Baby don’t you wanna go…

Back to that same old place. Sweet home, Chicago. (And thanks Chris for putting that song in my head)

Tomorrow we are off to Chicago and our family reunion. I don’t consider it “sweet home” even though we did live there when I was little. But my dad and everyone else on his side of the family do. In fact, my dad, brother and I are the only Hills living outside the Chicagoland area. We are the smart ones. Seriously, why live in a place that gets so freaking cold each winter? I don’t get it. Give me 90+ degree weather (while pregnant!!) over anything under 40.

Although last time we were in town there were 100+ degree temps and people were dying [I can’t remember the year and I’m too lazy to look it up. It was the year that McGwire and Sosa were in a home run race and I (the baseball HATER) got talked into attending two games- an Astros (at the dome) and a Cubs game at Wrigley. Houston people have it right. Air conditioning is the way to watch baseball, if you are being forced to watch it.] My father always parks in the same place when we go downtown, not too far from Lake Michigan and the Art Institute and then we walk all over downtown. I mean, ALL OVER! On this particular trip we did our usual tour of the city (Chris had never been to Chicago) then walked to House of Blues. I was so overheated at one point I was ready to lay down with the bums. Go ahead, leave me here. Then I had the brilliant idea of eating a blackened chicken sandwich at HOB. I have no common sense. Caliente!! I thought I was going to stroke out. And we still had the game at Wrigley to attend. That sucked. Thank goodness for margaritas. At least this time we will skip out on the trip downtown and to my Dad’s old childhood neighborhood, or shall I say ‘hood, because I’m always afraid we are going to be victims of a drive-by when we are in that part of down.

I realized while I was ironing tonight that the last time I was in Chicago none of my 10 cousins had any kids. Now, including Daph and my brother’s 2 kids, there will be at least 12 little ones running around. That will be fun.

I’ll be completely unplugged until Sunday night, and even then probably won’t be online much since we are leaving for Houston Monday morning. So, tune in next week for Chicago pics and more of my ramblings from the new Texas ELM blog. (No, I’m not really doing a new blog, just blogging from a new location, and maybe a new Texas attitude. Y’all.)

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