Day 21: Steven's Birthday!

This is posted a day and 5 minutes late because, well, we had a 21st birthday party to attend last night!  Eric's cousin and BEST friend turned 21 on Thursday and we celebrated by spending the night at the Argosy casino.  We spent Friday night at Steven & Leslie's apartment, and had a great day leading up to the gambling.  We had Taco Bueno for breakfast/lunch, along with running errands to the post office, the bank, Best Buy, and CVS.  Then we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart to look at TV's, mattresses, dressers, and other furniture.

The crew at Taco Bueno

Very happy about my quesadilla

Steven is mildly happy about his nachos

This is where the GPS told us Nebraska Furniture Mart was.  Something tells me I'm not going to find hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture and electronics in this place!

Eric found a happy macaroni vase, Steven found a mildly entertained water cup.

This is Eric's future home, the La-Z Boy

We finally headed out to the casino and spent around 5 hours out on the floor, mostly spending our money at slots and video poker.  I think Steven was the only one who ended up ahead.  I think Phillip, Pete, and Paul all ended up with vouchers for $.04 cents.

Steven and Leslie getting their members cards, he's 21!

No photo's allowed on the floor, but this is the lovely Leslie with her two whiskey sours

I think this is Pete and Phillip with their $.04 vouchers, and Edie with her $100.09 voucher!

The awesome ceiling in the lobby of the Argosy hotel.

Day 20: Travel, It's What We Do!

Once again, we are vacating the premises for another trip.  This one's local, but it still counts.  We're going to celebrate Eric's cousin/best friend Steven's 21st birthday!  We're staying at their apartment tonight and then gambling the night away at the Argosy tomorrow.  Arrrrrrrrr P-)

For the past few years Eric and I have been a one suitcase couple, but we've learned that it's easier to be a two duffel couple, for short trips, to make it easier to find things.

Day 19: Shirts & Showers

Today was relatively uneventful, so we started taking requests!  Mom wanted to see a picture of Eric with a shirt ON, and Eric wanted to me take a shower.  Well not really, I had conceded to the shower long before he got home.  I'm tactilely defensive against water, among other things - the initial touch of water anyway.  I don't like getting into showers, pools, etc.  I'd rather stay dry.  I restarted my Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred dvd today and knew I had to shower when I finished, but I put it off until Eric got home.  Then we hung out for awhile and I've procrastinated further by blogging first!  I'm trying to think how to put it off longer, but it would appear that it is time for bed and I definitely need to wash my hair first.  Here are your pictures!

A shirt!

 Yucky hair!  I am also wearing a shirt, but the straps are covered by sweaty hair, gross!

Do you have any requests for future posts?  It's okay to comment!

Day 18: Our Nephew, Andrew

This morning I woke to a text message from Jack's mom saying he was sick and I didn't need to work today. I had already made plans to watch my nephew, Andrew, while Kris was at his doctors appointment at KU Med for his burns. I was excited to have a day home, so I asked Eric if it would be okay to being Andrew here for the night. He said okay, and Kris and Sarah  said okay, so we went to get him!

We also went to Best Buy to pick up my new Olympus Tough camera, which is drop and water resistant. I had fun playing with the settings on that all day.

Eric worked while I was home with Andrew.  I washed his hair in the sink [because he's got stitches in his foot and forehead, so a full bath was out], he played with his toys [and the cat toys], and we cooked dinner.  When Eric got home we went on a walk and ate the dinner I had made, along with a wine that Eric brought home.  Andrew stayed awake while we watched Mr. Bean's Holiday, and went straight to sleep when we put him down.

Clean hair!

Playing in the water

...and with the cat toys

...and with Eric's toys!

Eric ended up being the baby whisperer - Andrew was fussing with me and he said "Let me give it a try," Andrew immediately settled down and relaxed.

Mystic was quite alright having a baby in the house, but Addy wasn't impressed.

Day 17: Lots of Babies!

 Today was filled with babies of one sort and another.

First I have to poke fun at Eric for being a baby about not playing on the Playstation 3 for 5 days!  It could have killed him!

I was a baby about getting out of bed - the alarm was set for 9:30 and I finally slithered out at 10: 33 for a dirt spray and finally rolled out to work.

Jack, the six year old with autism that I nanny for, was great all day long.  However, he melted down when I took him home in the afternoon and his dad ran out to the store to get Jack's baby brother's medicine.  When he sees his dad, that is my cue to leave.  So it is very upsetting for him to see his dad and then have his dad leave and me stay.

Bryson, Jack's baby brother has an ear infection and will scream if he's not in your arms all of the time.  While dad was at the store, I was holding him, but...this did not calm the screaming.  Ear piercing, hope the neighbors don't call the cops, wailing.

My brother, Kris, got hit by a stray firework [not a firecracker, but an up-in-the-sky ooooooo ahhhhhh firework] and I helped him change the dressing for it this afternoon.  He made the massive mistake of wrapping his second and third degree burns with straight gauze, meaning the gauze was now embedded in the skin like glue.  I spent more than 30 minutes slowly soaking the gauze in water and peeling it back bit by bit.  His skin looked like zebra print from the way the firework had burned him.  On the plus side, I got to help my brother while hurting him immensely!  And now he has the ever so important non-stick gauze layer in between the skin and the gauze wrap.

 Yikes!

Finally, my favorite [local] baby, Andrew.  Over the weekend his carseat fell off of his stroller while on an escalator and he tumbled, while secured in his seat, before Kris caught him.  He is such a trooper!  He got scrapes and cuts on his forehead and right foot, but everything is healing quickly.  I watched him most of the day and he was a big baby too!  Just general fussiness, going through the "don't put me down" stage.  But at the same time, he loves being down because he, at six months old, has learned to full on crawl!

Now that we're both home from work - Eric is comfortably playing and I am laying in bed watching "Julie & Julia" while blogging.  Interestingly, in the middle/end of the movie Julie and her husband split up because her blog took priority, eek!  I'd better go make a sweet dessert for Eric to make up for blogging away!

Day 16: The Last Day of Chicago

This morning Eric and I had a bottle of champagne for breakfast, courtesy of Rachel!  We mixed our Cristalino with orange juice from the diner attached to the hotel.  We put lids on our mimosas and headed for the red line!  I scanned my CTA pass like a pro and walked into the turnstile bar... You see, we bought 3 day passes on Friday. We had to walk 3 blocks to a Walgreens to buy a one day pass, boo!

Our last time training into the city before the day was over!

Once we had our passes, we headed for the pier, catching a free trolley on the way.  We bought tickets for our third cruise of the trip and headed inside for lunch. This is when I had an interesting conversation with my brother about his second and third degree burns on his leg from fireworks.  We finished our lunch-beef and broccoli, orange chicken, and lo mein on the ship.  We have been on 2 cruises and a birds eye tour from the Hancck tower, so we just enjoyed the breeze and each others company and ignored the tour guide.  This is good, because his script was  over a year old and included "the Sear's tower will be officially renamed the Willis tower in the summer of 2009."

Enjoying our Chinese food on the cruise

Just enjoying the view from the cruise ship.

After the cruise we played another round of mini golf, and got al the way through it this time. Now the 95 degree, feels like more than 100, weather was getting to us.  The plan was to bus and train over to the Sears tower and then head home.  I called the hotel from the bus to recheck that it was okay to leave my car there for a few hours after checkout. I had previously okayed this with a receptionist.  The lady who answered said check out is at noon and cars will betowed after 1pm. I tried not to flip, as it was 2pm. She said my car was still there and asked how long I needed. She was going to give us until 3:30 which put our tower plans sback on track. That is, until I called to see how long the line for the elevator was... One to one and a half hours wait.

There is a gardens area up top of a building on the pier, very pretty!

So we headed out to pick up the car and hopefully find some pay parking near the tower. Everything was $15 an hour or more, until we found one that said $6! Success! We pull in, get our ticket, and find a sign around the corner that says "$6 for first half hour, then $17 per hour" So we paid $6 for our mistake and promptly left Chicago. We stopped at an Osco for water so we wouldn't pass out on the road.

The heat index was over 100 and I can't imagine the temperature inside the car when we got there, SO HOT!

Construction detours took us into a roadway into the "airspace" beneath the buildings.  I guess a lot of buildings in Chicago are built essentially up on stilts because trains ran all over the city before it was built.

The car issue also cut into our planned lunch of Chicago deep dish pizza. So we looked up pizza on the GPS on our way out of town. We missed Pizza Nova's exit, Angelo's Stuffed Pizza had Monday hours posted but was closed, Bacci Pizzeria's windows were covered with brown paper, and on our way to our last stop before giving up, Positano's Pizza, we saw it.  Giordano's!  This was our original plan in town.  We had a stuffed pizza with pepperoni and hamburger.

 Our last view of Chicago

 Inner Chicago gas prices

5 miles outside of Chicago

The heat and city driving have exhausted Eric

Now we're on our way home, hopefully there by 2am!  While driving we listened to the Dave Ramsey show on am radio until it fizzled out.  Now we've got a good jazz station flowing as we transition from dusk to night, Eric is driving cautiously, is search of deer and has found plenty of owls and bats so far. He then proclaims "a deer! A small one!" The brakes go on and I am darting my eyes around the side of the road, as he brakes my seat locks from when I adjusted it earlier and I let out a scream until I sheepishly realize where the popping noise came from. Four hours to go!

  Dave Ramsey!

We made it home safely just after 1:20, after bringing everything upstairs I collapsed on the floor with my babies!  I had to put my carseat [for Andrew], booster seat and swim stuff [for Jack], and purse all by the door so I couldn't forget to take it in the morning.

Day 15: Chicago Part 3

First off, last night I forgot about one pretty significant event.  Eric and I had been walking, busing, training, and walking some more for nearly 2 hours when we were stopped by a couple who asked us where the nearest church was.  We told them that we weren't from around here and didn't know, and they responded that we were the first people who actually stopped to talk with them so of course we weren't Chicagoans.  After talking for a minute, we learned that they had lost their home to a fire and they were looking for a meal.  Instead of asking for money, which we're solicited for dozens of times every hour, they asked (after tiptoeing around it for a minute) if we would walk one block to Walgreens and get them some milk and cereal.  We walked about halfway there before I remembered seeing that it was closed when we had walked by it a few minutes before all of this.  I stopped them and said we couldn't go any further but that we still wanted to help.  After making and eye-to-eye agreement with Eric, I gave them $20 and I thought they were going to have a heart attack.  We were showered with hugs and handshakes, and truly grateful eyes and voices of thanks.  They said it would feed them and their two kids for at least three days along with buying soap and toilet paper.  Eric and I left feeling slightly fulfilled that we had been able to help, but also downhearted that there are so many people who need support that aren't being helped.  Consider this my solicitation for you to do something this week that is outside your comfort zone to help others.

On to today!  Independence Day!

We started off the morning heading to the John Hancock Tower.  Eric and I were both pretty grumpy, probably residual feelings leftover from our stressful evening.  The elevator up to the 94th floor goes more than 20mph and we had a good time listening to the David Schwimmer voice tour.  Then we walked to a near bus stop to head to the Navy Pier again.  We got some tickets with our Go Chicago card and headed for the ferris wheel.  It was cool to learn that the ferris wheel was built for the World Fair, trying to top the Paris World Fair when they unveiled the Eiffel Tower.  Then we played half a round of mini golf before rushing off to our pirate cruise.

 

The John Hancock Tower

Us in the elevator

Our postcard view

We got to stand on a window washing deck!

My frame worthy Ferris Wheel shot from the ground

At the very top of the Ferris Wheel

Green and red golf balls!

The pirate cruise was fantastic!  Yesterday we saw that the ship has a lone green bench among all of the wood blocks for seating - we said then that we wanted to sit there for the cruise.  The line to board was pretty long when we got their from mini golfing so I didn't get my hopes up, but we made it to the bench!  We told a lovely pirate Theresa that we were on our honeymoon and got bumped to VIP status.  We played a part in her pirate stories, earned some doubloons by answering questions, and then we got to FIRE A CANNON!  I readied the crew by announcing the cannon, and Eric hammered the end of the cannon to light the gunpowder and fire it.  Oh!  And the pirate ship's sail broke while we were on it!  A rope broke and it went flapping for a few minutes before they were able to fix it!

The view from the ship, and source of our sunburns

Our green bench!

Our pirates, Theresa on the left

Part of the problem last night was that Bubba Gump Shrimp had an hour wait, so we didn't eat there for dinner and then couldn't find any food.  So we resolved to eat there for lunch today.  I had an alcoholic sweet tea, and Eric had some girly strawberry drink (it had an inconspicuous name, we didn't know it was girly until we saw it!), mine came with a drink shaker to keep and Eric's came with a hurricane glass.  I had CRAB LEGS and Eric had a cajun chicken sandwich for lunch.  The best part is that our table was right next to Forrest Gump's bench, where he was sitting greeting passerby's... over and over again... "Hi there, what's your name? I'm Forrest, Forrest Gump, you can call me Forrest."

Eric's manly drink!

My sweet tea drink

Our lunch, and Forrest Gump right behind us

We were then absolutely pooped, but decided to follow through on our plan to go back to the Planetarium to catch the 3D show.  We wandered the Gemini exhibit until the show started, and we both nearly fell asleep during the show.  I think the best part of it was at the beginning when they explained how 3D works.  When we left, the sky was looking ominous and it started sprinkling as soon as we stepped outside.  We were wet by the time we got to the bus stop, and the bus was full.  We became adventurous and decided to walk to the next bus stop, not caring how wet we got.  That's when the rain stopped, haha!

You weigh 1/6 of your weight on the moon, Eric is 25lbs!

And I'm 22lbs!

There was a fill in the blank wall - I want to be the first ___ on the moon.  People write their answer on the post it and stick it on the wall.

This is how excited we were for the 3D show!

A cool poster and quote from James Lovell

The mini storm that rained on us, for 3 minutes.

A cool sign on the L

We made it back home and rested for an hour before heading to the Lake Michigan beach to wait for the fireworks.  Chicago has more than 6 miles of uninterrupted beach, so all we had to do is walk to the lake!  We waited for nearly 2 hours, and saw a pretty good fireworks display.  I'm not particularly impressed by public fireworks - a lot of money and effort for a few minutes of display.  We definitely prefer doing things ourselves, blowing stuff up!  Oh, and it threatened rain with an incredibly ominous sky - but really the storm just helped darken the night more quickly so the fireworks show was better!

We learned that the best address in Chicago is "anything Lake Shore Drive"

Our spot on the waterfront

The top of the Hancock was red, white, and blue

Navy Pier fireworks!

Thousands of people there to watch!

The Coach store on Michigan Ave, for mom!

When we finished, we walked a mile or two and found an AMC theater and found a 9:50 showing of Twilight: Eclipse, we were 5 minutes late, but didn't miss any previews (Easy A looks funny!).  The movie was really good and we were excited to see the Harry Potter preview!  We realized that we hadn't had any dinner when we were on our way home nearing 1am.  We found a combined Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins and had a dinner of turkey/bacon/cheese flat sandwich, donuts, and Snickers ice cream in a waffle bowl!   Yummmmmm!

The end.  Goodnight.  And we got sunburned.

Eric has one wrist burn, and the other didn't!