Update July - September

Catchy title, right?  I know... I do what I can. So I haven't actually posted anything but five-minute Friday posts since July (!) so there is a lot of ground to cover!  So a summary will have to suffice.
July: Everyone in the big house was gone for Canadian Jamboree (big Scout to-do out West) and David and I ran the farm.  We dealt with a pneumonia outbreak among the crias and lived to tell about it!  Though the learning curve was steep for both of us.

This was one of our sick crias - he's healthy and rambunctious now!

August: David and I built a changing table for Bean. We also celebrated our first wedding anniversary and David left to return to school in Iowa for the year.

The unpainted finished change table

Celebrating our anniversary at the Lego store

Waving good-bye at the train station as David left to go back to school

September: Mom and I went to an alpaca seminar in Ohio and learned how to assist alpacas in difficult births.  Later in the month we went to a wedding in Iowa and got to visit David and other friends!

Alpaca course - learning to deliver difficult crias

Wedding in Iowa

David-Monkey waking up David-Human 

Sad good-byes (notice the growing belly!)

Visiting Summer

Visiting Chelsea Bell

Paying a surprise visit to Kathy

Visiting with Talia

And that's all for this post.  Hopefully I'll get October's update up soon...No promises though.   Facebook, of course, has more pictures!

Country Girl in the Big City, Part 2

My first task was to find food.  In the City, on a Saturday night, South Side of Chicago.  Mommy told me I couldn't go anywhere.  So I didn't.  I didn't really want to try and navigate the metra in the dark anyhow.  Some delightful Chicago friends came to my rescue and helped me find food that wasn't going to send me to the hospital.  This was one of those days where not having food allergies would have been a huge blessing.  While I was on the phone ordering delivery (first time for that!) I was literally shaking.  When I got off the phone, I cried some more.  Then I called mommy again.  
My food eventually came (without any utensils) so I ate camp style sitting on my bed, wiping my fingers on a hotel towel.  You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. After that, I dealt with a few more e-mails (getting engaged results in lots of e-mails!) and curled up into a very soft, very warm bed and drifted off to sleep.
I woke up rested and refreshed and still had oodles of time before I had to check out, so I headed down to the fitness center (silly me didn't have her swim suit along so no pool time for me...even though it was a beautiful 25 meter pool).  A five mile bike and some upper body work and I was ready for some breakfast and a hot shower.  Which I got.
Once I was fed and clean I checked out of my room, let the doorman hail me a cab and went to Whole Foods.  It was a challenge to keep my jaw off the floor and my senses from being overwhelmed.  So many things to smell, so much to look at, so many noises to hear.  They had food in the store that you could buy and then eat.  Like cooked food...brats and brisket and chicken and potatoes and ice cream and cheese and sushi… and they had ingredients on everything! I actually had choices for my lunch.  Real choices I could have had a salad for lunch, but I chose not to, just because I could.  I had some brats and fingerling potatoes with leek and pickles and chicken with asparagus salad…  I had smoked chicken for supper tonight along with all of the above, except the brats.  I left whole foods and asked someone official to point me in the right direction and then I hailed a cab rest the way to the station, just because I could.
The train trip back to Holland was about as eventful as the train trip from Ottumwa to Chicago. Broken rails, broken crossings, broken whistles...We didn't even get out of the train yard in Chicago before we were sitting still getting something fixed.
Eventually I got super bored and instead of sitting in my seat I started pacing the train...front to back, back to front.  At least I got good exercise.
Once I got bored with walking I sat down again in my seat. We finally (!) pulled into Chicago at 11:15 or so. The train was supposed to get in at 9:20. A dear friend of mine had sent her husband to meet me at the station so I didn't have to walk back in the cold dark snowiness that was (Little) Holland with my bags. When I saw him waiting on the platform I sighed with relief. Here was a familiar face in a familiar place and a sure sign that I would be able to tuck myself into my warm bed soon. I got back to my apartment, waded through the snow of my unshoveled walk, called mommy and crawled into bed. Home is a good place to be. And thus ends my adventures in the big city for now.

Country Girl in the Big City, Part 1

Less than 24 hours after getting engaged to the man that I love I left to take the train back to (Little) Holland.  A friend brought be to another friend who drove me to the Amtrak station in Ottumwa.  I was on time and everything looked great.  I checked in with the Burlington Trailways guy (Amtrak and Burlington Trailways share the space and Amtrak is closed on Saturdays and Sundays).  He said the train was running about 15 minutes late.   For a train that was coming all the way from San Francisco, I figured that 15 minutes late was no big deal.  15 minutes turned into half an hour into an hour and eventually, into nearly 2 hours.   I got on the train and Amtrak personal apologized profusely, explaining that a rail further west had broken that morning causing a bottleneck situation.  They figured we'd be able to make good time as we headed east and get into Chicago in decent time.  However, not far from Ottumwa, we were creeping along at a snails pace.  At one point a freight train was backing up beside us and our conductor told us that we would have to do the same maneuver.  Thankfully, we did not have to go backwards at any point, just sit for a very long time. The trip continued to go very slow, with lots of stops in the middle of nowhere.  I got some work done on my computer and even some sleeping.  There were often announcements about how accommodations were being made to get people to connections on time.   The best they could tell me though was to check in with passenger services when we got to Chicago…

My connection in Chicago was scheduled to leave at 5:20.  Our arrival?  Nearly 6pm.  My connection?  Gone.   Cue minor panic.  Actually the minor panic started at about 5:30 when we still hadn't made it to Naperville.   It just got a little less minor once I got to Chicago.

Passenger services at the Chicago station were mostly great.  They gave me a hotel voucher for  the Hyatt Regency at McCormick place, money for a cab and money for food.  If someone was used to  being in a city of any sort, this would have been fine.  However, I am a country girl.  I had never ridden a taxi by myself before (I was in one once in 8th grade when our van broke and we had to get from the service station to the hotel...it was my dad and 4 of my siblings).  I had never hailed one.  It was dark and cold and I was completely overwhelmed.  My emotions were running ragged.  I stood outside of Union Station and I cried.  I just held my bags and cried.  One taxi driver was waving at me and he didn't seem too friendly.  Horns were honking, there were noises, I couldn't pinpoint any sounds whatsoever (hooray for no directional hearing!) and I cried.  Finally a very nice cab driver pulled up and asked if I needed a cab.  At that point I only nodded.  He asked where and I handed him my hotel voucher.  He loaded my bags and helped me in.   He talked to me as we made our way to the hotel.  There were cab riding "rules" in the back seat but it was too dark to read them.   He got me to the hotel and I nearly had a heart attack.  The hotel I had arrived at was the nicest hotel I had ever seen.  Mommy told me later that it had 4.5 stars out of 5.

I walked into the hotel and felt so out of place I almost wanted to turn around.  But it was warm in there. And warm was a good thing.  I got in, got to my room, called Mom to tell her where I was and proceeded to freak out...over and over and over again. 

Littlest Brother wanted some pictures so here they are:

Crossing the Mighy Miss!  The "H" bridge was always our landmark going to Grandma's house

The view from my window.  All shiney and pretty!

The pretty purple sunrise coming in when I woke up in the morning.

One of the giant comfy beds in my room

Two sinks.  In a hotel room.  Two.

Overall the hotel was amazing.  Way overwhelming though.  I'd rather stay in familiar hotels that is comfortable. :)

Chicago

On our way back from Canada we went through Chicago, partly because we needed to take Sarah Elizabeth back and partly because JB wanted to see Chicago.  So we did some touristy stuff and I took some touristy pictures.  I'd love to go back sometime when I'm not pressed for time and be a real tourist.  Spend more time seeing the things I want to see like the museums and the aquarium.

The classic skyline view

The not so classic skyline view

My favorite was the Lego butterflies.  If I have time I'll make a whole post of what we saw at the Lego store.

Reuben and I made a Lego family portrait.  See if you can guess who is who.  Hint: the broom is a guitar and the walkie-talkie is a phone.  No fair looking on Facebook for the answers!

Walt the Pocket Kangaroo Rides a Train

When Walt the Pocket Kangaroo was done at seminary for the semester and ready to head back up to Canada, he decided to take the Amtrack train.  He was very excited, but also a little nervous about it.  He  had never been on a train before.  First, he caught the train in Holland.  It was a very nice train, called a Superliner.  He got to sit upstairs, in a very comfy seat with lots of foot room and watch out the window.

Walt the Pocket Kangaroo thought the seats were very big and comfy.

Walt the Pocket Kangaroo had a long layover in Chicago.  He was very sleepy because he had been too excited to sleep the night before (His human was also very sleepy).  So they made a cave to nap in.  Just after they fell asleep, the mean policewomen came and woke them up and told them they weren't allowed to sleep in the train station.  That made them a little grumpy.

Their train from Chicago to Port Huron left at 4:10.  They wanted to make sure they didn't miss it, so they set an alarm to remind them to pay attention.  

The second train wasn't as nice as the first, but they had a seat to themselves so they curled up and slept part of the way, because, you are allowed to sleep on the train.  When they got to Port Huron they were very very tired and ready for bed. A very nice uncle and cousin to Walt's human picked them up and brought them a nice warm bed.  They slept very well.

All in all, Walt the Pocket Kangaroo enjoyed his train trip and wants to travel by train again sometime.