Chicago!

I was able to go to Chicago last weekend!! A friend of mine was moving out there and asked me to drive out with her since my brother Bernell lives there. It was a great trip, but way, way too short. My brother Kent and his family came down from Milwaukee as well on Saturday. I hadn't seen him in four years. It had been too long. My niece, Angeles, is five years so I hadn't seen her since she was one. Pretty sad. She's so cute and so much bigger now.

Deanna and I decided to drive straight through to save money and time. I don't sleep well in cars so I didn't get much sleep and we both were pretty loopy by the end of the trip. I remember standing in my brother's house feeling quite jittery. It was pretty funny. I should have wanted to crash, but I was so excited to finally see my family and especially my nieces and nephews that sleep wasn't even on my mind. Unfortunately, Kent only stayed until Saturday night so we only had about seven hours together.

I went to church with Bernell on Sunday and then crashed hard core that afternoon on their couch. It was awesome, though, because my niece, Caitlin, just lied on top of me for awhile and we just chilled. She's six years old and is a fireball. She's so cute and has the most adorable laugh. She was by my side the whole time I was there. My sister-in-law told me that she isn't normally like that, so I loved hearing that. I ate up all the attention she gave me. I'm a sucker for my nieces and nephews. Oh yeah, one funny thing that happened was she and her cousin gave me a foot massage. I don't know how it happened, but it was so funny. He's not in the picture because he went to get food.

Later Sunday night, Deanna and I went into Chicago to walk around, but instead just ended up driving around. I'd never been to Wrigley Field so we drove there, but it wasn't that exciting. It was dark outside, but it didn't look that cool from outside.

Bernell loves guns and has about 19 or so. He's been wanting to trick out a .22 rifle so Monday morning we went to Cabella's, Dick's, and a gun shop called G.A.T. Guns to look at some rifle stocks. It was cool to see him and my 14 year old nephew Andrew talking about the feel and what they liked about the different stocks. It's still weird to me to have nieces and nephews who are teenagers. I still feel so young. It's pretty trippy, but awesome, having similar interests with them. I think not being able to watch them grow up contributes to that. In my mind, I remember them being much younger.

After looking at guns we went to get some Chicago pizza and then I went to my nephew Matthew's football practice. He's nine and in a flag football league. He was so excited to have me there. He asked me after how I think he did and it was fun talking to him about football. Unfortunately, he's thinking about not playing next year. I hope he continues to play throughout school. It'd be awesome to go see him play in some games.

After practice, Deanna came over and we played games the rest of the night. I had to leave for the airport at 6:15 a.m. Tuesday and wasn't able to say goodbye to Caitlin because she crashed on the couch during games which I'm still sad about. Hopefully it won't be another year until I can see them and another four till I see Kent and his family. Actually, I've made it a goal to see them once a year even if it is a quick trip. I actually forgot how much I missed them and loved being around them. They are great brothers and their wives are awesome, too. I don't want to get used to not seeing them again. Not cool.

I'm bad at taking pictures so I didn't take many while I was there. I shot a couple videos of my niece while she was trying to bite my finger. I kept flicking her in the mouth. Another video is one she took and it's just funny because she would reach her arm out like a cat clawing at us and then would flip the camera around on her and hiss.