The high school robotics team that Jonathan mentors had the opportunity to travel to Chicago to participate in the Midwest Regional for FIRST. (They had participated in - and won - the Houston regional a few weeks ago) With Jonathan's plane ticket and hotel room being paid for by work, we realized it would be a great opportunity to visit his family in the area and not spend a fortune. We made plans only around a week before he was to leave, so I quickly went into planning mode. It was a crazy few days, but worth all the stress to introduce Caleb to many of his relatives for the first time! (Warning - this will likely be a long, wordy post. I want to be able to look back and remember a lot of what we did!)
Wednesday
Day 1 of our trip was essentially a travel day. We left home around 9 to make it to Intercontinental in time for our 11:30 flight. As we turned onto the main drive for the airport, I received a phone call that our flight had been delayed 2 hours. Since we were almost there anyways, we went ahead and unloaded the car, checked our bags and began our adventure. I have to say, the check-in, security and all of the "annoyances" of traveling went very smoothly. We made our way to our terminal and started trading off watching bags and following/watching Caleb.
He loved watching the planes taking off and running around like a crazy boy. The plane ride itself was fairly uneventful. It was a lot of work to keep Caleb occupied, but he did extremely well. He had fun playing with his new laptop, coloring and eating tons of crackers. After a while we turned on a dvd for him to watch (thanks Acords for the loaned dvd player) and that lasted him until we arrived.
The rest of the day we spent settling into the hotel and then attempting to find dinner. By the time we made it back to the hotel we were all exhausted. I think Caleb and I were asleep by 8!
Thursday
Day 2 - Jonathan had to be at the robotics competition by around 9 each morning, so Caleb and I got ready early, dropped him off and then went in search of breakfast. (Our hotel had an attached restaurant that charged around $16 for breakfast - no thanks!) This was my sudden realization that I hate driving in downtown Chicago! For some reason, it took me actually driving to realize there are no parking lots, lanes are narrow, and it was rush hour. Yikes! Caleb and I made it to a McDonalds, but I think I nearly had a stroke getting there!
THIS is the McDonalds we went to. It was crazy! There was an escalator to the 2nd floor. It was nice sitting upstairs and looking out over the traffic. Caleb liked watching everything. It is certainly the only time I've had to get my parking "ticket" taken care of at a McDonalds so that I didn't have to pay to get out of the parking lot. Like I said, crazy!
From there I didn't really have a plan for Caleb and I. I knew I couldn't handle driving around Chicago, but didn't want to be at the hotel all day, so we drove back to the competition and spent our morning there. It worked out perfectly. Caleb could play and run around without having to worry about how much noise he was making, we had lunch there with the team, and then we went back to the hotel for nap. After he woke up, we went back to the competition until Jonathan was done (around 5). We did this each day of the competition and it worked out perfectly.
After Jonathan was done on Thursday, we met up with Grandmuzz, Grandpa Lutz and Aunt Lois at an Italian restaurant nearby. This was Caleb's first time to meet his great grandparents and my first time to meet Aunt Lois. We had a great time eating and letting Caleb meet everyone. After we finished eating, we all drove over to visit Aunt Nan at the rehab center she's in. Caleb did wonderfully through the whole evening even though dinner was later than he's used to and we kept him out way past his usual bedtime.
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| Grandmuzz and Caleb getting to know each other |
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| From left: Aunt Lois, Grandpa Lutz, Grandmuzz, Caleb and Me (Jonathan took the pic) |
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| Grandmuzz and Caleb talking with Aunt Nan |
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| Caleb and Aunt Lois |
In case you don't know, Grandmuzz, Aunt Lois and Aunt Nan are all sisters. Grandmuzz is Jonathan's Dad's mother. (Jonathan's grandmother and Caleb's great-grandmother)
We got back to the hotel that evening some time after 9 and all crashed. It was a super long day, but it was so special that Caleb got to meet so many people and he did really well considering nothing was familiar.
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