The journey home, sans pictures.

Highlights:

• Silas being the worlds most adorable and best behaved baby on an airplane ever on the way back to Chicago.
• Mocha milkshake from Steak and Shake
• My mom's sausage gravy and biscuits.
• Surprise visit from Lucy.
• Silas saying "baa" and pointing at the goats.
• Ian's birthday cake shaped like a crocodile (or was it an alligator?), watermelon boat carved like a turtle, and cheese balls sculpted like frog.
• Watching Ivy wrestle with the plastic inflatable alligator (or was it a crocodile?) on the porch.
• Seeing Dale Chihuly's Fireworks of Glass Exhibit.
• Watching Silas and Ian work together, one pulling in front and one pushing from behind to get a walker toy up the stairs.
• Going sail-canoeing with Orrin.
• Taking the babies out in the canoe.
• Playing Cranium Conga.
• Staying up until 2 in the morning with Sonja and Linda just talking.
• Surprise visit from Catherine
• Nathan, Sonja, and Ben, writing 1 to 100 down the driveway in chalk.
• Grandma telling me as I was helping her get dressed for the party, "I'm so nervous, I'm sweaty. No, not nervous, excited."

Lowlights:

• Torrential downpour when we arrived at my parents.
• Whacked out baby that wouldn't sleep unless I was nursing him, preferably sitting up, so don't try to lie down and get any sleep of your own, mama.
• Driving from Indiana to Michigan with a 5o pound dog leaning against my leg.
• Linda telling me, after two days of practicing my knit stitch, that I'm doing it wrong. (I was.)
• Going garage sale-ing with William, especially the part when he said, "Oh, I've been to this guy's sale before, there's nothing there." And yet we continued on to the sale, and looked around for 10 minutes.
• Terrified that I had been overhead on the baby monitor saying a few uncomplimentary things about guests at G-ma's party. (I wasn't.)
• Ben teaching me how to break the string on my guitar.
• Everyone asking me if Silas was walking yet, offering theories as to why he's not, and assuring me that he will be soon.
• The day after her 100th birthday party, I asked G-ma how old she was. She told me to guess. I said, "90? 95?" "No," she said, "I'm 98."

I'll get some pictures up once I wade through them all. Right now I have to get my little jet lagged one to bed.