The Windy City

It is the end of night #1 and after a busy few days I think we are all beat... although no one is sleeping yet. It's 8:20pm in Chicago and my alarm is set for 2:00am so I can put my face on and be ready to look good for the 20 hour trek to Beijing. (p.s. I'm now done writing the post but I wanted to mention the wind is strong in Chicago. That's pretty meta right? Windy in the Windy City. Ok now I'm done)

We dropped the ladies off after work and school this afternoon and had a slightly tearful goodbye. I don't know that it was quite Rocky and Adrian tear filled, but it was a healthy see you later with an eight and four year old. Kayleigh and Madeleine have never been without one of us for more than a weekend so a 17 day trip is going to be an experience for all of us. We are thankful for good caregivers for them while we are gone. 

For those of you who don't have kids, or who have teenagers who don't speak. Let me reintroduce you to the joy of a 6-year old boy coming into all the facets of being a boy. Who knew eating and drinking was a full body exercise? Along the way to Chicago we were blessed with a constant chatter of questions, solutions to math problems, and things he'd do in certain situations. It was a good reminder of who our little buddy is and Kristi and I shared many quiet chuckles on the drive.

Well really that's about it for now. I had high hopes for my first post but the most important thing is I blogged and Kristi doesn't so the score is 1-0 which is awesome for me. It's going to be rough when the final tally is who hit the highest total word count. Ugh.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully there will be more tales of adventure in the morning. Let's make that adventures in people watching as opposed to real travel adventures. I'm not ready for those until we land in Beijing. OH and before I forget... if anyone reading this decides they need to scope out my house for my killer 80's style boom box... I left my killer kitty at home and he's watching you.