Trek back on the Dixon Trail

Even after over a year in Colorado, I think we (Forest and I) still consider ourselves Midwesterners. The Midwest is where it all began for us--it's where we were born, went to school, and started our little family. 

Recently, we made our first trek back toward Illinois since moving. Perhaps the trip was a little overdue, but we certainly packed it full of people to meet and places to see--not only did we visit our parents and childhood homes, we also visited our first apartment, our first house, and our favorite big city, Chicago.

The Chicago part we did child-free after dropping both girls off with Paca and Teresa. This was our biggest "break" from parenting since having two, and we *almost* didn't know what to do with ourselves.

Forest pricelined us a couple of nights at the Palmer House Hotel right in downtown. The place was all decked out for the holidays.

 

We took advantage of the mild weather that weekend and did lots of walking around. It took me back to November 2006 when University of Illinois Symphony got to perform at Symphony Hall. Forest (my fiancé at the time) came up to Chicago to see the concert and wander the city streets with me.

 

 

In addition to enjoying our "just us" time, we also met up with friends Scott and Ammon for lunch.

When I took this photo, Scott good-naturedly joked that it should be captioned "Rehearsal Dinner," since he was originally supposed to be getting married the next day

Saturday morning we went to a giant movie theater there in the city for a showing of the Lincoln movie. I was on the edge of my seat, wondering if the 13th amendment would really get passed and if the Civil War would ever end. When we came out, Forest said it was the best movie he'd seen in a long time.

 We proceeded to get in line for breakfast at about one in the afternoon at Wildberry cafe.

We love you, Chicago!

The next few days of our trip we spent in Decatur-land at Paca's house.

As frequently happens when traveling with small children, illness struck. It came in the form of a stomach bug, and attacked Mika first.

The rest of us thought we were untouched. Forest and I went to a choir concert at Milliken on Sunday (Cheryl had extra tickets) and took Ramona over for dinner with the Funk family on Monday. Later that night we all dropped like flies. Everyone in the house eventually got sick (7 people) except for Paca, who miraculously escaped the ailment.

The following night we were supposed to go to an Illini basketball game--one of the highlights of the trip. But we were not quite recovered enough to do it, so our tickets just sat on the kitchen counter.

 We did this instead:

And some of this as well:

Poor Ramona swore she would never eat again.

By Wednesday we seemed well enough to step out of the house. We stopped by Meg's to meet baby Piper.

Then we went over to Grandma's house, where Ramona was suddenly plagued with more nausea (combined with homesickness). She finally passed out on the couch after I forced some liquid down her throat.

 Mika, meanwhile, seemed to be completely recovered, and was basking in the extra attention.

After about a two hour nap, Ramona woke up completely refreshed. She even felt good enough to lick a popsicle and watch the movie "Brave."

Before we left, Grandma loaded us up with early Christmas gifts, which included a play kitchen for the girls and a double screen DVD player for the car. THANK YOU!

Next morning we visited Grandma one more time at the VA clinic in Decatur. She gave us a tour of her workplace and office. I think she introduced us to everyone there.

In the afternoon Ramona and I took a walk in the woods behind Paca's house before packing the van and leaving for Bloomington.

Before long we were all camped out at Jii and Baachan's house.

Friday was rainy and cold but we ventured out to spend a few hours in Champaign. We drove by the hospital where Ramona was born . . .

. . . took a turn down Oregon Street in Urbana to see if our old apartment was still standing . . .

 . . . and even did a partial lap around the quad, where Ramona got some hot chocolate from a booth set up by a campus club.

For lunch we met Holli at Papa Del's pizza

and swung by Green Street to get Ramona an orange T-shirt (which we had promised her long before we had tickets to the Illini game).

But there's more! Next we went to visit my old cello students, Aurelia and Andrew. This time when I gave Aurelia a hug, she was as tall as me. And Andrew is getting ready to leave for a mission in January. So grown up.

I'm eternally grateful to their mother, Jana, who watched baby Ramona for many hours during the spring semester of 2010 when I went back to school for my masters degree.

 I guess Ramona has grown up a lot since, then, too.

Last but not least, we stopped in Mahomet to see my friend Aubrey and her pretty new house.  She sent us home with some Illini chocolate--sweet!

On the drive back to Bloomington, Ramona declared that she wanted sushi, and that she would not eat dinner unless there was sushi. It was nice to hear that her appetite was back, but we had to spend quite a bit of time telling her she had to eat whatever she was served--Baachan was still calculating grades for the semester and certainly did not have time to roll sushi while we were in Champaign.

. . . but I was wrong. There was a big plate of sushi on the table waiting for us when we got back. Ramona was delighted.

 Mika ate her share, as well.

 After sushi, we exchanged some gifts. It was really beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

 Saturday was our last day in Bloomington. We were lucky enough to see the entire Cummings family when we visited their home, and got to hear a little piano recital, too. Three of the Cummings kids played, and at the end Ramona shyly went up to play "Here Comes the Bride."

 As anticipated, Ramona got some Japanese lessons that day.

Baachan is a very dedicated teacher. She must have spent an entire afternoon making these hiragana cookies:

 And probably another afternoon making Japanese flashcard ornaments for the Christmas tree, also.

She got some play time with Jii, also

For dinner we made salad with a little red bell pepper that Jii and Baachan raised from seed inside their house

It was a whirlwind time in central Illinois, but it was still time well spent.

The next morning we got up before dawn to begin our journey home. We stopped in Iowa to pay tribute to Cedar Rapids and cleaned ourselves up to attend church at our old building there. We stole lots of hugs and exchanged greetings with many people before and after sacrament meeting. We had to extract Ramona from Primary before leaving because she ran off with her old friend Maria.

We also swung over to our old neighborhood on Evergreen Street. Lisa, from a couple of doors down, had prepared a little breakfast for us at her house and invited Alicia and Petra for a mini neighborhood reunion of sorts. It was really sweet.

We of course had to drive by our old house to check on it, and see if the retaining wall held up.

Even though our time living in Iowa was short, I feel like I left a little part of my heart there. I guess it's a portion of the Westward trail our family has made up to this point.

We traced our trail back to Colorado all the rest of that day. The new DVD player proved to be a lifesaver for the final hours of the trek. Our van pulled into home base at about 11pm. All in all, a successful trip. So long for now, Dixon Trail!