Rachel is 12, that tricky age where you are a child and still find crawling through tunnels in old warehouse and eating ice cream for breakfast greatly appealing, but because you are trying to gather independence and let the world know that you are mature, you poopoo any idea that makes you look silly. You poopoo it until you see other mature looking people doing it. People that obviously spend a majority of their time paying bills HA. It was quite interesting watching Rachel briefly roll her eyes at us before she realized we were going to leave her ass behind if she didn't get a move on. She's a great kid, really. No, scratch that. She's a great person.
Everyone in Robert's family is very emotionally reserved. They could be excited or ready to knock the sno off my cone, but I never know this. I can only guess, and while I'm guessing I'm turning into an emotional billboard, partly because I am a little insecure around stoic people, but mostly because I am an emotional billboard. I grew up in a very emotionally loud family. We shared. Not in that cutesy sharing way, no, it wasn't like that at all. We shared everything. If my mom had a bad day at work we heard about it. If we were excited about going out for donuts the walls would shake as we raced to the door. If one of my brothers felt a fart coming and knew I was in the house somewhere, they would find me and all hell would break loose. We thought nothing of woowooing (armpit tickling) each other in Wal Mart. My mom is a grandmother now, but if you know her you understand that you better start running if the woowoo look comes over her.
I remember a family vacation. I was 11. Scott was 12. Mom drove us up to Chicago to visit Robin and Aunt Betsy. While we were there we were rear-ended. Scott and I were completely absorbed in what we were doing in the back (probably playing a silent game of elbow jabbing) and only knew something was wrong because we heard a very frantic my babies my babies. My loudmouth mother, who I thought at the time was really annoying for interrupting whatever it was that I was doing, was loudly expressing her concern. Don't worry though. I now find it very touching. Please don't woowoo me mom. : )
If Robert's family had been in a similar situation, everyone would have just sat there and waited for assistance. In fact, I have been in an accident with a couple members of his family. You know what they did? They very calmly picked pieces of glass from their clothes while inquiring about the weather outside. **CRASH** Is everyone all right? Yes. **pick glass off clothes and quietly wait for assistance.** Meanwhile, I am grabbing my purse. I am throwing open the door. I am hollering about how f***ing cold it is. I am talking about the titties of witches and how we are going to lose ours if we don't get our asses off the highway.
Back at the car:
As you can tell, Robert's family is very quiet. I can only assume that their emotions are buried beneath layers upon layers of stern looks and hushes. I have to remind myself that the short little one word answers are code for HOLY CRAP YES LET'S GO GET SOME ICE CREAM!!! And while I am always talking, always making noises and singing, and have been surrounded by other loudmouths, not everyone is raised to be so expressive, not everyone's expressiveness is encouraged or praised.
So, when we asked Rachel if she had a good time, and her shoulders lifted and she mumbled yes, I totally heard YES THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN LET'S DO IT AGAIN!!! But then I told myself, you heard a yes and it doesn't need to be anything else.
Here are a few pictures!
We ate many amazing things including a gogi bowl from Seoul Taco and ice cream from the loop
Surely it was destiny that I found a shirt that looked just like my ice cream cone.
A picture of us hanging out with the elephants
The City Museum
Now, we are home. Trying to make up for three days of lost cuddling. If a cuddle is lost, it must be found!
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