Yes, we turned down a free trip to Hawaii...

This year Honey qualified for the reward trip that his company hosts. In years past we've been to Denver, Ft. Lauderdale, and Cancun. This summer the trip was Hawaii. The trip is always during the first part of June and usually around the middle of March the people in charge want you to commit to going or staying.

About the middle of March 2011, we were 3 weeks in to a new Type 1 diagnosis.

We had no idea what we were doing.

We were making daily calls to the nurse.

We couldn't fathom ever being able to teach someone else how to do it.

We felt like the earth would never find its axis again.

And in March, it was impossible to imagine leaving Brooke for a week and flying to Hawaii. It might as well have been Timbuktu, because Hawaii is FAR from West Texas. It would have taken much money and many hours to get home in an emergency, and I would not consider it. Honey wouldn't either. So we opted to stay home.

Honey knew we made the right decision, but he was still bummed that he'd worked to earn this great reward and ended up with zilch.

By the time September rolled around, we felt so much better about leaving the kids, so we decided to plan our own reward trip. We really didn't turn down a free trip to Hawaii. The company would have assigned a dollar amount to the trip and added it in to Honey's income for the year, so we would have had to pay taxes on the trip. We used the money we would have paid in taxes for Hawaii as our budget for our own trip.

School had just started so Honey's mom came to stay with the kids and keep the school schedule going. Bubba had become a pro at giving shots. Between Bubba and Grandma and our rockin' school nurse, we felt comfortable enough to get away for a few days. The kids were great, the diabetes behaved, and the weekend went off without a hitch.

We chose Chicago because I found some cheap plane tickets. Cheap. We've always thought it would be fun to visit Chicago. And since it's north of where we live, we thought it would be cooler.

It was fun.

It was not cool...or even cooler. In fact, 2 of the 4 days we were gone it was warmer in Chicago than it was in our town and the humidity was around 70%. West Texas girls are not used to humidity. We are used to the heat, but at least it's a dry heat.

I didn't take my camera, so the only pictures I took were with my poor phone camera...but I'm still going to make you look at them :)

In spite of the heat and humidity...

...we rode the huge ferris wheel at Navy Pier.

...we ate some delicious Chicago style pizza.



...we met up with S n L and took a boat tour of the city.

...we WENT TO SEE THE CUBS PLAY AT WRIGLEY FIELD!
Wrigley Field on game day is something Honey has wanted to experience since elementary school. This was the grin on my husband's face the whole entire hot, sweaty game.

...we went to the Sky Deck at the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). They had this clear, plexiglass type box you could stand in and see what it felt like to be suspended 103 floors above Chicago.



There is so much to see just in downtown Chicago...we missed so much. Museums, shopping, parks, the beach...just about the time you figure out the public transportation system, it's time to go home. We want to take the kids back in a couple of years.

Where are some of your favorite places to visit?