Mothers and Child(ren) Reunion

Every couple of years, my former college roommate, Tracey, makes the trek from whatever exotic locale she currently calls home (it's been Koh Tao, Thailand for the past few years) back to Michigan to visit her family. During her stay, the former residents of apartment J1 descend upon the Wolverine state to reminisce about our days at Northwestern and drink a fair amount of wine.

It's become a little more complicated the past few years as we've had to accommodate both work and nap schedules, but last weekend Audra, Cecily, Tracey and I along with the majority of our progeny reunited to take in the sights and sounds of the greater Brighton area. Turning adjoining suites into our own version of romper room, we actually managed to entertain (or at least occupy) six kids between the ages of 5 months and 8 years and still enjoy ourselves. (It helped that Kailash and Satya have mad baby whispering skills, Colin didn't come until after soccer practice on Saturday, and Cecily and I opted to leave Dylan and Owen home with their respective dads.)

In less than 48 hours we hit a petting zoo, took a hayride, and went swimming twice. But the highlight of the visit had to be leaving the kids with Tracey's mom and aunts in order to have dinner and drinks with just the four of us. And a horse.

It was over far too soon, though not as quickly as initially intended. Nora and I caught a ride to the airport from Audra and Keegan on Sunday morning and Audra and I chatted right past our exit resulting in an extra long nap for Nora, and a mad dash to the gate for me (we made it with 5 minutes to spare). The extra rest was beneficial though as Nora, who was very vocal in her disdain for air travel on her inaugural flight on Friday (my apologies to the passengers and crew of Delta flight #DL1745), happily chatted up our seatmate for the flight back to an awaiting Allen and Owen.