Visiting Ati, Luke, Maggie and Bump in Peoria, IL
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2007
1
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Peoria,
Illinois,
United States
Friday, December 14, 2007
Hey, Peoria is on just about every map! It's 200ish miles south of Chicago and the international base for Caterpillar, the construction vehicle builder and employer of my brother-in-law Luke. Luke, my sister Ati and 2 year old niece Maggie live right outside Peoria in Washington,...Illinois that is. It was good to see that Ati is doing pretty well 1/3 of the way through her second pregnancy. Regine used her jetlag for marathon baking sessions. Ati and her spent quite a lot of time together in the kitchen and on the sofa. And it was great to spend the evenings with hard working Luke. I also met a bunch of their friends whom I'd already gone trap shooting with at my last visit 2 years ago. The difference being that now all their families were focussed around the abundant offspring. America cannot possibly have the dwindling birth rates we are experiencing in Europe..
Indoor snowman, presented by the proud artist
. We celebrated my 33rd birthday with a raclette. And I sure felt old when I didn't succeed in blowing out all 33 candles on my birthday banana-chocolate train in one breath.
The best thing about visiting was definitely sunshine miss Maggie. The sweet little bundle of joy had prepared a little doll bed for Bjoern in our room for his arrival, complete with plastic food. From the moment she laid eyes on him the two of them were inseparable. She went everywhere with him, slapped him in diapers, baked and cooked for him, invited him to her tea parties, was allowed to take him with her on her nap and tucked him into his little bed every night. She even built a Snowbjoern. He visibly gained weight in just those few days and was very, very happy getting so much attention after having been squeezed in various bags for the last few months. Of course we could not break her heart and take Bjoern with us when we left to complete our tour full circle.
Our return to Germanz was crowned bz a lovelz stewardess, sorry, air hostess, who found out we were on our honeymoon and snuck into first class to steal us a giant bottle of champagne. That was a verz special end to a verz special trip.
So to Maggie and Bjoern, to everyone we met on our trip, to everyone who struggled to stick with us throughout this blog:
Merry Christmas!!!!
We've enjoyed a spectacular honeymoon journey, we've enjoyed your feedback and we're grateful to all of those of you who've made this trip so very special!
