"...because it's Mom's weekend"

One of my favorite weekends, for the past 7 years, has been Mom's weekend at Illinois. Actually, I have great memories from Mom's weekends when I was at U of I and my mom came to visit. We still laugh about Marmar trying to get in the bunk beds in the open air sleeping dorms at Gamma Phis! I have also enjoyed my Mom's weekends with my kids. Sally and I invited Jack to come along this year since we are in the home stretch with our kids' college days. Plus, Jack is so much fun! Even though Jack was along, the weekend was all about me because it was Mom's weekend. That was my reason for anything that I did that I felt I needed to justify. It's Mom's weekend!

We got a little bit of a late start on Friday because of work schedules, or should I say, student teaching schedules. We stopped in town for a quick sandwich before getting on the road. We had plans to meet up with some friends at Firehaus. We were a bit late in meeting Lisa, John, Kim, Betsy, Peggy, Danny and Colleen because of a little snafu with our hotel check-in. It took three tries to get a room that was right. That makes it sound like we are picky. We are not. The first room had a king bed which wasn't going to work with the three of us. The second room was occupied. Definitely not. The third room was perfect. Kinda like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Once we got checked in, we headed over to meet our friends. It was great to see them. It is so hard to believe that these kids were friends in preschool and now they are all getting ready to graduate from Illinois. The next picture is the moms toasting to that!
We stopped by an apartment party for a while. We really love Sally's group of friends. It is a mix of sorority sisters and guy friends. That group is how Sally met Matt. We stayed until about midnight and made the obligatory stop at Second Story for a slice of fresh, hot pizza. Oh how I will miss that stairway.


On Saturday, we slept in and then had the free breakfast at the hotel. They have the BEST made to order omelets. I think what I like best about them is they are thin and full of whatever I want. I had two of them because it was Mom's weekend, after all. We took it easy during the day because Sally had a bunch of work she wanted to get done for student teaching and Jack had some work to do for his business trip on Monday. While they were hard at work, I went to Chico's to check out the sales. I hit the jackpot and bought several things because it was Mom's weekend. We had dinner reservations for 5 pm at Outback Steakhouse with several of Sally's friends and their moms. We were a party of 17 and it was a delightful time. After dinner, Jack, Sally and I made a stop at Kam's for old times' sake. It was like being in a time warp with the 70s music playing (Doobie Brothers' Black Water and Aliotta Haynes and Jeremiah's Lake Shore Drive). We had another apartment party to go to, at Jamie, Caitlin and Meg's place, just one floor up from Sally, Sarah and Danielle's (that is a picture of their building). A good time was had by all! We left there about 1 am and stopped at One World Pizza..because it was Mom's weekend. Again we slept in on Sunday and I had my awesome omelete (only one this time) and we were on the road home by noon. Thanks for a great weekend, Sally!