GO ORANGE AND BLUE...and green!

Our Wheaton Homecoming weekend started on Thursday night as the three of us flew up to Chicago. Amity did not sleep on the plane but fell sound asleep in the rental car as we head to Wheaton (the fact that I got us lost for twenty minutes probably added to her deep sleep!). We arrived at the Bonga's beautiful and homey home, tucked Amity in bed in the basement, and hung out with Bruce, Allison, and Julianna for another few hours. When Bruce pulled out our old yearbooks, we knew we had better get to bed or we would never get any sleep!

We had a lazy start to our Friday morning and enjoyed yummy breakfast breads and time with the Bonga kids. Amity loved the basement with all of the toys and the entertainment that "big kids" provide. Future roomies???

Handsome and funny boys!

After lunch at Portillo's, Bruce and Dennis took the kids back for naps and Julianna, Allison, and I went to pick up Katie (aka "The Bride") for some hot chocolate and dessert at Suzette's in downtown Wheaton. It was so much fun to hear about the wedding plans and see pictures of the Brinks' Memphis house (less than 7 hours from Dallas!!) and just continue the sweet friend-time.

We headed back to the Bongas' for a cookout. Julie had arrived from her Chicago school visits and Noah and Katie joined us for dinner. After we were thoroughly stuffed on burgers, jello-salad, and trifle, the boys (Bruce, Dennis, and Noah) headed over to hang out with some other Wheaton "Ranch" guys. The girls stayed at home and kept talking and looking at the 1995 Who's New and laughing and talking some more!

At one point, I went down to check on Amity and found her asleep in the middle of chunks of hotdogs. Sweet, sweet, totally-went-beyond-the-call-of-duty-as-a-hostess Alli cleaned up and sanitized the sheets and bed while I gave Amity a bath. What we hoped was too much running around with a stomach full of hotdogs turned out to be a stomach virus that necessitated lots of middle of the night diaper changes. However, other than developing a not-so-fun diaper rash, the little girl seemed to feel perfectly fine...especially at 3:30 am when she pointed out the bedroom door and said "TOYS!" and then signed and said "Please!"

The next morning, Dennis told me a few (NOT ALL!) of the stories that he heard from those crazy Wheaton boys. He said he was glad that he hadn't known them back when we got married! Apparently, after a few hours of guy-time, he knows those boys way better than I ever did during our time at Wheaton...probably way better than I want to know them!

Saturday morning, we slept in and missed the Education Department breakfast but did make it to the bookstore (my first Wheaton place of employment!) to buy some orange and blue gear. As we walked to the Quad for the barbecue lunch, we ran into lots of friends I hadn't seen in ten years. Amity was stopped at least twice by photographers and asked to pose for a picture in her Wheaton t-shirt. It was COLD and, apparently, all of the other parents had bundled up their kiddos so that their Wheaton gear was concealed but I couldn't get the zipper to work on her jacket so she was displaying her Thunder spirit proudly. Of course, maybe they just thought she was super-cute like we do! Dennis did figure out the zipper issue and she was soon appropriately bundled up.

Julianna was Amity's favorite of the weekend!

After lunch, we took the traditional class photo on the steps of the BGC. It took a little while for them to wrangle all of us and our families into position. About half-way through the process, I heard a disturbing sound coming from Amity's diaper. Keep in mind that we were standing in the middle of a hundred or so people with a very strong wind blowing around us. Thankfully, they snapped the shot before we started getting looks from too many people and Amity and I dashed inside the BGC to get a new diaper!

These pictures were taken post-diaper change on our way back across campus. I don't miss the cold weather but I do miss the beautiful colors of fall!

We decided to skip the football game and head back to the Bongas for naps for all of us. A couple hours later, we headed back to campus to Blanchard Hall to go "up the tower" with Noah and Katie. I hadn't been up the tower since Ben and Martha got engaged and they just celebrated their 10th anniversary this summer! Our class dinner was on the Quad in a heated event tent and was catered by Gino's East pizza. While I didn't get to see and talk to nearly all of the people I wanted to, it was so good to catch up with a few like Mindy and Jenni and Jimmy and Brian (was that really Brian?) and Julie's "little" brother David. Other than one quick run to the dining hall for a diaper change (Alli entertained her by singing while were in the bathroom), Amity loved the balloons and pompoms on our table and just enjoyed walking around and looking at people. After dinner, Dennis and Bruce went to the Giesers to help Noah and Katie load the moving truck. When they were done, the girls left to visit our dearly beloved Fischer dorm. Emily, Alli's niece, lives in the same suite where I lived, in Kathryn and Maggie's old room! It was crazy to see how much has stayed the same but good to see that they have made a few positive upgrades. After reminiscing and showing our age by telling the poor girls about when we were freshman and had barely started to use email and didn't even have cell phones, we headed back to grown-up life, stopping by Oberweiss Dairy on the way.

The rest of the night was spent with stories and just plain good talking with friends that I have known almost half of my life! The morning came way too soon and, with it, our departing flight. Let's just say that Alli wasn't the only one with tears in her eyes when we all gave hugs good-bye!
We had a smooth return to Dallas. Amity was super-friendly to people on the shuttles and flight and she even took a brief nap on the plane. She was very happy to be reunited with one of her babies and Elmo once we were back in our car.
As soon as we got home, Dennis crashed on the couch and Amity and I took naps in our beds. Unfortunately, I woke up from my nap feeling "green" and continued to be so through the night. Dennis got the bug on Monday morning and stayed home from work.