Visit to Robinson and Chicago

This is still Patrick talking about the road trip up to Milwaukee. Years ago we lived in Robinson, Illinois where we made some fantastic friends. After spending a full day in Memphis we made the drive to Robinson to spend some time with my dear friend Gary Oxford. When we lived in Robinson we would get together for dinner with the kids (who were much younger then) for dinner at least once a week. Gary grilled for steaks for all of us and he and I had some amazing margaritas.

The first picture shows Grant and Anthony with Alex almost hiding behind Grant. Yes, we all know that Alex will dodge a picture every chance he gets.
Natalie, Allie, and Janelle stayed still for a picture of the other side of the table. Not that Natalie is trying very hard ;).

Gary is also Natalie's GodFather so he had a cake as well as a present for her because he knew her birthday was coming up. Gary has always been amazing at remembering birthdays no matter how insanely busy his life gets at times.

I don't know of any way to move Robinson, IL closer to San Antonio, TX, but I think we all wish we could find a way to get together more often.

I know that Gary, Janelle, Melanie, and I would love to find a way to live close enough and somehow also somehow have the time to have weekly dinners together. The children get older and even if we lived closer it would still be hard to get together as often as we did before, but it would certainly be nice. We miss being able to spend time with the Oxfords. After we moved to San Antonio we did get to spend a nice vacation to Disney together but we definitely need to find a way to schedule another vacation together.

After Robinson, we drove up to Chicago. First, I wanted to spend a little time there with the kids, second, Melanie was scheduled to fly into Midway Airport the next morning. Basically, we had an excuse to spend a little time in Chicago before picking Melanie up to drive to Milwaukee. I booked a hotel in the downtown area so that we could walk to Millennium Park and see the bean (Cloud Gate) as well as some other sights.

The extensive travel time in the car and Natalie's back did not get along. She was hurting a bit and decided she didn't want to go for a walk, no matter how short. Okay, it would have been probably a mile or two of walking for her, and she wasn't ready for it. The boys definitely were though.

Anthony has already seen "the bean" when he visited Chicago with his Model United Nations club during his senior year of high school. He told the others all about it and got them exited too.

Eric LOVED it. He loved seeing his distorted reflections as well as reflections of the buildings "all bent and silly."

More importantly, he was thrilled to have his picture taken in a variety of places around the bean. We also visited the Jay Pritzker Pavilion but they were setting up for an event that night so we had to move on. The boys and I took the time to walk alone and see a bit more of Chicago before getting back to the hotel to meet Natalie and go to dinner. The boys wanted to go to a "good" deep dish pizza place in Chicago so we ended up a Lou Malnati's near our hotel. We had to wait a long time for a table but we ALL enjoyed the pizza as well as the free dessert (courtesy of the hotel concierge). Lighting in the restaurant was poor and it was very busy. The few pictures I bothered to keep were poorly lit or had people in the background.

Our first visit to Chicago was fun, but our excuse for it disappeared at about 4 AM the next morning when Melanie found out her flight was severely delayed. Making a long story short, the next day I drove the kids up to Milwaukee (really, Pewaukee Lake) and then went back to the Milwaukee Airport (General Mitchell International Airport) to pick Melanie up that afternoon. Needless to say, Melanie did not have a pleasant travel day, but we all made it to Milwaukee. I will post more about my view on our visit to Milwaukee and my parents 50th Anniversary Party later this week. The kids start school tomorrow and Melanie will want to post about the first day of school.