Huskie's Win!

This past weekend we traveled to Chicago and West Lafeyette, Indiana to watch John's alumni, Northern Illinois University, play John's father, Bob's, alumni, Purdue University.

We were on the first, earliest flight out of Austin on Friday morning (are we surprised by that given that John books our travel!?) and headed to Naperville. We made a stop at the famous Portillo's eatery to get a hot dog and fry fix - yum! Interesting that the buns have poppy seeds on them, however. Then we drove all around the town, checking out all of John's childhood memories - schools, house, swimming pool and even his teenage dance club (he says they just made it to the parking lot, but I am not so sure). We spent the afternoon shopping around all of the fantastic shops downtown before meeting up with the Palmer's, the Plackett's and the Skroch's. Fall was in the air in Naperville and it was such a treat to enjoy the cool weather.

We headed over to the Palmer's house for a pre-game cocktail or two (or case of beer) and on our way saw the shipping warehouse for Crate & Barrel. I couldn't believe how HUGE this place was.

After catching up with the Palmer's, we headed to the Plackett's to carpool to John's high school football game. Adam, Jeff and John all played together in highschool and Mike (who played baseball) spent time catching up with their old coaches on the field. We also meet up with both Adam's and Jeff's parents and family who joined us for the game.

The next morning we had another early morning start as we drove 2.5 hours to West Lafeyette, Indiana for the Purdue/NIU game that had a 12PM start time. John's family drove in from Paduach (a 6 hour drive!) to join us for the rivarly. We stayed at the fabulous student union/alumni hotel which was in the heart of the campus. Bob, John's father, actually had to write in a letter for reservations 6 months in advance. His efforts were grately appreciated especially by me who is still on the mend from both my foot and my appendix surgeries. We walked to the stadium after we check-in (again a fantastic fall day) and stopped in at Bob's old fraternity house. There we meet Bob's best college mate, Joe and his wife Laura, who drove down from Michigan for the game. The Huskie's beat the Boilermakers 28-21.
After the game we walked the campus with our own personal tour guide and learned a few tid-bits of history. We even visited the library that Bob said he had never even been into, but I am not so sure he is telling the truth there ;)We had a fantastic weekend, all bet very fast. Thank you to all for the great hospitality!