Annual trips - Milwaukee & Longview

Every year Justin goes to Milwaukee for Northwestern's Annual Meeting. Last year Felicity and I went to Longview while he was there and this year we did the same thing...so it appears we both have our "annual meetings" now. We actually got to Longview on Saturday while my family was still in Savannah with Ryan. [Side note: Ryan is going to SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) in the fall, so they were there for orientation....I'm not even going to attempt to hide my jealously - really cool city, the freedom of college, surrounded by creative, inspiring people and design....ahhhh, but I digress.]

So Felicity and I went down on Saturday and had lunch with my grandparents and then swimming and dinner at Lyndsey's parents house. We grew up together and Lyndsey, who lives in D.C. now was in town, so it worked out perfectly! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during the day on Saturday, but I did manage to capture some of the insanity later that night...or it might have been early Sunday morning. It was so late, I couldn't even tell you. My parents and Ryan's flight didn't get in until late, so I was planning on going to sleep and seeing them on Sunday morning, but right before I was getting into bed, I heard someone downstairs, so I went down to say hi. Well my "hi" turned into an hour long hunt for a lizard.

Does anyone else have these disgusting little dry, albino lizard looking things in their house? Justin and I have found them in our house too. I'm hoping this is not just a Gillam/Cleveland curse. I was about to go to bed when my mom mentioned something about watching out for these lizards and I casually mentioned that I had seen one in her room earlier that night. BIG mistake. She FREAKED out. She really has a phobia of these things. We're talking, screaming, standing on the bed, can't sleep in the house until we find it...not to sound too dramatic, but it involved moving furniture and well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves --

 "Almost had him!!"

 VICTORY!! 

Thank you, Ryan for coming in and FINALLY killing the monster so we could all go to bed!

Minus the lizard incident (which I have to admit was pretty humorous), we had a lot of fun while we were there. Our main project for the time I was there involved a lot of this:

Cleaning out my mom's closet...I was actually prepared for it to be really boring, but we had a lot of laughs and she actually got rid of a lot of stuff. That is very impressive for her!

We spent more time at Grandma and Papa's where Felicity was quite content playing "pharmacy" with their old, empty pill bottles. I don't know why we buy her any toys. She always prefers to play with what I would consider trash.

 

We also attempted to watch "The Little Mermaid" (on VHS, you might notice)...complete with the doll and nightgown, but Felicity really paid little attention. I, on the other hand, fully enjoyed the entire movie.

 And lastly, I went to see Hung and got a major haircut - a pixie! It is all gone!! He probably cut off a good 18 inches. Not sure if this picture gives a good representation of it, but my hair is not much longer than Justin's now. Justin knew I was getting it cut while he was in Milwaukee, but it was fun to show up and surprise him at the airport. Nevertheless, it has been a fun change and I'm enjoying it so far.

As always, we had lots of fun in L-view, but of course, were glad to be back home with Daddy.