Chicago!!!

Well, we're back! Hyrum, Kiersa, and I went to Chicago because Hyrum was invited to have dinner in the Sears tower at an awards ceremony for one of his cabinet lines (DeWils). The international kitchen and bath show (KBIS) was also in Chicago that weekend. Here' my travelogue...

We got to my parent's house in Ashland on Thursday night so we could leave Talea and Hyatt with them, got about 4 hours of sleep, then went to the Medford airport early Friday morning and flew to Seattle. Our small layover was extended due to bad weather in the Midwest and Chicago not taking inbound flights, so we knew we would barely make it in time for the dinner. When we finally got to Chicago, we changed into nice clothes in a bathroom, then we raced off to find a taxi. We got all turned around, so by the time we got our taxi (by the way, it's almost $40 to go from the airport to the sears tower) and made it to the Sears tower for Hyrum's awards dinner, we'd missed their tours up to the 99th floor observation deck and we were about to be late for dinner. We had our carry-ons and car seat and diaper bags with us since we didn't have time to go to our hotel beforehand. We thought the dinner was on the 60th floor, so we went through security and headed for the elevators. You have to take an elevator to a different lobby on the 34th floor, then take an escalator to the next elevators to get to the 60th floor. It's actually even more confusing than it sounds. Turns out the 60th floor is some business, so we tried to find the floor ourselves, but ended up lost, so we went all the way down to the ground level lobby and found out from the front desk it was on the 66th floor. So we repeated our little adventure in the elevators and finally made it to the dinner. I had no idea you could get lost in a building just trying to find elevators! And did you know your ears pop while riding the elevators to such heights?

Kiersa was pretty fussy during the dinner (I don't blame her with all the ear popping from taking off twice, landing twice, and going up and down tall elevators 4 times), so I took her out and by the time I got her settled down and asleep, I had missed seeing Hyrum get his award!! I was pretty bummed. I've missed both of his awards he's received from that company. Out of all the dealers in the country, Hyrum is in the top 10 for sales of their cabinets, and he's only in a po-dunk rural area! I'm so proud of him!

After the dinner we looked out on the city view and the lights went on to the horizon. It's a massive place! The runway for the airport goes over the top of the freeway! When Hyrum and I drove semi, we drove under a runway and thought it was funny how from a distance it looks like the planes are driving across the freeway. Now we got to be in the plane looking down on the semis as we passed over them.

We got a cab again and checked into the Springhill Suites, which are brand new as of 2 weeks ago, and it's part of the Marriot chain. Mr. Marriot himself is Mormon, and we'd always heard he put Books of Mormon in the night stands, so when we got to our room, we opened up the nightstand drawer, and low and behold, there was a bible from the Gideons (like every hotel in America has), and a Book of Mormon!! It's true after all! We had a great view that night from the 24th floor, and it was just as nice the next morning.

The building with the cranes is the Trump Tower, which is cool because we had just watched how it was made on "Build it Bigger" a month or so ago. We wanted to stay there, but it was either two nights at the Springhill, or one night at the Trump and one on the streets.

The Trump tower has 4 levels, and you can see that the top level doesn't have all of the glass put on yet. The next day, Saturday, we walked to the shuttle stop to go to the KBIS, but it was taking forever to come, so we just got a cab again and went to the McCormick center, which is the worlds largest indoor tradeshow building. There were 3 huge buildings to wander, but it took us all day Friday to only get through 1/2 or maybe 2/3 of one building. Hyrum was looking to pick up a ready-made vanity line and replace one of his companies that he's not too fond of. It was really neat seeing all of it, since normally I only see it on HGTV. I never did run into Ty Pennington or Eric Stromme though. Too bad, because they could have been on my recent celebrity sightings.

After KBIS was over, we took a cab with another DeWils dealer to have dinner with a small DeWils group. We went to Fogo de Chao, a brazilian restaurant, and ate meat to our hearts content. One of the guys there was vegetarian, so he just stuck with the exotic salad bar. He was 6'11'' by the way, but he'd say he was 5'23". Oh, he was also white, if you were wondering, and not a basketball star by any means. Kiersa once again became unconsolably fussy, so we took off a little early in a cab back to our hotel. The cabby was unaware of the new hotel, so it took long enough to add up to over $6 just to get back, and we saw the next morning that we had only been about 2 or 3 blocks away and could have walked. That's what we get for being tourists I guess. We got about 3 hours of sleep that night and had to race off to the airport Sunday morning in the wee hours (and yes, it was $40 again and we forgot to get the receipt). Our cab was only going about 50 mph, so everyone was just flying by us, but we still got there in time. We flew to Salt Lake, and this is the flight where we sat next to "Dog's" son. We didn't get near enough time in Chicago! We didn't have enough time to do any sight seeing, the weather was rotten, and we didn't get to take any pictures aside from the view out our hotel window.

We had a 10 hour layover in Salt Lake, so Hyrum's mom and step-dad picked us up and we had a family barbeque in Pleasant Grove. It was really fun to see everyone again, though we didn't get to see Susan since she's in Wyoming. We even got to see Grams/Gramps, Aunt Karen and Uncle Larry, and Tana and Levi, the latter being a rare treat! We were hoping that Sheri mom would be able to come down from Idaho Falls to meet her #5 grandbaby (Kiersa), but she wasn't able to, so we'll have to hunt her down another time. 3 of her grandbabies were born within a month and a half of each other (from Jan. 7 to Feb. 14).

After a much-too-short visit, Maren and John took us back to the airport where we got to cross paths with Teresa and her family for a few moments. It's so fun to see how much all the nieces and nephews have grown up!

Here's Hyrum, Starlett (Teresa's youngest), Kiersa, and Teresa (Hyrum's sister). Teresa lived with us for a couple months 2 1/2 years ago, so some of you Oregonians might recognize her. The two little ones are a year and a few days apart in age, so they'll probably be good friends, if they get to see each other enough.

Maren and Teresa (Hy's sisters) taking pictures together.

Here's Arrianna holding Kiersa. Arrianna was 3 when she lived with us, and now she's 6 already! Rachel's on the right (Arrianna's mom), and she's another one of Hyrum's sisters.

Here's Rain! She's Teresa's oldest daughter. Sadly, we hardly took any pictures, so I'm sorry if you feel left out. I'll have to get them from Steve because he took some. I'm kicking myself that I didn't remember the camera until everyone was done holding Kiersa and we were close to leaving.

We arrived back in Medford late Sunday night, and my mom brought the kids to the airport to see us. We were so excited to see Tilly and Hyatt! Hyatt was a little angry with us for leaving him, but he did an amazing job of being a brave boy and staying happy for 3 days without us. Shira and my mom were so wonderful to watch them for so long. Thank you both so much! And thanks to Dad, Dallas, and Weston since they were there too. This is the first time we've left them overnight, aside from when I've been in the hospital having a baby.

I am sooo done flying for a long time. I'm sick of my ears popping and being plugged. My legs got swollen and cramped while flying because I couldn't put them up. I got nauseated throughout the flights and in the elevators. It was like being pregnant again with all the discomfort! It's so nice to be home now and all be together as a whole family again. It's hard for Hyrum and I to be away from our kids. We're pretty tightly knit together.