Family Visits

I missed a posting last week as we were trying to see every possible family member in as short of time as possible.  The list, roughly in order: my Mom and sister, Jo's sister Kathy and son, our sister-in-law Pat and her son and future wife, Jo's sister Mary and her two sons and families.  That was everyone one of my sister-in-laws on Jo's side of the family.  All this in the space of a week.  So to backtrack and provide a few details.

The week started (this is two weeks ago now) with a visit from our sister-in-law, Pat, who was in town to work on wedding details with her son and upcoming daughter-in-law.  We hadn't seen Pat in quite a few years so we had everyone over for dinner to catch up on the news from Colorado.  We also got to meet Pat's twin sister and father.  As it was close to Pat's birthday (and by default her sister's as well since that is how it typically works with twins) we had a bit of cake to celebrate.  I'll let the picture do the talking for what year it was.

The next day, Jo had a business trip to Philadelphia for a board she has been asked to serve on.  Fortunately, there was a bit of free time that allowed her to find a few hours to tour the sites downtown with some of  her travel companions.  She enjoyed seeing our old haunts and to be able to help others enjoy the wonderful history that is available in Philly - the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Ben Franklin court.  But her most enjoyable stop was being able to have dinner at Jim's Steak and get an authentic Philly cheese steak (unfortunately, she never really learned to enjoy Cheez Whiz on her cheese steaks the way they should really be eaten).  To help appease me, she did come how with a couple of our favorite soft pretzels since cheese steaks don't really travel well.  The hardest part of the trip though was seeing Dow emblazoned across the old Rohm and Haas corporate headquarters by Independence Hall.  We always have fond feelings for our first company.

Later that week, my Mom and sister came up from Chicago for two days to enjoy the sweltering heat that Milwaukee always makes sure is available when my Mom visits (except of course if her visit is in the winter in which case Milwaukee usually tries for bitter cold and wind).  In keeping with the focus for the week it was also close to my sister's birthday (number 56!!!, I just strongly feel the urge to put that out on the web for some reason - remember she is my OLDER sister).  So we put together a pound cake since she isn't a big fan of frosting (I won't even start on how wrong that is, since the only real purpose for any cake is to act as a frosting carrier) and had a little celebration complete with a rendition of Happy Birthday.  For the rest of the time, since the weather was a bit oppressive we simplified our plans which meant cancelling anything that required you to be outside for more than 10 minutes.  We visited two local art museums/turn of the century mansions.  First up was Villa Terrace which was a gorgeous mansion on the bluff above Lake Michigan with spectacular views.  While the art wasn't a strong focus for the museum they did a great job describing the life and times of the owners who built it and their children.  A very enjoyable museum and worth spending a few hours touring through their gardens, rooms, and artwork.  Next up was the Charles Allis Art Museum which is in the former home of Charles Allis (clever huh).  While this museum got points for having powerful air conditioning (which was certainly nice given the outside weather), the collection wasn't well curated (no good descriptions of the art work, artist, or background), nor did they have a lot of information about Charles and family.  The person providing tickets had the most information.  So my conclusion is I would definitely take other visitors to Villa Terrace, but probably won't be hitting the Charles Allis museum again.  After that, it was time to take my mother and sister to the train so they could head back to Chicago for a week of shopping and sweating in the heat.

 The next day, we packed up the car and after driving to Madison to pick up Kathy and Drew, we drove to Rockford for a "couples" shower for our nephew.  We got to see the same cast of characters from Monday (Pat, Chris and Angela) along with meeting some of the wedding party and Pat's family.  After the shower, we loaded back up to drive to Nebraska for a week long visit with Jo's sister Mary and family - but that will be the next posting.