Deep Dish City...

Time flies when you're having fun...
Trey started out this post so I thought I would finish it.

A few weeks ago we went on an awesome trip to Iowa/Nauvoo/Chicago. We started off the journey at 5pm on Tuesday, June 17th. We met up with Trey's best buddy from high school and his wife and drove all the way to Coralville, Iowa in one straight shot. I was happy we drove through the night because A)we didn't need to use the AC and B)Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa are BORING! (no offense Phil & Nicole). Nothin but farmland, rolling hills, and well...that's about it.

We rolled into our first destination (Coralville) at about 10am the next morning. Not bad time I'd say. We were all pretty tired so we took a nap for a few hours to recuperate. When we woke up, Nicole set up the crazy flower sprinkler and the girls had a fun time giggling and running around the sprinkler. It was so fun to see Mckell & Alissa, they crack me up!Natey boy wasn't too excited about the sprinklers. I think he got wet once and that was enough for him. Isn't he so stinkin cute?! I really wanted to just take him home with me. I love how he always sticks out his tongue. He took a little while to warm up to us because we were strangers to him. But after he decided we were okay, he would come up to me and put his arms up for me to hold him, it made me happy :).

We hung out the rest of the day and just played with the kiddies until Phil got off work. Then they took us to The Vine for dinner. Oh my goodness, that place is heaven sent! Anyone who goes out there definitely needs to eat at The Vine. The sliders (mini hamburgers) were my fav. But the wings and fries were fabulous also. After din din we went exploring around town to see the effects of the flood. It was unreal to see. We didn't have a camera but I took some pics on my cell phone. I'll post some later if I can. We got back that night and kept Phil up until 12pm just chatting about life in Iowa and med school stuff. I really miss Phil & Nicole and the kids. It was so good to see them all. Thanks again for letting us stay with you. Here are some more pictures of us and the kids... So the next day we said goodbye and headed off to destination #2, Nauvoo. We were a little nervous because of the flood situation and tons of roads were closed in Iowa but we found our way to Nauvoo. We had to drive through a flooded street to get to the border of Illinois, that made me a little nervous. Maybe I'll post the video we took of it later(they take forever to download).

Nauvoo was just as pretty as I remember it. The temple is amazing. We didn't have enough time to do a session so we just walked around outside and took pics. We went through some of the old buildings also. We saw how an old printing press worked and of course we had to visit the gunsmith house (for Trey). We saw one of the original sun stones from the temple and also Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma's graves.

Next we went to Carthage. That was really neat to watch a video on Joseph's life and then go through the jail and listen to the commentary of what happened that day. You could even see the original bullet holes in the door. It made me cry (surprise surprise). It was neat to feel the special spirit that was there. It was very peaceful. We were on hallowed ground. What an incredible prophet he was.After Carthage, we set off for desitination #3, Chicago! Well, actually our friends live in a small town outside of Chicago, called Montgomery. We arrived in Montgomery at 9pm and were greeted by our friends Jenny & Jeremy. It was so good to see them. Jeremy is also one of Trey's good friends from high school. Adam and his girlfriend were also already at the house (they flew). Trey and Joe got so excited that all the boys were reunited. They were so hyper and crazy, but I bet a lot of that was them just being stir crazy from being in the car for so long. That was when the wives just sat back and let them do their thing. Those boys have so many inside jokes it's not even funny. So all the girls just hung out and let them reminisce about the good old days.

The next day the Main's took us to downtown Chicago. And can I just mention that the traffic there is insane!! City drivers are nuts. Anyway, they took us to lunch at Ed Debevics. This place was awesome. It was a 50's diner but the host and waitresses were totally sarcastic and mean to ya. It was hilarious! And of course Trey sassed right back to them, it was pretty funny. We also saw this huge fountain, the metallic bean which was my personal favorite, and then we went to the Chicago art museum. Friday nights are free there. We saw some pretty cool stuff. It's the same museum they go to on Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The next day we packed up the cars and headed up to Lake Paw Paw in Michigan. Jenny's parents have a lake house up there and they let us stay there for the weekend. It was soo much fun. They had 2 boats, a pontoon boat and a speed boat. They also had a jet ski. We had the best time. I don't recall laughing so hard and so much in one weekend as we did when we were there. We played games, watched movies, played horseshoes, ate lots of food, tubed, waterskiied, rode on the water weinie, and played in the water. Jenny & Jeremy have 2 dogs, a black lab and a golden retriever, and they just loved it up there. I was so happy that Trey could finally go boating! He had never been before. I'm pretty sure we got him hooked. He tried waterskiing and he got up on his 2nd try! He was a natural. I didn't get to waterski because I was sick the last 2 days we were there. I did ride the water weinie though, that was a good time.

This first one is Trey doing his boat dance

We played Texas Hold'em and it was Jenny's first time playing so naturally, she kicked everyone's trash!

And here is Trey with his one tic tac...

On Monday afternoon, we headed back to Montgomery to unpack, and then repack our car and say goodbye to the Mains. Our car took one last trip to the city for our last hoorah before we left...a Cubs game. It was quite the experience. I had a Chicago dog, watched the ladies in front of us go back and forth from the beer stand and each time getting a little more giggly and loud, witnessed a guy proposing to a girl, and sang "Take Me Out To The Ball Game". We sat in the bleachers right under the scoreboard. I only wish Harry Carry was still around, I would have loved to hear him announcing. I'm really glad we went. The Cubs are Trey's and Joe's favorite baseball team so the boys were in heaven.

That night we traveled 4 hours back to Iowa and stayed at Phil and Nicole's. We woke up to a breakfast of Enchanted Eggs, Vanishing Yogurt, and Hocus Pocus Pancakes made especially for us by Mckell, with a little help from Nicole and Alissa I'm sure. She got a book from the library that had a bunch of recipes for things and while you add the ingredients and mix them you say a spell. Cute huh! Whatever she did worked because it was really tasty! Thanks Mckell!

That was pretty much the end of our vacation. The drive home was sooooo long. We just wanted to get home. This is us in the backseat during the tedious drive.

This was such a fun trip, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Sorry for the long post, there was just so much fun stuff to talk about and lots of fun pics. I hope I didn't bore you. :)