YAY!!!!  I am so glad that you have a game plan. 

Illinois, huh?  Sounds like I hear a trip to Chicago in the future!  (That's about 1/2 way for each of us, or about a 4 or so hour drive).  Maybe we can get the Michigan ladies and the Ohio ladies (and anyone else who likes traveling) for a Chicago ladies night out!

Yes, the Queen and Crown Prince of Denmark. They went up there for some reason and Dave was one of the people selected to go mingle with them. 

He knows now, I told him.  Not quite the reaction I was expecting...I was hoping for backflips, yells and tears of delight because that's what I was doing, but Dave handles and reacts to things a little differently than the rest of us.  I did call my FIL though, and managed to tell him in between sobs that he'd get to spend as much time with his grandchildren as he wanted.

So, we're Illinois bound. 

Belleville IL, is 20 miles away from St Louis.

Yay!  Culture!  Diversity!  Shopping!  Crime.....?! 

Oh who cares, we finally have orders!

Zwei - It's Belleville, Il, and it's about 20 miles SE of St Louis.  It's better than SD because :  we don't have to drive to Minneapolis or Denver to get to a zoo, a museum, an art gallery, a city with more than 25,000 people in it, an amusement park, a mall with more than 20 stores, a restaurant that isn't 'fast food'...because we can drive for 2 hours and be at my in law's place, at my husband's hometown.  I guess you'd have to have lived in my part of SD for 9 years in order to understand what a cultural wasteland it is out here.  It's pretty bad.  Here's some good examples:  we don't have an 'Olive Garden' restaurant, we only got a Gap store last year, a 'Borders' the year before and public transportation around here is car pooling or a tandem bicycle. 

That and I have bitchy, shitty neighbors....who I'm going to go bid a fond farewell to the day that I leave.

Emma...thanks for the hug.  I'm going to go get drunk now.