Illinois Vacation

Illinois was the 6th state I stayed in!

We (Keith, Meredith, Gracie, Isaac, Matty and I) drove approximately 10 hours (longest road trip ever!!) on the 3rd of July to Springfield (the capital of Illinois, and no not the Springifeld where Bart Simpson is from; in fact there are many Springfields throught the USA).

We stayed with family friends - Margie and Dard who were just great!!

We spent half the day with them on the '4th of July', hanging out by their pool which was lovely and then we traveled another 3 hours south to a small town Benton (like Putaruru size!) for Merediths' family reunion.

Had a tonne of fun there, hung out at the lake for a 4th of July picnic (now on the 5th of July), with all the family, went out on a boat one day which was nice as it was a beauitful day so just chilled in the water for a while.

On the Monday we drove up to St Louis (Missouri) where we went to an awesome kids museum with the relatives, and saw the gateway arch.

We dropped Keith of at the airoprt and went on back to Springfield.

That week we saw the Linclon museum, had donuts from 'mel-o-cream' yum yum and hung out at the pool.

We then went on to Chicago where we stayed with family friends, the Harters (Miris future home :P). They live in a suburb of Chicago so one day I took the train downtown (with a niece and friend of Karri Harters) and caught up with my cousin Dean, his fiance Emily and a friend of theirs. It was a big coinicidence that we were in the city the same day - Dean and Emily were driving cross country, moving from California to New York and we happened to be in Chicago the same day!! It was soo good to see Dean again and meet the very sweet Emily. It was fun to hang out and see a bit of the city with them.

It was great to see the Harters again, and spend time with them, but the following day it was time to head back to Minneapolis. Only a 6 hour drive (like from Putaruru to Wellignton I guess) this time, and it was nice to see the countryside of Wisconsin again.

Sport

I didn't expect many Americans to know what rugby was, let alone there be a women's rugby team in Minneapolis/St Paul (and more than one at that!).

I knew I had brought my mouthguard all the way to America for some reason! lol

So I found a team on the net and went along to a few trainings. They are a very good team - very skilled and also competitive which is great!

The team were vey nice and welcoming to me. I went along and watched them play their cross-town rivals one saturday in May, which was a great game to watch (I could have played for a little bit but I forgot to take along my mouthguard :S).

Their main rugby season is in the Fall (Autumn), so I had a month to think about whether I wanted to be a part of the team.

I decided not to be as it would have been a big commitment with trainings twice a week, and I would have had to travel quite a bit out of state to saturday games. They are a really good team who are hoping to get to the nationals, so I wish them all the best and hopefully I will get to see them play a few games this season.

So on that note I joined a soccer team :) We have just finished our season (which ran through summer) which I am disappointed about but I had a fun time!

It was a step up from saturday morning Putaruru High School girls team! So I learnt quite a bit from the players on my team - they are really good players!

Games were played on Tuesday and Thursday nights, all around the Minneapolis area, so through it I saw a few different places I wouldn't have necessarily gone to.

We had a mixture of wins, draws and losses but it was so much fun. The gals were really nice, and it was great soccer!

Even though the games were at night, it sould get soo hot. The humidity is huge here in Minnesota (well especially for me) so the games were definitly a great work out!