Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Family Visit

Well, I am FINALLY getting around to writing about my family's visit. Only 3 weeks late! The reason is that I did not know how to get the photos of their visit onto the blog so put it off until I had learned. So here it is....

Mum and Madeleine seemed to enjoy their visit, and we certainly enjoyed seeing them. They actually arrived a day late as they had a nightmare journey. They were due to change flights at Newark, but their initial flight out of Heathrow was delayed, so they missed their connection, but their luggage got on the plane out of Newark without them and flew to O’Hare alone. Surely that is against all sorts of security rules?!?! They then were booked onto a later flight to Midway, which is a smaller Chicago airport, and I was just working out my route to meet them there, when they called to say that all flights out of Newark coming in this direction were cancelled due to storms, so they had to spend the night there. Luckily the airline put them up at a hotel, but of course they had no luggage. So they eventually flew in, to O’Hare, the next day (Thursday), 21 hours later than planned.

But we made the most of the time we had, we swam in the pool, went shopping, went to the beach at the Lake, took 2 day trips into Chicago, and saw a parade. It was the 4th July weekend, so there was plenty going on.

There was the ‘Taste of Chicago’ going on while they were here, which is an annual festival of food in it’s 25th year, where there are tons of stalls set up by the city's restaurants, selling a huge variety of food. The most unusual thing this year was Alligator Pizza, which tastes just like sausage actually. So we went to the city Friday, and went to the Taste, Millennium Park, Navy Pier, on a speedboat trip, and walked by the Lake. And we went in again Sunday with Gordon this time, again to the Taste, and intended to go off sightseeing and then go back to the park later to see the 4th July concert and fireworks which was all due to start at 7.30pm, but we noticed that by 2pm there were already dozens of people staking out their places in the park. We got talking to one couple who had laid out their blankets and chairs, and they said that by around 5pm it would be packed and we would be lucky to get a space. They then very kindly offered to save us a space as well, so we laid our blanket next to theirs. We went off to paddle in the fountain of Millennium Park, and have some food, and got back in time to see the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra concert, and the fireworks done to music over the lake. Was an excellent night. And, I have to say, everyone had warned us that it would be sooo busy and a nightmare to move around due to the Taste and the fireworks, but for us it was just like a normal Saturday afternoon on Oxford Street! It was crowded, but only what we would expect anytime in London.

On Monday, which was the actual 4th July, we went to the local Vernon Hills parade, which was excellent. I have put several photos of the parade in here, and my favourite 'act' was definitely the Lawnchair Dads - very funny. We had planned to spend the rest of the day by the pool, and then go to the Vernon Hills fireworks in the evening with a picnic, but there were some storms and lots of rain, so we ended up staying in playing games, and eating at a local bar in the evening instead.

See here for the photos of the weekend. Just keep clicking 'next', there are 34 of them, but hopefully you won't get bored before the end! This is only a small selection of all the ones we took, so it could be worse.

So, all in all, we really enjoyed our first 4th July.

They flew home on the Tuesday, luckily with no more delays.

2 Comments:

At 8:23 am, Blogger Elims said...

Love the pictures!! Your mother is a beautiful woman... her face has a youthfulness and glow to it.

From what I remember about the airports, Midway is smaller but easier to get in and out of. At least it used to be. d;) I used to drive up to Chicago (from St.Louis) for some parties with friends that I travelled with a few times a year, and we used to pick up friends that were flying in from the airport. But then again, since you're used to London, there's not much that compares to Gatwick and Heathrow traffic... so anything over here would seem easy to you. *grin*

What's the next big adventure you're looking forward to? Or are you looking forward to settling in to the day-to-day life?

 
At 10:42 am, Blogger Lorraine Kenmuir said...

Thanks for the comment about my mother, I am sure she will be over the moon to hear that!

All I know about Midway airport is that it is further away from us here, and someone we know here said it would be a nightmare to get to, especially as I would have been battling the rush hour traffic at the time. Whereas, from here, O'Hare is just 20 minutes down the Interstate.

We are thinking of taking a short trip in September/October, just fairly local, ad I will probably be going home in September for a couple of weeks, but other than that just the normal routine for a while.

 

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