After a prolonged absence and in response to numerous requests from devoted followers, Pleepleus has managed to squeeze in time for an update to the blog. It's been an especially busy period: trips to Phoenix, Durango, Chicago, New York and Daytona Beach. Lots of events and activities: brewery tours, wedding shower, wedding, business trips to evaluate potential event sites and drinking locations, spring cleaning (inside and outside), St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Mother's Day celebrations, and general monkeying around.
Pleep never likes to waste valuable monkeying around time reminiscing but he did agree to a few highlights from the past months. Most importantly the wedding related activities: In typical Heidkamp fashion, the wedding shower quickly escalated from a single afternoon to a four day event kicked off with a shopping spree to kit out the mother of the bride, bride, and maid of honor. Of course no shopping event in Chicago is complete without a lunch at Macy's (formerly Marshall Fields) Walnut Room for Fields' Special, martinis, and Frango Mint pie. 
Also on the agenda were trips to Nordstrom's Rack, Butch McGuires, and a tour of the other Division Street watering holes. Because Ida was in town and the date of the shower correlated closely with Mary Agnes Muldoon O'Kane's (aka Chicago Catholic) birthday, the crowd descended on Chicago from Florida, Texas, and even London. This resulted in numerous dinners, lunches, and bars, culminating in a massive card tourney at the O'Kane household. We did manage to squeeze the actual shower into the schedule. Allison had a fabulous time at Maggiano's and kicked off her run up to the wedding in a grand fashion.
The wedding in NYC was a fantastic finale. Allison had everything organized and orchestrated to a tee: rehearsal dinner at Delmonico's, perfect setting at the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Seton, vintage yellow cab to transport the bride, a bagpiper in full kilt to pipe the guests from the church to Fraunces Tavern for happy hour and then to Battery Park for the reception. 
It all went off without a hitch. The Wall Street Inn served as the headquarters for all the out of town guests. We filled the place and spent a lot of time on Stone Street sampling all the bars and restaurants. The highlight from the whole event for Pleep was watching Lady Jane cut up the dance floor with the guy who had baked the wedding cake. She was doing so well she could have been on Dancing With The Stars. Then, due to shoe mishap, things went horribly wrong and Lady Jane took a header causing her cheek & eye to immediately swell to enormous proportions. Ida was her usual sympathetic self and began doing a Quaismodo impression suggesting Jane resembled the Hunchback of Notre Dame's face. By the next morning, Lady Jane was sporting her best Jackie O sunglasses and coverup makeup.
Most recently, the return to Daytona Beach was a well deserved respite from all the work and work related travel. Because Peggy's computer was busted (Pleep swears he didn't do it), she only had her IPad and IPhone to use which meant very little work could get done. Instead, she was able to devote her attention to long hikes on the beach, extensive reading (10 books), a day trip to St. Augustine, and of course plenty of time for Pleep's favorite haunts - The Deck Down Under and The Festhaus. Ed won the wild life rescuer of the trip award after saving tens of starfish stuck in low tide. It was a particularly good time to be gone from Kansas City where the weather was extremely bad and violent, including a major rash of tornadoes. Re-entry to the work scene was difficult and it was perhaps fitting that mid-way through the first day back both Peggy & Ed's offices had to evacuate to stairways due to tornado sightings.
