August 29, 2010
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The Unstaycation
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been on vacation the past week and therefore, not able to update much. But, now I sadly sit here on the last day of my vacation as my vacation dwindles down to a mere few hours. Geez, life is great when the vacation first starts and you have the WHOLE vacation in front of you but at the end of the vacation, it's kinda depressing.
Okay, so I don't want to make this a long 10 hour post, I'm not going to force 7 full days into one post, instead I will break it down and spread it out over the course of 2 or 3 days. I'll start with last Saturday, the 21st.
My sister's train was scheduled to get into town at 2:23 in the pm. The train was of course late, I kept watching the Amtrak website for updates and constantly saw it keep getting pushed back. Eventually, the site stopped working so I had to call Amtrak with updates. I left to pick her and her kids up about 6:15, getting there about 6:35pm. I called Amtrak one last time and found out that the train would arrive at 6:42. Well, lo and behold, here comes the train barreling in at 6:41, she got off the train and the first thing I said to her was "wow, you guys are one minute early!"
We went back to my house and had dinner with all my siblings. My sister's daughters (ages 12 and 14) instantly clicked with my brother's 3 kids (a girl age 5 and a set of twins, boy and girl age 3). They were literally running around playing with each other within a matter of minutes, like they knew each other for years, even though they had not seen each other since the twins were 2 months old.
Last Sunday was our annual family reunion with my dad's side of the family, its always a good time. Of course we played softball like we do every year; if the Kennedy's have touch football my family has 16 inch softball. After the game I was standing around talking with my cousin's 16 year old son (who does not like me for reasons that I suspect are jealousy, his step brother confirms my belief) who was bragging that he is going to buy a $22,000 2011 Chevy Camaro by the time he graduates high school in 2 years. He is so convinced that he is going to buy this car that I bet him $50 that he will not own the car before he graduates high school.
Monday we went to Starved Rock State Park in Illinois, which is about 70 miles west of where I live and probably 100 west of Chicago. I had never been there before but my older brother had been there quite a few times. It was very beautiful; about as scenic as you can get. Unfortunately we got a late start to our morning and didn't even get out there until 1pm and even after that, we needed to stop and eat lunch which meant that we didn't even get out onto the trail until damn near 2 o'clock. We did stay until shortly after 5 though, doing a considerable amount of hiking and walking.
All right, so I guess that is about enough for now, check back tomorrow evening for another update.
