A Very Delayed Attempt at Getting Caught Up!

Unfortunately, I let time get away from me and have not been updating the blog.  Its comical to me now to look back and see that the last post I posted was all about how my new MacBook would improve my blogging abilities.  Apparently, it destroyed my ability as its been 6 months since I posted!

On with the more important thing though which is to document our time in Singapore to preserve it not only for our memories but for our daughters.

I can't move forward without going back, so here it is....the blog version of our trip home to Chicago in July.

We were all so excited to come home for July!  I know Dannette and I are similar and we spend months prior to any event we are really excited about and fantasize the whole thing in our heads.  Usually this can be a recipe for disaster as real life is always hard to live up to our fantasies.

In this case, the real event was a mixed bag. I think Dannette would say she had the best month ever being home with her friends.  And I would have to agree that from her perspective it was probably everything she dreamed of and more.  All starting with a giant group of girls waiting at the foot of our driveway to shout and cheer with homemade Welcome signs as we pulled down the street.  I knew in that moment exactly how much she and her friends mean to one another!  It was a spectacle I won't soon forget. And that is where we leave Dannette for this post as that was pretty much the last we saw of her all month :)

Now for the remainder of us, the month proved to be less that optimal.  At the same time though, I don't know that anyone else could have pulled together a month of this many misshaps:

• taking the wrong bag at the airport for one of our bags and not discovering it until we arrived at the rental car place in Libertyville.  John then drove back, jet lagged and all, to retrieve it
• I developed a searing back pain on the flight home (only 2 hours into the 18 hours of flights), only to discover 5 days later that the back pain and fever was pneumonia.  I wound up hospitalized and spent the vast majority of the month recovering
• on the day I was released from the hospital, there was a minor accident with our rental car involving John and a parking lot pole
• later in the month during an early morning trip out for breakfast I made the mistake of letting Halie play with the car keys while buckling her into the car seat.  Not realizing that she might have hit the door lock key, I accidentally shut the door with the keys on the back floor mats (with Halie inside).  Not having a spare key for that rental car, we had to phone the friendly Lake Bluff police who luckily were there in under 5 minutes and had the door popped in less than 2 minutes

All in all, it was great to see as many of our family and friends that we could but completely overwhelming.  John and I both felt the strain of fitting in as much time with family and friends as possible and found ourselves exhausted and not getting a chance to relax. We were sad to leave everyone, but grateful for the respite that Singapore has become for us.