Whew!

So you got a chance to hear about Joe's travels to the organic farm, but we haven't told you much about our trip to Illinois yet. Let me just say that no buckets were used during our IL visit!!

We left on March 15th and immediately flew into a wedding frenzy, with lots of planning meetings, a visit to see my pretty dress, and a bridal shower at my sister's house! It was a lot of fun and busy-ness! The especially fun part about our trip was getting to see lots of family and friends and bringing together folks that usually aren't together. Among other things, we took my nephew, Luke to a hockey game (see the muscle men on the right) and had dinner with 5 of our 7 parents and some other family members (see my cute Grandpa on the left). The photos below are from the shower (left: Jen, Mom, and me; right: Dan and my niece MaKayla).

Joe and I were together in IL for about 4-5 days and then he headed back to Maryland. I stayed on for a few more days to attend a conference in Chicago, along with my cousin's wedding in the suburbs. Both the wedding and conference were great, but I was happy to get home earlier this week. Unfortunately, I'm headed out again soon for a conference in Florida. Despite not being quite ready to leave again, I'm really looking forward to gathering with lots of friends and colleagues!

That's about all for now. There are less than 80 days until our wedding... so you know what we'll be doing in the next few weeks! ;)