A Tale of Two Cities...er, and one really small town.

So, let me tell you about our visit to the US...

It began with being awake for approximately 30 hours in an attempt at avoiding jet lag, which did in fact help. We were welcomed to the US by having two out of three pieces of luggage lost in transit and wasting a LOT of time at the airport trying to get that worked out. From there, we went to dinner with Cybr's mom and step-dad and had a yummy adult beverage to add to our state of tired confusion.

We spent the first several days at Cybr's moms house, during which we went to WalMart and oohed and aahed at the ginormous selection and one stop shopping that we so greatly miss. We also had dinner with a close friend and met his girlfriend for the first time. We had sushi at a really great place I had never been before and the company was great, too.

By this time, as I have failed to mention, I have been coughing up a lung since first disembarking from our final aircraft. It was only getting worse, not better. I had no fever and didn't feel bad, but there was definitely respiratory congestion involved and we had NUMEROUS babies to visit, so we went to the Urgent Care and had me checked out before heading to Cybr's dads house to stay for a few days.

Not much more than seven months ago, there were no babies...then we leave and when we return there are now two babies in Cybr's family. His step-brother and his step-sister have added on to the family (separately, of course, this isn't Jerry Springer!). One is a boy about 7 months old that they had right before I left for HK and the other is a girl and was only four days old upon our arrival at his dads house. We all visited and had dinner and I got my baby squishing fix. Good times.

During this first week we also visited another close friend and his children, one of which missed me VERY much (and I missed her, too). She is three and is such a character. I love spending time with her. We played with her My Little Pony's and Barbies and she entertained me very much. Our playtime was only interrupted twice...once by going out for pizza and another time by an unexpected bowel movement. But that is a story for another time...

From there, we went to Marquand, Missouri to visit with my family. We had a big Christmas/Thanksgiving/Easter dinner with my parents, grandmother, aunt, cousin, second cousin, close family friends, etc... It was great. I had a great time. I also spent some time with another cousin and his children, who I consider as nieces, and my other grandma.

This time of the visit was tough. It was great to see everyone, but it was also a time of closure, finality, and loss while I had to visit my Grandpa at his grave. I also visited my deceased cat's grave.

Yes, we have a pet cemetery. And no, it doesn't lead to a place that brings things back from the dead.

After that, Cybr and I made our final visits. We were able to visit with Mae and see Boo and Boo2. It was a good visit and I got even more of a baby fix.

We then stayed a night each at Cybr's dads and then his moms before we headed out to the airport together and parted ways.

This brings me to my second city, Chicago. I made it in time to enjoy a birthday bash for 4 year-old twins and had a great time. My dearest friend and I hung out together and with her two sets of twins. We went to the zoo. We made pancakes together. We shopped. We worked out. We got waxed....seriously, I still am not sure why I agreed to that. Again, story for another post.

Anyway, this is getting to be too long of a post. I may go into more details and I may not. It all depends on if I get my photos sorted out and if I get my groove back (see previous post to make sense of that)...