After flying back from Denver several
weeks ago, Cary Anne's parents decided to hang out in Chicago for a
few days. The day after landing, they were able to come to church
with us, followed by a trip to the community garden. Cary Anne and
Lisa have been diligently caring for their plot this summer, and on
the Sunday afternoon we went, CA was able to pick a couple of ripe
zucchini, then later fry them up for dinner. The next day the
Cottinghams even joined several of us from church for the midnight
premiere of The Amazing Spiderman.
On Independence Day, we all decided to
venture down to Millennium Park. The weather was lingering around 99
degrees, so hundreds of other people in Chicago decided to head to
the public fountains as well. Dozens of kids were on their backs
making what would be snow angels in the shallow water. We took our
shoes off, but resisted the urge to lay down in the water...probably because there was a kid in nothing but a diaper squatting nearby. After
that, we made the short walk to “The Bean” and Navy Pier. By that
the point, the heat and the constant nudge of tourists had grown
pretty tiring, so we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the
pool at the Cottingham's hotel. That night, we drove back to Evanston
for the annual fireworks show.
Overall, CA's parents got a great
glimpse into our lives here in Chicago. They got to see the places we
visit most often (including the restaurant where I work), and they
even got to take in a few sites.
About 10 days after CA's parents headed
back to Virginia, we made a bit of a road trip. Our friends Zach and
Morgan were tying the knot in Indiana, and they basically invited the
whole church, so a bunch of us decided to caravan down together.
Sadly, the destination was roughly 4.5 hours away, which (for most of
us) meant 9 hours of commuting...in a single day. Jon and Sarah Hane,
another young married couple in our church, joined us in our car for
the drive.
The trip to the wedding actually went
quite smoothly. Spirits were high as we talked and laughed and
flipped off the other cars from our church when they drove by. The
wedding was at a park, and we pulled in moments before the ceremony was
set to begin. At the entrance to the park was a small pond, and the
park visitors in front of us had decided to pull over and feed the
ducks by throwing bread crumbs DIRECTLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. So
there we sat, worried we were going to miss the start of the wedding,
starring at a group of ducks eating and a group of people who saw
nothing wrong with what they were doing. Eventually, I just
off-roaded it, and drove through the grass around the ducks. Unlike
Cary Anne and I, Jon and Sarah had not worn their wedding attire in
the car for the drive down. So we had to pull off into the woods so
they could duck behind a stone shelter to put on their dress clothes.
Also, I wandered off into the woods to pee...about 100 yards from the
wedding site.
Luckily, everything turned out fine,
and we arrived at the ceremony without missing anything. The ceremony
itself was beautiful, all delicate and rustic (like a Taylor Swift
music video). Our pastors, Rich and Dori, did a great job presiding
over the ceremony and Zach and Morgan looked great. Much to
everyone's relief, it was not a long service because the temperature
was in the 90s and we were all sweating and fidgeting with our ties.
After the ceremony, we all headed to
the reception. There's not much in the way of scenery in rural
Indiana. I remember Zach once referring to it as mostly “asphalt
and corn shit,” but there was one road side attraction our car just
couldn't pass up- a very large, very random sneaker. It sat outside
what appeared to be a basketball-themed hotel, and we made sure to
pull over for a mini-photo shoot.
Once at the reception, the night really
picked up because it brought together two of my favorite things-
dancing and cheesecake. Cary Anne and I love to go to weddings and
dance (or at least what we call dancing) to our heart's content. In
recent history, this has mainly been with our friends from college,
so this was our first time getting to see our Chicago friends cut
loose, and they did not disappoint. There was much jumping and
hand-waving and ridiculousness. Also, there was a cheesecake bar. At one point, I was dancing and eating cheesecake at the same time.
The drive home was much less spirited
then the drive down. Cary Anne and I tried to sleep in the back seat
while Sarah drove. As you can imagine, we were not a pretty sight the next morning at church.
