bits of my weekend, volume 42: illinois edition.

on thursday we flew to illinois to see my family.

the boy was excited to travel. at granny's house, he gets to do all his favorite things.

macdonald's playland, of course.

it's especially cool since it has a dinosaur theme.

and air hockey.

he loves making bubbles.

and thrifting with granny.

why? because he ends up coming home with this:

quite a haul.

this was a special visit because it fell on the weekend of the illinois mennonite relief sale.

i grew up going to this longstanding event that raises money for the needy.

and it was good to see relatives, like my cousin brent (pictured here with sis chardy). brent was running the meat market.

here's my favorite memory and it did not disappoint: homemade donuts. i ate too many.

but i'm not sorry. not even one little bit.

the sale had aisles of homemade quilts, and tables of handcrafted toys, pies, cookies, and delicious farm-raised cheeses.

the boy didn't see much point in it all, until i bought him this:

a walking, roaring remote-control dinosaur from the toy table.

handmade by real mennonites.

ok, not really. but he loved it.

we always have to take bunches of family photos when we're together. here's me with my sibs.

notice my chicago bears shirt.

yeah, baby.

and me with the boy.

here's chardy and brother david.

and the whole crew. except for some of the grandkids.

it was my dad's birthday.

so we celebrated.

also, it was my cousin's wedding, so we dressed up and headed into peoria for that.

the boy was stylin'.

the smile did not last, however.

he got bored. very bored.

and then he fell asleep.

and then he woke up.

and was bored again.

here's me with my sisters. it really did turn out to be a fun night.

the bridesmaids and groomsmen danced down the aisle.

for real.

lastly, here's a squirrel on the bird feeder at the folks' house, munching on a leftover mennonite donut.

clearly he gets fed well. my mom had a name for him.

i can't remember what it was - let's just say his name is chunky.

our flight home was uneventful.

except for the whole flight-being-re-routed-back-to-peoria-due-to-a-malfunction-with-the-landing-gear-thing.

yeah.

when you see firetrucks on the runway, it's never a good thing.

but the landing gear was stuck down, not up, so the boy slept through what could have been an emergency landing.

we stayed at my parents' house one more night and left the next day.

now we're home in nashville, and i'm still dreaming about those donuts.

how was your weekend?