We Made it to Milwaukee!

About four years ago at this time, Greg’s little brother graduated from BYU and moved to Milwaukee to begin medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin. When he left, Greg’s parents told us all to start saving our money because they wanted the whole family to attend Mike’s graduation in 2009. I thought it sounded like a fun idea, but it seemed so far away I couldn’t actually see it happening, but TADA!!! Mike is graduating on Friday and all 11 of us Phillips family members flew in today—add Mike and we have an even dozen of us living it up in Milwaukee!

Of course we can’t do anything normal, so on Friday we noticed Garrett had a bit of a croupy cough. It kept getting worse and worse and by Sunday he was pretty much miserable. He woke up burning Monday morning with a high fever. We were kind of freaking out at this point because we are supposed to be flying with the kid on Wednesday, so we visited the doctor on Monday to see what was going on and if we needed to cancel our trip. She said there was fluid behind his ears and his throat was definitely sore, but nothing worthy of an antibiotic or any sort of treatment. She said to bring him back the next day and she would check his ears again and see how he was doing.

Monday and Tuesday were TERRIBLE days for the little guy and we were tossing around every option of what to do. My family offered for us to leave him with them, but we just didn’t know how we could leave a sick baby behind and expect to have any sort of fun. Not to mention that Garrett and his new cousin Annabelle are the center of the Phillips family universe and the family would probably disown us if we came without him. We visited the doctor again on Tuesday and still no sign of infection, so she encouraged us to go. We thought about it and realized we were going to a medical school graduation, so we probably wouldn’t be lacking in health care options if necessary. So, we threw our bags together and here we are!

The plane ride actually went quite well. Garrett fussed for a few minutes at the beginning, but then fell asleep in my arms and slept the whole way to Minneapolis for our connecting flight. He was a little squirmy on the connecting flight, but definitely manageable, thanks to the help of his grandparents, aunt, and uncles. The highlight of the plane ride was when this crazy older man sitting behind us spilled his full can of tomato juice all over the poor guy sitting next to him. We’re talking ALL OVER his pants and running into his shoes! Luckily, he was a good sport and super nice about it. The older gentleman had been doing crazy things the whole flight (like yelling out, “I can’t hear very well!” every 5 seconds), so we felt bad, but couldn’t help but laugh.

Garrett has had a good day and seems to be feeling a bit better. As he was running around the restaurant hugging all the little kids and trying to eat fries off the floor, Mike turned to me and said, "I can tell he's really sick."

Here are some photos of the day:

Uncle Matt entertaining G at the airport.
Waiting for our flight.

I think this picture of Mal is so cute! Definitely Facebook material. GlamourShots by Deb!

Greg and G playing on the plane.

Some people hire a nanny to go on trips with them and take care of the kids. We just bring Uncle Eric with us and he pretty much does the same thing for free. We don't know what we'd do without him!

Driving around in our brand spankin' new outift (rental car in Sparky language). The bad boy only had 6 miles on it when we picked it up!

Have I mentioned that Greg absolutely HATES flying and traveling. He made this paper chain to count down the days until the vacation is over and he can go back to his boring life. :) (He just read this and said, "It's not boring.")

Willy's old buddy, Jack, from his army days drove up from Ohio to meet us. (By the way, they were really in the MARINE CORPS, not the army. We just like to say "army" to get under Willy's skin. The first time I met Willy, Greg told me to ask him about his days in the "army" because he really liked to talk about it. BIG MISTAKE!)

As you can see by the look on his face, Garrett loved sharing ice cream with Jack's darling wife Peg. (She is so cute--how can you not just love someone named Peg?)

Mike the goober surprised us all with graduation gifts for US! Apparently he got the system mixed up--WE'RE supposed to give HIM gifts. He said he just really appreciated us all coming.

Peg and Jack got an awesome Wisconsin historical cookbook. They collect cookbooks and were absolutely thrilled.

Willy got a custom made hunting knife. Apparently it's quite something--Greg is quite envious!

The only thing that could make this granny any more beautiful would be a pair of diamond earrings, and she got some! She has always wanted some and was absolutely beaming. We can't wait to see how pretty she looks with them on.

All the boys got matching Browning knives. I don't know much about knives, but they were excited about them. We're heading to Nauvoo this weekend, so they can all sport their matchy-matchy knives in the original Browning blacksmith shop.

All the gals got gift cards to Nordstrom so we can shop while we're in Chicago. I'm so excited! (Cathy was feeding Annabelle so we'll excuse her from this photo.)

Speaking of the little missy, here she is! Isn't she so cute?

Here's our little cheeser--so glad he's feeling better!

Tomorrow we'll be watching the Brewers play ball and checking out the sights of the city!

P.S. How ironic for us to be in Milwaukee the night Danny Gokey (my favorite contestant) got kicked off American Idol? The whole city is shocked and so sad! :(