The Visit - Part II

Wait! Where is part one?! That was a couple of years ago, according to Jill. I have a sketchy memory at best, so I rely on Jill to be my memory in this case. Back in 2007 was the last time that I was in the great Midwest and visited some NDISB friends. Jill was one of them.

Back then, though, she was in some small town somewhere not too far from the Wisconsin - Illinois state line. Somewhere either north or south of Rockford, as I recall. Now Jill is in some small town in Iowa. I won't be more specific just in case Jill wants to protect her location from stalkers. (And let's face it... who wouldn't want to stalk Jill. I mean, after all, it is Jill we're talking about here.)

I was in St. Louis and needed to drive to Des Moines. I knew that Jill was somewhere in Iowa, but not exactly sure where. So I sent her a Private Message (PM) from the NDISB Forum to ask, and lo and behold, her small Iowa town was right on my route from St. Louis to Des Moines. I had some time on Friday morning, so me and Jill, Carter and Sawyer (Jill's "Jilldren" as a friend referenced them) all met to have coffee at Ping's Cozy Cafe. (Based on the photo, I get the feeling that it may have recently been a real estate office.) And Carter didn't really have coffee, he had some juice. And Jill had hot chocolate. And Sawyer had a pacifier. At least I had coffee.



We had a chance to visit for awhile, and I even got to hold Sawyer, who is all of two months old now. I forgot how little they weigh when they are this small. Sawyer was very well behaved and didn't squawk at all with me holding him. I don't think he ever took his eyes off of mom though.

Carter, on the other hand, is a five year old. Ping has this cute little living room style room set up in her Cozy Cafe that included a small love seat, and a couple of matching nicely upholstered chairs arranged around one of those fake fireplaces, with a fake fire inside. So Carter was sticking his hand inside the fire, trying to find the flames, and moving the fake brick hearth that was not fixed in place on the floor. You know... doing the things that five-year-old boys do. (Now imagine two of them doing that Jill. But going off in different directions at the same time!)

And Jill tried to convince me that she really does have a husband. She claims that last time, JB was off traveling somewhere, and that this time he was at work. I have yet to see any physical manifestation of the man though. Hmmmmm. (well... unless you count the kids...)

And when I talked to Theresa that evening, she said that it's not fair that I get to have met Jill twice now, and she has not done even once now. (I was thinking in British for that last sentence, as I saw SNL last night with Hugh Laurie, and he actually is British although he has a very good American accent and I just wanted to appeal to any Britishers that may be reading my blog.)

And all of this reminds me that I still need to put up photos of my trip to Idaho to visit Bob, only Bob was not there. I think that she heard that I was headed up that way and chose to leave before I got there. (Yes... Bob is a girl.) So that will probably be my next blog post. My visit to non-Bob in Idaho. Last November.