A week's recap...

Date: July 28, 2008
Weather: Sunny skies to Ithaca…
Health: Excellent…. And in need of our beds
Morale: So excited for our home beds
Food: Josh’s yummy home brew
Current location: Ithaca, NY
Next Landmark: our new home
Miles Traveled: approx. 6700

So it’s obviously been too long since our last post, mainly due to all the fun we’ve been having with many of you! The visits have been so fun- with great destinations, great people, and yummy food and drink to make it better, how could we go wrong? And, we were craving people other than ourselves so we really threw ourselves into it!

Our first visit was to the Yummy Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Jess was really excited about this- so much that she bought Ro a corn palace sippy and a big bag of popcorn. Only right to eat popcorn as you gaze at murals made from ears of corn… it makes you hungry!


After that, we headed to La Crosse, Wisconsin to hang with Heidi, Josh, and Miles. They were our neighbors in Chicago and have since settled in this great little town. They brew some yummy beer, make yummy ice cream, and have great parks along the Mississippi. We had a great time catching up and meeting Miles for the first time- Thanks!



We continued our voyage to Chi town and went to Romeoville, Illinois, just outside of the city to stay with our friends James, Julie, Jeran, and Ben. It was great to meet Ben and for Ro to have Jeran to get into all sorts of trouble with. We truly enjoyed the fire experience in the backyard and the yummy sausages for dinner. Thanks for the great time!



We headed to downtown Chicago to meet up with the White family who happened to be there for the weekend. Ro, Emily, and Lilly were in their element as they stripped off their clothes to play in the water feature at Millennium Park. It was great catching up over some deep dish Giordano’s.



Side note- Russ took the kids out of the restaurant early to prevent them from literally climbing the walls and while under his supervision, all managed to “fall” into the fountain outside thereby drenching the second change of clothes.

We finished the visit with some yummy Garrit’s popcorn and hugs good-bye as they departed for Columbus.

We trekked back to the ‘burbs to catch up with a classmates of Russ’ from his schooling in South Africa. Gisela and her family are great hosts and had fun playing with Ro. It was nice to hear embarrassing stories about Russ for a change and Jess digged for lots ‘o dirt and saw lots of great pictures of ‘lil Russ. Thanks for the yummy cookies!

Really feeding our habit for deep dish, we met Josh, Mom, and Dad Bode at the Giordano’s by the airport to wait for Lisa to fly into town. It was great to catch the White Sox game and plot our early morning tailgate for the Sox game.

We stocked up on hot sausages and brats and headed to the Cell to get ready for the Sox game the next morning. We had great seats in left field thanks to Josh.




We met up with our old friend John Valdez who came bearing a South Paw for Rowan. Thanks as he now has to sleep with it tucked into his sleeping bag with his Sox baseball hat. They all play hit hit together at night.


We also met up with Uncle Pat and Aunt Cathy Mangan who came in from Door County to enjoy the game with all of us. We hung in the parking lot continuing to eat and drink until the golf cart security kicked us out. It was a great day that ended with many sunburned, but happy with a winning homerun hit in the 8th.




We all attempted to caravan the following day to Turkey Run State park in Indiana for the Bode family reunion. Attempt due to Russ’ “shortcut”. It was amazing to see all the cousins grown up and with kids and so fun to catch up. Ro had a great time keeping up with his second cousins who were all very patient with him. He also took it upon himself to be the babysitter for Lord Helmsley… not sure the Lord liked this as much as Ro. We also had a chance to celebrate Russ’ birthday with some cupcakes and cake picked up by Ma Bode.


We camped out with all of Jess’ family, the Sean Mangan family, the Julie Schaffer family, Uncle Brett Bode and some of his grandkids, and the Sarah Bode family. There was lots of yummy food for all meals…. Breakfast being the main draw… and fun activities of hayrides, canoe trips and catching up. In all, about 55 people came to the reunion and it was so great to celebrate the awesome Bode family with some “Tiny Bubbles.”


Anyone who has more pictures of our visit with them, we would love to have them through email so they can go up on the blog! Jess' camera died out a couple of times....