grant on the drive home... but waited until bedtime to have the talk.

In all it was a wonderful weekend capped with a sad coda... but a wonderful weekend nonetheless.