Friends and Family Tour: Day 2 - Jamie & Chris Ewing, Chrystal Lake, IL

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Day 2 - Jamie & Chris Ewing, Chrystal Lake, IL

After our visit with Nathan and Amie, we headed off to our next stop: Jamie and Chris Ewing and their two boys, Owen and Elliott. Jamie was a close high school friend of our son Chris and was frequently at our house. What a delightful family and home he has now. Jamie and Chris met when they were working at Sam Goodys in Iowa City. They've been married nearly 10 years now.

So often kids are shy with strangers, but Owen and Elliott were our new best friends right away. Even their dog Dexter tried to get into the act. Owen gave us a tour of the house - or at least the parts of it that were important to him: his room, his library books, his trains in the basement family room. And through all of this, brother Elliott followed close behind. Owen did show us the room we would be sleeping in also.

Jamie and Chris commute to Chicago everyday, so we waited at the house until their trains arrived, updating our blog and downloading some pictures. Just sitting in their driveway while waiting for them, it was nice to see that this is a very family oriented neighborhood they live in. We had a nice visit over dinner (lasagna, salad, bread and wine), catching up on their life and reminiscing over old times and discussing plans to meet again.

2 comments:

UnknownMarch 10, 2009 at 7:57 PM
Hey, with each of your updates on the visits, say who you spent the overnights with....or if you just had a short visit and moved onto the next stop....Rita
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Joe EllisMarch 12, 2009 at 7:45 AM
Good idea, we'll do that from now on.
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Observations

** Don’t be afraid to try local, unusual cuisine. For example: gator, buffalo shrimp, boiled peanuts, frog legs, a concrete (you figure that one out! LOL!). There is a reason it is popular there!

** There is nothing better than a home cooked meal!

** You can spend 5 weeks in the car with your spouse and still get along.

** Sometimes you should let it be all about the people and not the sights .

** There are a lot of lakes in Florida! A lot more than we thought. Also: there are no identifiable accents in Florida, everyone comes from some place else (mostly the northeast). AND Sandy finally got to see an 'gator in the wild, but it was a John Deere.......

**Don't forget to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. Jim & Joanie

** When you take trips down Memory Lane, you have to remember that you can't really go home. But it does bring back warm memories of the past.

** You don't want to be on the phone when your GPS is telling you where to go. You tend to focus on the phone and all of a sudden you're hearing "recalculating", which generally means you missed a turn.

** Did you know if you have an "I-Pass" (Illinois electronic toll paying), it is accepted in other states?? It has saved us quite a bit of time by not having to stop in a long line of cars waiting to pay their toll. So far we have used in in Indiana and Pennsylvania and we have been told that other states accept it also! Ok - Florida does NOT take the I-Pass!

** We've noticed a great many winerys on this trip. And although we haven't stopped at any, we're thinking that could be fun on future trips: Picking up a bottle of wine from every state we travel in. Of course, the most fun will be sharing that bottle of wine with all of you when we get home!

** This trip is WONDERFUL! It means so much to us to visit all of these people. If you ever get the chance to do this, you must. You won't regret it. This trip is not about sightseeing and tourist attractions. This trip is about people, and that doesn't get old.

Friends and Family Tour

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Day 2 - Jamie & Chris Ewing, Chrystal Lake, IL

2 comments:

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