Justis Got His Wings!

Notice the wings!




Justis earned his wings Sunday when he flew to Decatur, Illinois (ADM corporate headquarters) with Travis for a business trip!

The ADM regional safety and operations managers were invited to bring their children to Decatur for the end-of-the-summer intern wrap-up. All of the ADM summer interns gathered with their mentors and all of the ADM big-wigs to send the summer out in style. The wrap-up included a softball round-robin, "business formal" dinner, and a river clean-up day with a barbecue on the Illinois River.

Justis had a blast. Four days and three nights with Daddy was so special for both he and Travis. Justis got a taste of what Travis does on business trips. Well, at least what he does on business trips that are light on the "business!"

Justis rubbed elbows and dined with the same corporate employees Travis did. He remembered some of them from our weekend trip to Galveston earlier this summer. He got to watch his daddy's team (the "old guys") get spanked by the other team during just the second game of the round robin.

Justis was the youngest child at the ADM events by SEVERAL years, so having Justis along exempted Travis for the "business formal" dinner. They opted for dinner and went to the theater to see the 3D movie, Journey to the Center of the earth.

As if staying in a hotel with Daddy wasn't fun enough, Justis's impression of the "popcorn" machine pushed the experience right off the scale of fun! Justis excitedly explained to me on the phone that, "It's like this popcorn machine that I don't think you've sawn [seen] before. You put money in this machine and turn a wheel and this popcorn thingy comes out. Then you take the thingy and put it in the microwave and popcorn comes out!" I was a bit confused, but Travis explained later that the vending machine provided microwave popcorn bags to pop in the microwave provided. Despite the fascination with the "popcorn thingy" justis ultimately chose candy from the vending machine. I got a chuckle. Who knew popcorn could be so much fun? Justis also slept right beside his daddy, despite the fact there were two queen-sized beds in the room.

Travis and Justis helped prepare, serve and clean up the barbecue during river clean-up day because Justis was too little to go out on the river for liability reasons. Justis felt so big just by bein part of Daddy's business trip that he never once noticed he was the littlest there, though!

By the way, Justis had pretzels and Cherry Coke or Sprite on all of his flights. Justis notes details and I'm sure he'll never forget the details of his business trip with Daddy!