we went to chicago this past weekend!  it’s a good thing we tsais love to travel as it seems like we’ve been away more than we’ve been home this summer.  one of phil’s cousins got married last saturday so we stayed with another cousin of his who lives in the area (little known phil phact- his mom has SEVEN sisters so he’s got a TON of cousins).  the best part was that mikey got to meet many of his relatives for the first time, including his great-grandma!

our road trip included driving across wisconsin to get to illinois (a 7-hour drive).  and what’s the use of being in wisconsin unless you stop and get some cheese?    big roadsigns advertising CHEESE kept appearing across the whole state.

here’s mikey’s first wedding table card!

mikey kickin’ it with his cousins

the wedding ran kinda long so our boy was wiped out by the time we got home.  he fell asleep during the drive home and continued sleeping through being removed from his carseat, carried downstairs, diaper changed, and getting pjs put on.  he’s NEVER done this before whole his life- he usually pops wide awake once we get him out of the car.  it was the cutest thing though, he smiled after daddy gave him a kiss, still keeping his eyes closed!

mikey’s pretty good at entertaining himself.  here he is pretending a vacuum attachment is a car.  (btw, our hosts bought a dyson vacuum that day and we got to see it in action.  SOOOOO cool!  it totally picked up all this stuff from what looked like clean carpet.  quiet, too!)

mikey with daddy and great-grandma liao

group shot just before we left.  the two people on the left are mikey’s great-aunt and uncle

the wisconsin dells is about the halfway mark between chicago and minneapolis, so we stopped there to give ourselves a break and to eat dinner.  we randomly saw this funky museum of sorts.  the whole thing was upside down!  totally hokey but we got suckered in and shelled out $25 to see inside.  it was a replica of the white house but everything was upside down.  it was a cross between a mystery house and a haunted house but ended up not really being worth it.  ah, live and learn. 

we did hit a winner for dinner though.  went to wally’s house of embers and enjoyed some yummy shrimp crostini and prime rib.  mikey especially enjoyed the homemade cinnamon rolls, he ate two of them all by himself!

so now we’re back home and back to normal.  why it takes me two days to recover?!  but our travels have come to an end for now as we don’t have any more trips in the forseeable future.  whew!