Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Hair = GONE

Yep. It's gone. I chopped it off.

I guess I felt like I needed to add even more change into our lives. ha.



Monday, February 22, 2010

Best Birthday

Andrew has always been good at planning sweet surprises for me. And he knows how much I love them. So last week, on my birthday, he gave me the sweetest birthday gift I could have asked for.
A day full of sweet surprises.

It started with me being at work, and I just got out of a meeting at noon and ready to go to lunch when my manager told me that first she wanted me to walk down to the main lobby with her because we had some vendors that were waiting for us to let them into a room to set up, and she wanted me to meet them since we would be working closely with them. So I'm walking down with her, excited to meet these new vendors and chatting away when my manager looks towards the waiting area and says "And here are our vendors!" Of course, as you probably guessed already...there were no vendors...it was Andrew...holding the prettiest bouquet of flowers I have ever. And he wasn't just there to bring me the flowers, but he came to have lunch with me as well. So needless to say he was sneaky...especially for getting my manager in on it too! I loved it.

But that wasn't all. At the end of the day, I made my way home thinking we would be going out to dinner...when I walk inside our apartment to find this....











Even better than a dinner out...my sweet, sweet husband served me that night. He prepared the setting, cooked the meal, and even sang Happy Birthday to me as I blew out the candle in my favorite cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory (chocolate chip cookie dough, of course!).
It was...amazing.

I guess you could say my first "married" birthday was the best one yet :)

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Weekend in The Windy City

Valentine's weekend. Chicago. The Husband and I. It was wonderful. 

When we decided to move to Milwaukee, we were particularly excited about the fact that we would only be an hour and half from Chicago. I absolutely love Chicago, and Andrew had never been. So when we moved here, we were already trying to figure out when we could go to Chicago, asap! So we figured, what better weekend than Valentine's weekend for a little romantic getaway in the beautiful Windy City, right?

 
Since parking in Chicago is RIDICULOUS, we decided to take the train. So much cheaper and definitely more convenient. 

I wanted to take this headboard home. loved it. And as you can see from Andrew's facial expression, he is SO excited...?

View from our window...

Loved being able to look out of our window and see this. The Water Tower is probably one of my favorite things in downtown Chicago. 
Night time view
Of course, no trip to Chicago would be complete without some famous Chicago deep dish pizza. Giordano's Pizza was highly recommended, and we saw why....


This thing was HUGE...but oh-so delicious.

Helloooo cheesy goodness!

I think all pizza should be this thick, and packed with cheese. Despite how incredibly unhealthy and artery clogging it probably is. 

Next stop....Millennium Park.
Ice skating in the park. So pretty. And fun to watch people fall (don't judge. I know you laugh too when people fall down on ice.) 

The best part about Millennium Park...the Bean! (officially named the "cloud gate" though, I believe). 

Pictures in the bean were a must...


Yep..thats me doing the handstand in the middle of the park...
j/k. It was just another little gymnast girl doing flips and handstands in public...I remember those days well. 

Andrew doing his video thing...his new hobby lately.

Love that cute face :)

...and ADORE this city!



Of course, this trip would also not be complete without having a famous Chicago style hotdog! These things trump any another hot dog. I mean, hello...they have a pickle on it! 
 And as I am sure you already guessed, Andrew ate subway instead. 


The Hershey Store...which smelled like sweet, sweet heaven inside. 

Oh you know...just a giant bottle of chocolate syrup. (it was really a piggy bank.) But that would be pretty sweet if you could buy chocolate syrup in bottles that big. 

Every morning, we walked to this Borders bookstore for some Seattle's Best coffee...and for this pretty view.

The Grand Lux Cafe was our dinner destination for Saturday night. And definitely one of my favorites. 



Andrew saw me doing this a lot while we were in Chicago...stopping at windows to admire the lovely pieces of clothes, and particularly the shoes. I definitely left chicago with about 5 new pairs of shoes. oops. 

That's our hotel in the background. And Andrew holding some of my new shoe purchases. 


Cold? No...it was FREEZING.

Isn't he Cute :)

The doors to this gorgeous church were open, so we helped ourselves inside. 

They also had a free art exhibit going on...so I guess this inspired Andrew to get "artsy" with the pictures.

Andrew's good friend Brian happened to be in Chicago the same weekend, so we were excited to be able to meet up with him!

Another picture of where we stayed. And we will be back.

On the train ride back home. 
And you bet we are already planning our next visit back to Chi-town.