A 60th Wedding Anniversary in Illinois

May 28, 2025

Sixty years of marriage is definitely worthy of celebration, and our next step to the Chicago area provided a good central location where Julie's family could converge for Julie's parents' big milestone. This is yet another post that may be of limited interest to those outside our family, so feel free to just move on if you are so inclined.

We dropped the camper off with one of Rick's former coworkers who has a farm in DeKalb (thanks Dave!), and then stayed with Rick's mom in Elmhurst for our week-long stay.

Welcome to construction season

Have to say, Illinois is not in the top 5 (or 10 or 40) of most scenic states we have been to

As we drove closer to DeKalb, the temperature kept going down. It finally stabilized at 51 degrees (at the end of May!)

DeKalb, land of wind turbines and data centers

Julie's parents' anniversary is actually in August, but when you have family members from around the country (some of them with active school-aged kids), it's not always easy to converge at a particular place and time. Memorial Day weekend, while not ideal for everyone, seemed to be one of the few (if only) times we could make it work out.

Stephanie and Eric rented a house in Lombard for the festivities, Julie and Rick provided the food, Audrey and Andrew made scrumptious desserts, Christine and Andrew N. provided the awesome decorations, nostalgic items and adult drinks, Andrea and Jeff filled in with all our other necessities, and Mom and Dad did a good job as the guests of honor and appeared to enjoy themselves.

The party before the party (the day before)...

Everyone put in a lot of thought in signing the "his and hers" anniversary cards. A little bit of AI creative assistance may or may not have been employed.

Audrey providing the main entertainment for the evening

The structural members for the 2nd tier have been installed

Allison provided additional entertainment with some magic tricks

Party day...

Finishing touches added to the cake

Testing out the seating. It took us a while to arrange the table and chairs so that everyone could sit at one table (for once!)

Everything's ready--we just need the guests of honor!

Dad got a nice corsage for Mom to wear

His and Hers anniversary cards

Eric had prepared a fine PowerPoint presentation of 1965 trivia

A family joke is that whenever Dad would order prime rib at a restaurant, it often wouldn't be up to muster, and he would declare it "pot roast". So...Julie cooked up some "prime rib" (pot roast) for dinner.

At least one eyeball (not necessarily open) of everyone present is accounted for in this dinner picture.

It's not a proper family gathering without some card playing

Of course, the cake had to be chocolate ...with a side of Andrew's white chocolate raspberry cheesecake

More cards (Actually, this is the same game of Extreme Hand and Foot from the earlier photo)

Just before the tower collapse

Happy 60th Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!

During the rest of the week, we enjoyed visiting with Julie's family and spending time with Rick's mom.

After that, we began our journey westward. First stop...Iowa!

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