Country Mouse visits the Big City

I'm a country mouse who likes the big city...every once in awhile. You won't ever catch me living there, but visiting is nice.

I spent all last week with my normal busy-ness as well as getting ready to take off for Chicago.

You see, my husband's cousin's son (lost yet?) was getting married. My husband is the youngest of all the cousins on this side. They are all about 5-10 years older than him, and their kids are all 10-20 years younger than us, so we're caught in the middle. We can hang with the "older ones" (sorry guys, I don't mean anything by it!) AND we can hang with the "younger ones" (or so we tell ourselves that!)

Anyway, the oldest son of Brent's cousins Troy and Vicki got married, so we went out for the big party.

We stayed with Brad and Sally, Brent's OTHER cousins, (who we stay with every year when we go out for vacation) and had a great time like we always do. The kids LOVE to stay with them because they have so many fun toys we don't have. They have a large game room with a pool table, foosball table, air hockey, darts, and MANY large screen tv's with dish network. We have the 8 channel amish cable here folks. (yeah, we're high class!)

So, it's always a fun time to go out and hang out with them. We went out early, right after school on Thurs. to get an extra day in before the festivities. It's a 5 hour trip, and we have to go through Chicago, which on a Thursday after work looks like this:

Brent graciously drives through this every time, and EVERY TIME by the time we get through it, my nerves are pretty much SHOT! I just CANNOT handle the stress of the weaving in and out of lanes at 65+ mph! It's INSANE people! THIS is why I live on a secluded dirt road surrounded by only 2 lane roads. It's NUTS!

I TRIED to not look out the window the whole time. I tried to read this....

my book club book for the month. No such luck. I just couldn't do it. I was very glad to finally reach our destination and head to bed after a good conversation.

The next day found us waking up crazy early (they are an hour behind us) and eating a late breakfast and heading out to this quaint little apple orchard.

The weather was gorgeous the whole weekend. And the colors out there were very pretty.

After riding around for the afternoon, and then going back to the house and taking a nap (I actually did...that NEVER happens here) we headed down to our uncle's house for supper. We had a good time, and went to sleep late again, only to get up early again the next day....the day of the WEDDING.

I have to admit, I wasn't prepared for the way the younger generation dresses for weddings. We're talkin' prom dress kind of dresses, that were very short, (I guess I'm showin' my age!) with even more fallin' out of the top than I expected. I had to check myself though, the bride and groom are 22 and 23, and that seems so long ago to me, but I guess at that age, I wanted to dress up for my friend's weddings too.

Anyway, since it was fall, that's the colors she used for the wedding...and they were GORGEOUS!

Evan and cousin Travis.


The happy couple, Jesse and Erica.

The reception was a couple hours AFTER the wedding, so we went back to the house and hung out for awhile, and prepared ourselves for the big party. There was Italian food, and dancing until late in the evening.

Evan totally gettin' his groove on! And then dancin' with the bride.

We had a great time, and the kids and us danced till about 11:00. We were tired today as we headed back, and the traffic wasn't so bad going home....but I'm just glad to be back. I missed my bed, and my life. Funny as it is, I'm just glad we visit once or twice a year. That's about all this country girl can take!