The Great Summer Roadtrip 08

This past week, Eric, Josie and I hit the road to visit a lot of friends and family that live south of us. It was a lot of fun to see everyone, and Josie is a happy travel companion.

We left our house early Wednesday morning and made a pit-stop at my Dad's to eat and drop off our dog, Milo. I just realized that Milo never gets any recognition in this blog. Here's a little picture of Milo, so if he ever comes up again, you can picture this adorable pooch:

After dropping him off for an all inclusive stay (for free-- thanks, Dad!) in suburban Chicago, we continued our journey south to the Springfield, Illinois area to visit Eric's parents. Unfortunately, we were unable to see Jack, Eric's dad, because he has a new job in Chicago! Congratulations, Jack! We missed ya!

We spent two nights in Springfield and Josie had an excellent time visiting with her Grandma Bailey. We are so excited for them to move closer to us-- if you're looking for a house in the Springfield area, we know a good one for sale....

Natalie (Eric's sister), Eric, and I continued southward and stopped in St. Louis to visit our friends, Brad and Jessica. Jessica is 7 months pregnant with a baby boy and I have enjoyed watching her belly grow from afar! This is another couple we wish lived closer to us-- Jessica has been a very good friend to me for a long time. I am so excited to see her again in October after she has her little baby.
It was great to see them, as always. After our little lunch in St. Louis we were off like a herd of turtles to Liberty, Missouri, to visit Garrett, Kerri and their three kids: Kate, Charlie, and Will. We were really excited to see them and we couldn't wait to meet little Will!

Here's a picture of Josie with all her Marshall cousins (which happen to be her only cousins!)

Will is wearing an all-white outfit because the weekend we were there was also his baptism weekend. Eric and I are proud Godparents to little Will! He did so well during his baptism, and didn't cry until it was time for pictures afterwards (so much like his cousin Josie already!)


Although Josie is a good traveler, I will admit that she doesn't sleep very well while we're away from the comforts of home. So often we would try to put her to bed in Will's crib and we'd walk in to check on her (so sure that she was asleep) only to find this scene:
She is so cute, I can't get mad at that little face! Anyway, our time in Liberty was great and we enjoyed seeing everyone and, once again, wished everyone lived closer.

Instead of driving straight through to Milwaukee, we stopped at Eric's parent's house for the night. Lucky for us, Eric's younger brother, Keith, was also spending the night-- so Josie and Keith finally got to meet each other!

On our way back up to pick up Milo, Eric and I met up with our college friend, Marcus, and his wife Karen for lunch. Marcus and Karen live in Eric and my old hometown of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. We really enjoyed eating lunch with them and catching up on the past year. Since we were in our old college town, we decided to take a walk around the quad and show Josie where her mom and dad met! She is obviously too young to appreciate this, but we still had a nice time being back at ISU.


I wish Josie and I looked a little peppier, but let's face it-- this was the last leg of a fairly long trip and we were beyond tired! (Though, not tired enough to go shopping at ISU's bookstore to get some ISU apparel-- Josie needed a Redbird hoodie!)

We spent the night at my Mom's and snuck in one last visit with Kaitlin before she returns to NIU. We were happy to spend some time with Allison, too. We had a ball watching the Olympics and eating Giordono's pizza, and DQ Blizzards for dessert!

In milestone news-- Josie is a capable crawler, is sitting perfectly, and pulls herself up and cruises around on furniture. Gone are the days where she would lie still on her Gymini mat-- she now explores the entire house at record speed.

But, she still takes a few moments to take in the scenery: