Short Trip to Illinois

This weekend we made a short trip to my husband's parents and siblings house to attend an Anniversary Party for his parents. The trip did not start well at all. I thought I left the house plenty ahead of time, but I didn't expect the satellite parking to take so long. By the time we got to the ticket counter, they had already cut-off the check-in for our flight. We were booked on the next flight to leave, which was not until over 4 hours later.

So my husband and I sat at the gate for an extra 4 hours with nothing to do. The following is a picture taken at the airport looking out of the windows. What was missing? The airplane. Because we missed the flight.

We ended up making up a set of power point slides for a Family Jeopardy game while we were waiting at the gate.

We finally arrived at the Indianapolis Airport, and started driving towards Illinois. I took some pictures along the 2.5 hour drive. There were patches and patches of corns. And we entered the Illinois state border.

We got to the destination around 4 PM local time. Most people at the party were about to leave or already left. I was able to get a picture of my husband's mom and dad holding the anniversary cake before it was cut. I think they were waiting to cut it until we showed up.

Everyone was helping cutting the cake.

A little bee came to get his share of the cake.

It was a bummer that we couldn't spend more time with my husband's uncles, aunts, and grandma. But it was good that they were able to at least look at some of the old photo albums my husband brought (almost 40 lbs. of photos my husband hand-carried through the airports).

We played the Family Jeopardy game after dinner. Everyone had fun, so it was a good thing that we made it up.

Sunday morning we went to my husband's parents' church. The pastor mentioned that they just returned from a missionary trip to Honduras, and would present a trip report that evening.

We had lunch at my husband's sister's place. We were going to modify the Family Jeopardy game and play it again with another family, but they couldn't make it. So we changed the plan and played a group card game instead. My husband and I had to head out to the airport around 1 AM, so we kept debating whether we should take a nap or just stay up, and whether we should go to the evening church service.

We eventually decided to attend the church service, and I was glad we did. The pastor had a great presentation with photos and videos of their trip. I thought he would have made a fascinating photo essay if he were on Gather!

After dinner, my husband and his family looked at the old photos, and I eventually took an on-and-off nap. We left his parents' house at 1 AM local time as planned, and arrived at the rental car return just before 4 AM. We checked in the 5:20 AM flight with plenty of extra time this time.

I really enjoyed the trip, although it was quite a shame that our short trip got cut even shorter because of the missed flight Saturday morning.