Camping was great. We broke up the trip by stopping in Milwaukee to visit our friends on the way up and back so that was a bonus that made life a lot easier...until we got home and had to unpack.
Ug.
Unpacking sucks. Laundry sucks. Running out of quarters to do more laundry in the basement sucks. And cleaning really sucks.
Lucky for me (I've been pretty lucky lately I must say), the trip was planned so that we come home on a Saturday and have Sunday to recover. Too bad Sunday alone isn't enough. But it was a good thing that I didn't have to go back to work until Wednesday because one of my best girlfriends, Cadence, came to visit Monday and Tuesday from Minneapolis. And what a visit it was!
Well, I should say "What a visit it was... after I finally picked her up at the State and Lake
el stop after having driven all the way to
O'HARE airport in post rush hour traffic to find out while I'm waiting outside Northwest Airlines arrival area at lower level 2C that she flew in to MIDWAY airport on the south side." Damn it. She flies OUT of
O'hare but IN to Midway. Who needs two airports in one town anyway? Who thought that was a good idea? (That wasn't really lucky as far as my streak goes but it worked out okay in the end anyway.)
For those of you who don't know Cadence, she's a trip. She's my fashion guru and my "we've been through a lot together" friend. She's actually now considered family and comes for holidays. Oh, and she is the reason I don't wear "mom jeans" so you can thank her directly for that.
We met sophomore year of college. She was a resident on my dorm floor. I was the "resident assistant". I mentioned her name in passing to my parents and my Dad says, "Is that Bill and Linda's kid?" "What?". Yep. Here's where the creepy music to "It's a Small World" kicks in. Turns out my Dad was a
Principal at a school in a small town in Iowa back in the day, (living in Illinois for the past 13 years or so at this time) and he hired a band teacher named Bill, and later on another teacher named Linda. Result=Cadence... My maid-of-honor and close friend for the past ten years. Weird, I know.
When I first met Cadence, she was all "I'm not creative. You want us to have craft night?". Now she's a professional wedding and family photographer who studied under one of Minneapolis's premier wedding photographers. Is this a sweet deal for me or what? (It's almost too bad that I'm already married--just for the wedding photos part of it. Almost. But not really even close. And I really do like my wedding photos...)
So we have this deal now. Cadence comes to visit, I set her up with a bunch of friends who have kids, she takes their photos to build her portfolio, and I get a free photo session of me, Rick and Ada. What a deal!
So do you want to see the photos she took?
Of course you do because they are awesome!
http://groundfloorphoto.blogspot.com/2009/09/amandarickada.htmlHere is a link to her website, which is a blog featuring some of her work. LOVE IT! SO PROUD OF HER!
If you play on her
blog you might also recognize Dan, Jen and Hudson or Aaron and Cassie since they both did photo shoots while she was in town too.
And if you are interested in having a little family session of your own next time she's in town, or if you are in Minneapolis, or if you need a wedding photographer --she does travel and is booking up for next year fast already, let me know. I'll have her people contact your people.
Moral of the story: Life is always better when you have super duper girlfriends.
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Ada will eventually learn to put her sunglasses on right-side up...
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She got some tips from Great Uncle Steve...
But I'm still working with her on how to hold it so that she looks like a professional.
We'll get there. It might take awhile but we'll get there.
I take full blame for only having these few lame pictures since I didn't pull out my camera until late in the day and by then they were too distracted to care. 
