We just got back from a nine-day trip to see Mina and James in Chicago, Joanne in Iowa City, and Stephanie and Paul in Columbus, Wisconsin (and in Madison). It was a wonderful trip despite the fact that Beatrice's cousins Rosemary and Louis spent the first part of it recovering from croup. Beatrice had a great time with her cousins (even if her favorite way of enjoying time with Louis is playing his head like a drum). Here she is enjoying her first "sleepover" with Rosemary (they shared a room).
I got a chance to revisit Hyde Park, where I haven't been since graduation nine years (!) ago, and thanks to Mina and James' babysitting Dev and I were even able to spend a night out with our friends Devon, Dan, and Juli.
I showed Beatrice her future college campus.
We took the kids to the amazing Lincoln Park Zoo (how did I manage to live in Chicago for four years without having been there before?) and the Peggy Noebarton Nature Center. 
The night before we left Dan and Mary Spindler joined us for dinner and we had a late birthday party for Katy (James' sister) and an early one for Beatrice - Mina made two cakes. I also met Knut, Katy's husband, for the first time (though it felt like I'd known him forever thanks to Facebook).
But perhaps nicest of all, James, Mina, Dev, and I went out for an elegant meal at Brasserie Jo without a single baby.We also spent two nights in Iowa City with my old friend Joanne where we took in Iowa City's wonderful children's museum and carousel, and another night in Columbus, Wisconsin with the newlyweds Stephanie and Paul enjoying a Friday night "fish fry," a Wisconsin tradition, and a farmer's market the next morning in nearby Madison. (Columbus, population 4,500, was also the smallest town I've ever been in).
Beatrice tried many new foods, including some new favorites at BJ's soul food restaurant in south Chicago (collard greens) and the Parthenon (saganaki, moussaka, and feta cheese among many others). Dev also tried a new food, the famed pie milkshake at the Iowa institution Hamburg Inn. And I also tried a new food - skate wing at Brasserie Jo - and it was incredibly good.
(Joanne, send me the photos from your camera to add!)
See all the photos on Facebook here.
