A Quick Chicago Trip

The highlight of my visit was definitely watching Nate run the best race of his season to help his team take nationals, but I got some good quality cousin time out of it as well. (There will be a whole posting dedicated to that race... so stay tuned.)

I flew in on Friday morning, so that I had enough time to stop at the DMV... That's right... I am now, officially known as Heather Patel!! Woo-hoo!! Then it was off to Lemont to get in some much needed family time! I got in some great aunt-niece time over salads and shopping, then had to bake some desserts for Saturday. And that was all before the kids got home from school!!

So what did we do once Krissy got home from school?? We met Coco!

Yep, Coco's her horse!! Who she's owned for a while now, but I haven't formally met yet since we live in Boston. :-(  But I was super excited to meet her. She's gorgeous... and huge!!! It is still so crazy to me that Kristyn is so comfortable around an animal that huge. Who wasn't?? Me and Melanie!! We were both a little worried that she'd kick us (Coco, not Kristyn - Krissy only kicks the boys).

Mel trying to get the nerve to pet Coco.

So Friday night we headed out east... We arrived in Cleveland at about 1:30 AM and then followed that up with a good 2-3 hours of girl talk. I really miss the family girl talk!!! So we got to bed around 4, which wouldn't have been too bad, but then Nate decided to text me at 7. If you do the math, that's about 3 hours of sleep. So since I couldn't go back to sleep after he texted me, I had to let him in the room. What'd he do once he got in? Jumped on top of the soundly sleeping cousins. (They were NOT happy!)

We didn't get to talk to Nate too much on Saturday, since he was focused on the race (more about that later). After the race we celebrated! I think he was really glad to have his favorite women at the race with him.  

The girls and their All American!!

What else was I able to fit into my crazy Chicago weekend? I was able to watch Mike play volleyball. His serves in one game helped bring his team back to win... He got at least 3 points in a row! I was really excited! I got my pizza, Chicago style, which was all I really wanted. Visited with most of my family, which was really impressive. All in all it was a really fun visit, but it was too quick and Amit wasn't there. I guess we'll just have to make up for that in January!