Justin and I took a little weekend trip to Wisconsin for his buddy Casey's wedding. The kids stayed here with Granny and Papa, while we flew out to the great land of dairy farms and awesome scenery...or "sce-nary". We met up with his other high school friends, Amber Dungey and Katie Ott Campbell, along with Amber's fiance, Justin and Katie's husband, Jared. It was a quick trip, with lots of time spent at the airport/in the air, but it the best weekend EVER!
Nothing says, "Start of a great weekend" like being at the airport at 4 a.m. Our flight was at 6:20a.m. from Wichita, taking us to Memphis. When we landed we had just enough time to go to the bathroom and board onto our next flight. What we saw of Tennessee was all viewed through our plane window. :) We then flew into Milwaukee, WI. On the way in, Justin informed me about 5 times that we were flying over the Great Lakes. I was about to kill him. When we got into the airport we met up with Amber and Justin, who arrived shortly before us. Then the four of us took our fancy Kia Sportage and drove the almost 2 hour drive to Ripon, WI, where we checked out the dairy farms outside of town, the awesome sce-nary of clowns on the street, and grave stone markers(there's a big market there..I saw 3 different places that had them out front of their business to sell.). No, but seriously, it is a beautiful area to live in. Ripon's population is about 7600 people, gorgeous old homes in the area, and a college campus with some noteable sledding hills. That, along with the 80 degree weather (Casey said that was "hot" for them!), Justin and I could definitely see ourselves living there...at least in the summer! After our tour of town, we had lunch with the groom and all of his guys at Red Apple, a local restaurant. It was a lot of fun to see Casey and his friends from his years of college. And I mean YEARS. Casey went to KSU, college in South Dakota after that, receiving his DOCTORATE in Biology with a major in Fisheries(I'm sure if I left anything out Casey can correct me!). He is now a professor in Nebraska. He and his brother are exceptionally smart. His brother, Grant, has one more year til he has his doctorate...becoming a doctor-"the kind that don't help people", as Grant says. Grant is a math wizard...Justin was trying to get him to help him in the fall with his fundamentals of algebra class. :)
At the reception....Justin with Katie, Casey and Amber(founding member of the "pretty ladies", as Emily calls her).
Our traveling friends!! These are the 2 best couples to travel with!! Jared and Katie Campbell, Justin Griffis and Amber Dungey. Jared is my new BFF(best friends forever). He is THE nicest guy (aside from Justin G.) that I've met in a long time. AND he loves soccer!!! We got to sit and talk about the Confederations Cup games that are going on right now. He even updated me on the soccer games that he was watching at his hotel via text while Justin and I were at the Chicago airport waiting for our flight home. I didn't get to go to Jared and Katie's wedding 2 years ago, since I had just had Aiden, so this was my first time to get to meet him. What a swell guy! :)
The Maize kids together again. Casey and Robyn Schoenebeck(aka Scone) with the traveling friends.
Oh, Katie. Dinner was following the wedding...only we were all starving and were suppose to be one of the last tables to get our food. Katie the rebel decided that since the rest of the tables were taking too long and weren't actually getting up to get their food, she would go ahead and jump up there. This is her rebellious, beaming smile as she triumphantly got her plate and started digging into the food. HA HA!!!
Justin and Amber are one of the 5 weddings that we are attending in the next few months. Their's is in September in Kansas City and you can be sure that I will have lots of pictures of all of us together at it! I'm extremely excited for it!!!
The boys talkin' shop.
Amber and Katie were our entertainment for the night. They danced and sang and had all kinds of great fun, while I sat and laughed along with the boys. Katie about got in a fight with the DJ cause he would not play Britney Spears for her. :) The girls dragged me to the dance floor to join them, leaving Jared with my camera. He tried to sneak a pic, but we posed for one instead.
Ah, my adorable husband. We had a lot of fun laughing with his friends. AND at them.
Our 2 minutes of dancing. Ugh. Hate dancing.
Some of the sce-nary. The deal with the "sce-nary" started with Casey. He sent us an e-mail before our trip saying that we would enjoy the scenery in Wisconsin. When we got there, we were almost immediately in road construction, then seeing flat farmlands and livestock...all things we see here in Kansas. Amber sent Katie a text(Katie and Jared arrived an hour after us) telling her that she would love the "sce-nary"...we were talking about how we couldn't remember how to spell words anymore and she asked Justin G. how to spell scenery so she could write it in her text message. After he told her the correct spelling, she said, "oh, I thought it was s-c-e-n-a-r-y." So, then Justin G. called it "sce-NARY" and the rest is history....
The Birthplace of the Republican Party Museum...Katie is a Democrat, so it was a miracle that she wasn't trying to pee on the sign. :) This was part of our "sight seeing" shortly before we started making our way back to the airport for our departure on Sunday. The museum is in Ripon and was one of the things we spotted on our way through town to meet up with Casey on Saturday.
The gang reading all about the Republican Party. It was kinda funny to watch them all standing there reading it like the smarty pants that they all are. :)
Katie informed us that Jared is running for President in 2018(which was why Katie wasn't peeing on the Republican sign), so Justin was telling Jared how he needed to be hired as the head of the secret service. :) That's my husband. Justin told me all Jared could appoint him to as President would be CIA. He'll take it, Jared! :)
Chicago O'Hare airport...our flight from Milwaukee to Chicago was canceled. So instead of flying we rode the bus to Chicago. One hour and forty minute drive. Pretty nice, though. I got to be outside in Chicago, which would never have happened if we had flown. The check-in lines and security lines are crazy!!!
On our way into the most international airport I've ever been into.
Our bus...
Leaving Chicago. Finally! Our flight switched gates 3 times and changed departure times twice(Katie and Jared ended up having their flight from Minneapolis to KC canceled on Tuesday, so they had to stay overnight and leave on another flight Wednesday a.m.). During our wait, we saw an actor!! Daniel Roebuck was walking with 4 TSA guys through the airport. He was in The Fugitive, US Marshalls and most recently we've seen him on episodes of LOST. If you don't know who he is, Google him. I was in the middle of sending a picture message to Jared, so my camera phone was frozen and I couldn't take a pic of him. I was so bummed.
The view from my window...on our small plane. I sat by myself, while Justin was on the other side of the isle sitting next to another passenger.
The orange ball that "Aunt" Katie got for the kids at the Ripon Walgreens. We stopped in to get some medicine since Justin and I had been having some sinus issues and Katie picked this up. We had to put it in his backpack cause we had NO room for anything in our luggage. We took a pic for Katie. Justin gave the ball to the kids today and it took them a whole 23 seconds before they started fighting over it. Thanks Katie! :)
AND finally...as we were about 30 miles from Wichita, my ears starting to fill with the most immense pressure I have ever experienced in my life!! The sinus junk made it extremely painful and all sounds were very muffled after that. Barely hearing things, I did make out that the flight attendant said to hold on to the railing as you walk out of the plane and down the stairs. Thankfully I did, because the first step down my flip flop slipped and I slid down the majority of the stairs, dragging my left foot behind me. As a result, I managed to mangle my foot up pretty bad. I went to the doctor today and did an x-ray...in the joint of my big toe, I had chipped the bone. All I can do is tape it together to the next toe...and watch it change colors. When I went to the doctor, the inside of my big toe hadn't changed into the dark bruising color that it is in this picture. As you can see, I bruised the pinky toe up and smashed my big toe nail, leaving it purple, as well. Other than that catastrophe, we had a great trip!!! :)
Nothing says, "Start of a great weekend" like being at the airport at 4 a.m. Our flight was at 6:20a.m. from Wichita, taking us to Memphis. When we landed we had just enough time to go to the bathroom and board onto our next flight. What we saw of Tennessee was all viewed through our plane window. :) We then flew into Milwaukee, WI. On the way in, Justin informed me about 5 times that we were flying over the Great Lakes. I was about to kill him. When we got into the airport we met up with Amber and Justin, who arrived shortly before us. Then the four of us took our fancy Kia Sportage and drove the almost 2 hour drive to Ripon, WI, where we checked out the dairy farms outside of town, the awesome sce-nary of clowns on the street, and grave stone markers(there's a big market there..I saw 3 different places that had them out front of their business to sell.). No, but seriously, it is a beautiful area to live in. Ripon's population is about 7600 people, gorgeous old homes in the area, and a college campus with some noteable sledding hills. That, along with the 80 degree weather (Casey said that was "hot" for them!), Justin and I could definitely see ourselves living there...at least in the summer! After our tour of town, we had lunch with the groom and all of his guys at Red Apple, a local restaurant. It was a lot of fun to see Casey and his friends from his years of college. And I mean YEARS. Casey went to KSU, college in South Dakota after that, receiving his DOCTORATE in Biology with a major in Fisheries(I'm sure if I left anything out Casey can correct me!). He is now a professor in Nebraska. He and his brother are exceptionally smart. His brother, Grant, has one more year til he has his doctorate...becoming a doctor-"the kind that don't help people", as Grant says. Grant is a math wizard...Justin was trying to get him to help him in the fall with his fundamentals of algebra class. :)
At the reception....Justin with Katie, Casey and Amber(founding member of the "pretty ladies", as Emily calls her).
Our traveling friends!! These are the 2 best couples to travel with!! Jared and Katie Campbell, Justin Griffis and Amber Dungey. Jared is my new BFF(best friends forever). He is THE nicest guy (aside from Justin G.) that I've met in a long time. AND he loves soccer!!! We got to sit and talk about the Confederations Cup games that are going on right now. He even updated me on the soccer games that he was watching at his hotel via text while Justin and I were at the Chicago airport waiting for our flight home. I didn't get to go to Jared and Katie's wedding 2 years ago, since I had just had Aiden, so this was my first time to get to meet him. What a swell guy! :)
The Maize kids together again. Casey and Robyn Schoenebeck(aka Scone) with the traveling friends.
Oh, Katie. Dinner was following the wedding...only we were all starving and were suppose to be one of the last tables to get our food. Katie the rebel decided that since the rest of the tables were taking too long and weren't actually getting up to get their food, she would go ahead and jump up there. This is her rebellious, beaming smile as she triumphantly got her plate and started digging into the food. HA HA!!!
Justin and Amber are one of the 5 weddings that we are attending in the next few months. Their's is in September in Kansas City and you can be sure that I will have lots of pictures of all of us together at it! I'm extremely excited for it!!!
The boys talkin' shop.
Amber and Katie were our entertainment for the night. They danced and sang and had all kinds of great fun, while I sat and laughed along with the boys. Katie about got in a fight with the DJ cause he would not play Britney Spears for her. :) The girls dragged me to the dance floor to join them, leaving Jared with my camera. He tried to sneak a pic, but we posed for one instead.
Ah, my adorable husband. We had a lot of fun laughing with his friends. AND at them.
Our 2 minutes of dancing. Ugh. Hate dancing.
Some of the sce-nary. The deal with the "sce-nary" started with Casey. He sent us an e-mail before our trip saying that we would enjoy the scenery in Wisconsin. When we got there, we were almost immediately in road construction, then seeing flat farmlands and livestock...all things we see here in Kansas. Amber sent Katie a text(Katie and Jared arrived an hour after us) telling her that she would love the "sce-nary"...we were talking about how we couldn't remember how to spell words anymore and she asked Justin G. how to spell scenery so she could write it in her text message. After he told her the correct spelling, she said, "oh, I thought it was s-c-e-n-a-r-y." So, then Justin G. called it "sce-NARY" and the rest is history....
The Birthplace of the Republican Party Museum...Katie is a Democrat, so it was a miracle that she wasn't trying to pee on the sign. :) This was part of our "sight seeing" shortly before we started making our way back to the airport for our departure on Sunday. The museum is in Ripon and was one of the things we spotted on our way through town to meet up with Casey on Saturday.
The gang reading all about the Republican Party. It was kinda funny to watch them all standing there reading it like the smarty pants that they all are. :)
Katie informed us that Jared is running for President in 2018(which was why Katie wasn't peeing on the Republican sign), so Justin was telling Jared how he needed to be hired as the head of the secret service. :) That's my husband. Justin told me all Jared could appoint him to as President would be CIA. He'll take it, Jared! :)
Chicago O'Hare airport...our flight from Milwaukee to Chicago was canceled. So instead of flying we rode the bus to Chicago. One hour and forty minute drive. Pretty nice, though. I got to be outside in Chicago, which would never have happened if we had flown. The check-in lines and security lines are crazy!!!
On our way into the most international airport I've ever been into.
Our bus...
Leaving Chicago. Finally! Our flight switched gates 3 times and changed departure times twice(Katie and Jared ended up having their flight from Minneapolis to KC canceled on Tuesday, so they had to stay overnight and leave on another flight Wednesday a.m.). During our wait, we saw an actor!! Daniel Roebuck was walking with 4 TSA guys through the airport. He was in The Fugitive, US Marshalls and most recently we've seen him on episodes of LOST. If you don't know who he is, Google him. I was in the middle of sending a picture message to Jared, so my camera phone was frozen and I couldn't take a pic of him. I was so bummed.
The view from my window...on our small plane. I sat by myself, while Justin was on the other side of the isle sitting next to another passenger.
The orange ball that "Aunt" Katie got for the kids at the Ripon Walgreens. We stopped in to get some medicine since Justin and I had been having some sinus issues and Katie picked this up. We had to put it in his backpack cause we had NO room for anything in our luggage. We took a pic for Katie. Justin gave the ball to the kids today and it took them a whole 23 seconds before they started fighting over it. Thanks Katie! :)
AND finally...as we were about 30 miles from Wichita, my ears starting to fill with the most immense pressure I have ever experienced in my life!! The sinus junk made it extremely painful and all sounds were very muffled after that. Barely hearing things, I did make out that the flight attendant said to hold on to the railing as you walk out of the plane and down the stairs. Thankfully I did, because the first step down my flip flop slipped and I slid down the majority of the stairs, dragging my left foot behind me. As a result, I managed to mangle my foot up pretty bad. I went to the doctor today and did an x-ray...in the joint of my big toe, I had chipped the bone. All I can do is tape it together to the next toe...and watch it change colors. When I went to the doctor, the inside of my big toe hadn't changed into the dark bruising color that it is in this picture. As you can see, I bruised the pinky toe up and smashed my big toe nail, leaving it purple, as well. Other than that catastrophe, we had a great trip!!! :)
