Mad Town Monday XI: Tour de Famille Part I: Momma Mia!

For the last month I have been planning, cleaning, organizing, and talking about nothing else than my mom coming to visit. I've been wholly consumed by the excitement of my mommy finally coming to see me! It has been 7 long months since I've seen her and now she's finally come!

My mom arrived at my brother's house in Burlington, IA on Sunday after having an awesome family reunion in Nebraska for the Koskavichs (I think that's my mom's dad's mother's maiden name but I'm sure my mother will jump on and answer any questions anyone might have and a few no one did.) She stayed with Adam's family (It's ok to sing and snap. I do it every time.) until Wednesday morning when she, Julienne (my sister-in-law), and Madeline (oldest child, age 12) met up with me in Dubuque.

Dubuque is a surprisingly charming town and we spent all afternoon exploring it. First, we went to the Historical Society where we picked up some clue tokens about my great-grandfathers, had to make a lore check to find the needed records, and a speed check to leave the building due to a fire alarm. Thankfully we were not kicked out into the street or delayed for a turn. (That is how the narration in my head went as I imaged we were in a game of Arkham Horror, since that's what I think of any time anyone uses the word 'Historical Society'. But if I  were writing this in plain English it would go something like this:
First, we went to the Historical Society where we were met by a lovely young lady who showed us the archives there. We were able to find some index cards that were references to the document we were looking for but not the actual documents. We did, however, get to see an awesome antique wedding dress and some other old Declaration of Intent documents that were pretty cool.)

Next,  we moved to the Court House, where we entered the records vault.

Again, we didn't find what we needed but we did find some other interesting information. The library also did not have it and we finally gave up the search since they were all closing for the night.

Then it was finally time for fun! The four of us walked all around downtown, looking at cute stores and taking pictures.
 We rode the 4th Street Elevator. It's this cool elevator/train thing that pulls you up a super steep hill by way of pulleys and you get to look out over the whole city and the Mississippi. It was beautiful.

 Afterwards, we had dinner at a great Chinese place on main street and then we parted ways. Julienne and Madeline returning to Burlington, and I bringing my mom up to Madison to see my beautifully clean and organized, darling apartment.

We had a lovely day and a half all to ourselves. We played Scrabble, watched movies, went shopping and tried to go see the new Star Trek movie but the stupid theater had it on their website but was not actually showing in it, (grumble, grumble, grumble...) and just had an over all great time. I missed my mom so much and it was great to catch up with her. I just wish she could have stayed forever...