Back to Chicago

well, as some of you may have heard, the road to Europe was longer than expected, and unfortunately for me, it's over a little sooner than expected. let me explain.

monday night, katy, lindsay and i all got to dulles airport to find out our flight to toronto was delayed because of weather in dc and we were going to miss our connection in toronto to madrid. we rebooked for the following night, requested katy and lindsay's checked bags be taken off, and went down to baggage claim. we spent about 8 hours trying to track down their bags, only to hear that the bags were for sure in dc and would go with us the next day. thankfully, we had katie, chris, and kayla at the airport to take care of us that night :)

tuesday, we went back to dulles, flew to toronto without any problems, got on a plane for madrid, flew for about 2 hours, when the pilot came on to tell us there was a problem with the air conditioning unit. they were unable to pressurize the cabin correctly, thus unable to fly at the correct altitude, and had to return to toronto.

we landed again in toronto around 1:30 in the morning, were told our flight had been rescheduled for 8:00 the next morning (wednesday). we decided to spend the night in the airport rather than trekking to a hotel, because we only had a few hours anyway.

around 3:30 that morning, i began getting sick with the stomach flu. when it became clear i couldn't get on the plane at 8:00, we rebooked for that night, found our way to hotel (an ordeal in and of itself), where we spend the afternoon. unfortunately, i didn't get any better, but fortunately, a friend of our family had family in toronto, who agreed to pick me up and let me spend the night. katy and lindsay decided they were going to continue on the spain that night and i would join them if i was feeling better the next day.

long story short, my fever came back today and i decided not to go to europe and to come home instead. because there weren't any flights out of toronto, mrs. askrin (the family i had stayed the night with) drove me an hour to buffalo, new york. because of delays at the canadian border i missed that flight by about 3 minutes (i actually heard my name on the PA system as they called final boarding and i ran through security). my parents rebooked me on a later (albelit more expesive) united flight, which arrived at ohare safely and without any problems a little over an hour ago.

anyways, i figured i post this rather than call you all and explain the saga :) i'm still recovering from being sick, but doing better than i was at 3:30 in the morning in an airport bathroom in toronto so that's a good thing. alex still has all of my stuff, including my cell phone, so if you want to call me before i call you, try me at home, 630-933-9484. love you all a lot, and i hope you're having great weeks!

Church...CANCELLED!

last night the chicagoland area experienced some serious thunderstorms with hail and high winds and everything. then this morning, my mom gets a text message from her friend saying church is canceled because they had lost power! so yeah, no church in wheaton today because of power outages...i think there might be a riot haha.

spider attack

today my mom tried to kill a spider on the high ceiling in our family room with an extendable duster thing wrapped in packing tape...unfortunately, the top part with the tape came off and has been stuck to our ceiling all afternoon. on a positive note, the spider was destroyed :)

RINGTONES!

so while alex was here, he alerted me to the coolest website ever...www.mobile17.com. you create an account, select your brand and type of phone, and then you can make free, high-quality ringtones out of any mp3 file on your computer! you upload the file, select which part of the song you want, and it gets sent to your phone as a picture message in the next day or so...thus far, i have compiled 5 new ringtones, and they're all awesome (the bunk rings with "overboard", by ingrid michaelson). check it out.

one week and counting...

so zells and i are officially t-minus one week from eurotrip 08! we have hostels booked, eurail passes purchased, and packing lists begun. i've decided i think i'm really going to enjoy backpacking, particularly because once you have all of the stuff to do it, it seems like an easy way to travel. i broke down and actually bought a serious hiking pack (65 liters), although i'm still doing a little more shopping around tonight. i'm going to practice packing it this week and i'll post a picture of how ridiculous i look with a pack the size of my upper half on my back...it's pretty amusing.

if anyone has any last minute tips/ words of wisdom/ things to see, let me know cause we're going to need all of the advice we can get!

catching up/ CHA CHA

first of all, i am so impressed at everyone's dedication to blogging! secondly, alex left tuesday so i thought i'd catch you all up on his visit. we had a really great week, and it was so good to see him and have him around get the chance to hang out and relax together. we spent a lot of time with hudson, taking him swimming and walking a lot. we also saw a lot of my grandparents, which was great. one day we even rode bikes to their apartment, which turned out to be entertaining as alex tried to tackle my dad's old school road bike, having not ridden a non-stationary bike in...a long time. suffice it to say, we made it safely and we only almost died once :)

we also went to see my dad's parents, which went better than i had expected. my grandmother was surprisingly pleasant, and my grandfather smiled a lot, and seemed to understand that alex was my boyfriend. i was really glad he got a chance to meet them, and he was, of course, great with them.

lastly, one night we double-dated with stephanie and her new boyfriend trent (who's awesome btw), and she introduced us to CHA-CHA and my life has not been the same. CHA-CHA is a phone number you can call as ask any question (seriously, anything). CHA-CHA will send you two text messages, one confirming your question and one with the answer! yesterday, i called and asked for a store's return policy. alex and i asked about harrison ford's birthday, the elements in baking soda, and several equally random questions. it's like google-on-the-go and its free! the number is: 1-800-224-2242. you must try it. you will love it. that is all.

lost baby

so the other day, alex and i were taking hudson for a walk and we saw this mother walking with her baby in a stroller. from a distance, i would have told you this child was two years old. in fact, i was so convinced, that when we finally reached the kid, i tried to ask him how old he was, to which his mom replied...10 months!!! anyways, it took about 5 or 6 minutes of our walk to recover from the shock of this gigantic baby, and it reminded me of huge Aaron on lost, and i figured i should share :)