a weekend in illinois

After much anticipation, this weekend finally happened. I realized recently that I have 5 wonderful friends living in Illinois. Not far at all. So, I decided to go! These 5 friends are from my summer staff at Castaway 5 years ago. I've blogged about them before. There was just something about that month that makes us want to still see each other this long after. 

Stacy and Dan live in Naperville and Brad lives in Wheaton. My friend from home, Kari, also did summer staff with us and recently moved to Chicago after she got married. I said 5, but I only saw these 4. The other, Matt, lives in Champaign, which is further, and he ended up having stuff to do for Young Life this weekend, so couldn't come.

I headed up Friday morning and made it there around 5:45. Stacy had a soccer game to work (she is a teacher and YL leader at Waubonsie Valley HS), so we went to the game and ended up meeting Dan and Brad for a late dinner. 
It is so great to see people you haven't seen in awhile. The last time I saw Stacy and Dan was in October (not that long) but hadn't seen Brad in about 4 years, which is crazy! 

Saturday was a beautiful day. Stacy and I walked around downtown Naperville, ate at Portillos, went to Caribou to meet some of her friends, went to Super Target, then went back to her place to prepare to have our friends over! 

The rest of this post will be a picture re-cap of the weekend. The first few are from downtown Naperville, then ones from our get-together, and the very last ones are from I-65 in Indiana. I saw these windmills on the way up and knew I needed to find a way to take pictures on the drive home, so I pulled off a couple exits to get those shots. Well worth the 20 minutes it set me back :) Enjoy!

Thats all for now :) I am just really thankful to have been a part of such an awesome community. These people are just really great. I wish I could see all of them every day. We talked of how great it would be to do a 6 year reunion next summer with everyone. I would be so excited. We did a 5 month reunion the December after we came home and all but around 5 people came. Lets re-create that!