Jesus, Take The Wheel. I Gotta Grab Something In The Backseat.

Well my time at home has certainly picked up in the last week. On a spontaneous whim Nikki and I popped in the car and drove to The Region so that we could go see the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. Suzanna sent me a link about it and I decided that it had to happen. 

We drove the four hours on Wednesday night after Nikki got off work. In true Kiki/Nikki fashion we played Harry Potter games most of the drive. We took all of the books and played the name-the-title-of-the-chapters-in-order game first. Then whoever wasn't driving would comb the books for difficult questions to ask the other person. I was wearing my Harry Potter scarf (see Jackie, I wear it) and I gave Nikki my baller time turner to wear. We probably took too many pictures while going 72 miles an hour, but we wanted to live a little. We even stopped on the side of the road next to an H for hospital sign and Nikki made the "P" with her hands. HP excitement on the highway.  We got in around 10 and I was jacked on the pop we drank. Mikey was all out of sorts from a knee injury so we high-tailed it to the basement to watch The Departed. Um, how good is that movie?? So good. I didn't take my eyes off of it the whole time. Which is why we didn't get to bed until 1:30. Bad plan, but worth it.

We got up at 7:30 the next day so that we'd be sure to have enough time to get to the South Shore Line. Aunt Theresa made an awesome breakfast and then we were out of the door. Train ride was great. No attacks from dementors to speak of. We went straight to the Museum and pretended to care about baby chicks hatching as we waited for them to call our time slot. We finally got in line and bought our audio devices. 10:23 hit and we were pretty much freaking out. The audio device played the Harry Potter theme as we walked to the first room in the exhibit: the Sorting Hat. We watched 3 younger people awkwardly get sorted into the house of their choosing and then they ushered us into a dark room to watch an HP movie montage over 8 vertical screens. Chills, my friends. Chills. We were ooo-ing and ah-ing the whole time. Magic. Harry Potter. Living the Dream.

The exhibit was absolutely wonderful. We spent two hours looking at costumes and listening to the designers point out features and discuss their details and decisions. We saw props like Tom Riddle's Diary, The Sorcerer's Stone and life size models of Buckbeak and the Hungarian Horntail. Dementors have tales that look like spines, did you know that? I didn't. We pulled out Mandrakes, shot some leather Quaffles into the hoops, sat in Hagrid's chair and quoted the movies the entire time. It was so awesome and I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much without Nikki there. It was a pretty good substitute for us not being able to see the 6th movie together so Huzzah!

We still had some time to kill before the train came so we haphazardly ran across Lake Shore Drive to hit Lake Michigan. We put our toes in the freezing water and sat on the beach for a long time. Then we pounded in a Subway foot long and hit the train back to Munster. Before you knew it we were back on the road for more driving action. We hit massive traffic and I made us listen to the Life is a Highway cover at least 3 times. Seriously, what a good song.  But it wouldn't be long till we were in the car again...

To drive 5 1/2 hours to Minneapolis! My second cousin (right? i don't know how that works) on my mom's side was graduating. I desperately wanted to go to the Guthrie to see Tony Kushner's new play so I was down for a back-to-back road trip. On top of buying awesome accessories for my, oh wait, what's that, BRAND NEW computer and iPod touch we also logged some H&M time which is always a plus. I got to see my 3 hr and 40 min show, Mom got to take notes and drink wine coolers and we both ate more cake than Delta Burke. I also had 3 Magic Bars made by the one and only Aunt Dorothy. The theme for the weekend was, "Why don't we do this more often?" Seriously--I think I'll live there one day. Good theatre, good people, good times. 5 1/2 hour drive back and now I'm planting myself in Dubuque for the rest of the week. 

Mom and I head to Seattle on Saturday so I'll spend my last week finishing my room, eating at my favorite local restaurant, buying things cheaper in the Midwest, and trying to Houdini everything into my suitcase. The Midwest done treated me real nice.