Home Sweet Root Beer Covered Home

We're back from our trip to Wheaton- lots of friends, food, and sights. I'll address all of that in a moment, but first, what I know you would rather read about- trip drama! The only mishaps of the trip happened at the end and were seen more as comedy than drama.

Our luggage was included in the 1/5 that did not make it onto the plane from Chicago to Dallas. We were told the luggage would be delivered to our house by a DFW airport employee within 12 hours. 20 hours later I called the info line to find out that the luggage had been flown into Longview and would be delivered to us by that airport- Monday afternoon. Late Monday night I called the info line again to find out that it was sent out Fed-Ex and that it should be delivered today before noon. It's really no big deal; however, all of my casual maternity clothing is in the suitcase! I'm having to dress up for my new job as a stay-at-home-mamma-to-be :).

The more interesting drama happened when we came home on Sunday to discover the Great Root Beer Explosion of 2008. If you hang out with us enough, you may recall hearing about the Great Soy Sauce Spill of 2006, I think we've concluded that this was worse (the only arguing point is that the soy sauce spill ruined fresh baked cookies). A friend recently home-brewed 8 liters of root beer for us (4 2-liter containers). The advice to keep it chilled was not headed as we thought it referred to taste not chemical reactions and 3 of the 4 bottles were left sitting on our bench seat during the duration of our trip. Upon entering the kitchen, I first saw the enormous puddle of semi-dried root beer on the floor. It took me several more minutes to discover that root beer was on the ceiling, 3 of 4 walls, curtains, pictures, bench seat, table, fruit bowl, floor, trashcan, and cabinets. If you're familiar with our kitchen, it basically stopped short of the refrigerator. Once I located several pieces of the bottles it was determined that two of the three had exploded rather violently. Thomas decided the remaining bottle was hazardous, carefully carried it outside, and shot it with his bb gun. The resulting noise sounding like a tire backfiring- drawing neighbors outside of their home at 10pm to inspect what had exploded. Apparently the mushroom cloud of root beer foam was almost as tall as our house.
After two hours of work the next morning the first phase of cleanup was done- but everything is still a little sticky :).

So onto the actual trip- we got to stay with Tommy and Melissa in St Louis: ate breakfast at an awesome greasy spoon and talked to locals who were there when the arch was built, went up in the arch, took a small hike to an excellent view and had a much needed pedicure (both me and Thomas :) ). Next we stopped in on Timus, Nikki, and oh so cute Micah in his little glasses and enjoyed home cooked food (so good on a trip like this) including the BEST homemade ginger snap cookies. The rest of the trip we stayed in a very comfortable B & B close to Wheaton. The first day we took a tour of Wheaton, went to Chapel, and ate at Saga before venturing to the City. In Chicago we went to The Art Institute, ate Giordano's pizza (totally lived up to the hype), and had smores in the Hancock tower at night. The next day was spent at Wheaton- visiting professors and catching up with Thomas' old friends. Sunday, we attended a lecture by a Wheaton Poli-Sci prof on Religion & Politics given at Chris S' church before heading off to the airport, dropping off the minivan (the unmentioned drama of the trip-hehe) and heading back home.

Now that I'm home- it's nose to the grindstone! 9 weeks and counting. I spent most of yesterday addressing the root beer issue and completing an album for my sister. Today I am attempting to sign-up for my Pedagogy test (which is proving more difficult than it should be) and running errands. Depending on how testing sign up goes, I may or may not be spending the next week with my nose in a book studying- I think I'm hoping it doesn't work out well and the test is delayed until November :). Studying 1-2 hours a day instead of 4? I can do that without procrastinating..... (it's nice when writing a blog, you can't hear all of the snickering!)