There is no NOISE in Illinois!

My dad is from Illinois. Not Illinoise. FYI, the s is silent, and I cringe when I hear people pronounce it like there is a /z/ at the end. Thanks Dad for teaching me the really important things in life!

But back to my dad being from Illinois. His brother and much of his family still live there. 50 years ago my Uncle Terry married a wonderful woman named Kathie and I've been fortunate enough to grow up having a fantastic "Uncle Terry and Aunt Kathie" in my life. Every niece should grow up with an Uncle Terry and an Aunt Kathie. When I received an invitation their anniversary party, I immediately started checking airline prices and playing around with our frequent flier miles. Sure enough, we were able to swing it! Leaving just 4 days after our San Diego Brady Christmas weekend, our trip to Illinois started our 12 days of Christmas.

It was really fun helping getting all the last minute stuff (food) together. Terry and Kathie did all the hard stuff and I got to do the fun things. This is me being a dork for the camera. Need I say more?  

My Aunt and Uncle had their party in their basement and we estimated about 50-60 people came throughout the afternoon.

It was amazing to reconnect with family I haven't seen in years and some family I have never even met before! At one point we gathered some of the distant cousins together for a picture. There was a lot of debate about "removed" vs. "3rd or 4th" but I mostly just liked that we were able to say we were actually related!

The party also featured a skit, written by my Uncle and performed by various family members. My dad was the narrator and of course the stars were my aunt and uncle. It was super cheesy and full of win! 

Later in the afternoon my aunt (on a whim) ran upstairs, dug out her wedding dress, and put it on to surprise Uncle Terry. It was SO fun to see her dance around in it and then they cut their party cake with her in her dress and Terry in his jeans. 

In the couple of days after the party, we looked at albums and albums of old pictures...

Made cookies...

And generally had a fantastic time. On our last day in town, Mark and I managed to sneak in a day in the nearby city, St. Louis, MO with my Aunt and Uncle. We went to the St. Louis Arch:

And then spent some time at the St. Louis Zoo where my aunt and uncle worked for (13?) years before retiring a couple of months ago. We had such a wonderful day and it was really amazing to get to spend such great time with them!

I'm having a hard time not posting ALL of our pictures... so please check them out here! There are some really amazing ones (and some boring ones) but overall lots of pictures from the whole trip.

Had to end on a family pic... That's (L-R) Uncle Terry, Aunt Kathie, my brother Rick, me, Mark, Mom, and Dad.