No Place Like It...

I originally started this blog post with a description of everything that went wrong this weekend, from the awful traffic leaving town to everyone getting sick and thusly not being able to enjoy our time the way we wanted. But instead, I'll just leave it with those little details and not go on a big grumping spree. It's easy to grump a lot when you want to live in a place that you just have to visit. Pete and I never seem to have time to see everyone we'd like to. And even when we do see them it's often all too short (like our 5-minute driveway visit with Darcie this morning). When I first moved to Chicago I said I'd be back to Iowa in a year or two. Ten years later....
But back to this weekend. I keep hearing that it's a bad year for illness, and I guess it's hitting our family pretty hard. Dad has been sick since he left here- so we saw him for all of a two-minute wave-through-the-truck-door this morning. Pete kept getting the chills and a fever, so he hardly left the house. Clara seems to be having a resurgence of congestion and other cold-like symptoms, which meant I had very disrupted and abbreviated sleep.
Not to mention, we didn't want to spread our germs to cousin Eleanor. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that little cutie stays well. I'm feeling awfully guilty already....
So, there, I guess I complained about the weekend anyway. I was just disappointed. I had so been looking forward to Clara's first trip to Iowa City. Nice birthday dinner for Mom and Rob, late-night games, visits with friends, bumming around town....
We did get to spend some good quality time with Eleanor, though. And Aunt Joyce came up for her first meeting of Clara. We finally remembered to take some photos of the three cousins together.
And this one I think is just hilarious of Eleanor and Clara....
We got home at a reasonable hour today, so I fixed up some corned beef and colcannon. Thanks to Amber for putting me on a kale kick, and to Mom for suggesting colcannon. It was a delicious meal, though I think the nitrates from the beef are giving me a headache.
We've had lots of leprechaun talk today. Henry's new thing is to request a story- not a book- a story. It's good- encourages us to be a little creative. So today there were some leprechaun stories and Henry wanted to look at a picture of a leprechaun on the computer. Then Clara decided to try out her leprechaun jammies- lent to her by her growing cousin. She also likes her mobile.
To end on a positive note- I did learn this weekend that I have the potential to be a Guitar Hero. So maybe when that translates into the big bucks, we'll finally move back to Iowa...

Not a great photo of me- but Joyce's expression is priceless.