It's Been a Crazy Couple of Weeks

Sorry for falling off the blogging bandwagon for a couple of weeks there, but it's been crazy busy lately.  Two weekends ago S and I flew to Chicago for a long weekend with friends and family and to see the Chicago Car Show.  More on that in a bit, but that accounts for the lack of posting at the end of that week.  The following week (last week) I was on console at work, which makes for a busy week alone.  But on top of that I was super sick with a sinus infection and I had to spend $900 to get the A/C fixed on my car (and an extra $100 for a new battery on top of that).  Booo!  So between the crazy work schedule, leaving work early to go home and nap because my sinuses were killing me and I couldn't sleep through the night, and ferrying back and forth to get my car situation worked out there was NO time for an update.  This week I'll try better, I promise!

So back to the Chicago trip!  We flew in on Thursday night and took the El to my friend K and J's house in the city.  We stayed up chatting for a while, but S and I were exhausted and K and J were on baby-time so we didn't stay up too late.  The following morning we woke up, hung out with J and the baby (I gave him his first cheerios!) and then S and I headed out to do some exploring.  Our original plan to get lunch and then go to a museum was overthrown as soon as we reached our lunch destination: Eataly.  It is culinary heaven on earth - a full city block and 2 stories high it is filled with multiple restaurants, an Italian grocery store (5 aisles of pasta, 3 of olive oil....) as well as a coffee shop, a gelateria, a gourmet pastry display, and a birreria, which is basically a craft beer bar where we proceeded to spend 2 of the next 3 hours.  They have one in New York too, so if you get the opportunity to go - GO!

We headed back to the house with our goodies and then spent the afternoon cuddling and playing with the baby so J could get stuff done.  He is such a cutie!  Once K got home from work we all hung out for a little bit and then went out for a Valentine's Day double date at a local Chicago brewpub, Revolution.  Basically we spent our whole day drinking beer, which S was a HUGE fan of.  The baby got into it a bit too:

The following morning my parents came to meet us at K and J's house for brunch.  J whipped up french toast and roasted potatoes and my parents brought a (yolk free!) cinnamon coffee cake and fresh fruit. We sat around talking far longer than we probably should have, but we were having such a good time!  My mom was working awfully hard to get the baby to say his first word: gently..... gently.....   S and I then loaded our luggage into my parent's car and we headed up to McCormick Center for the Chicago Car Show (yeah, S was really enjoying this weekend trip....)

The Chicago Car Show is crazy big.  And S was like a kid in a candy store - super hyper, not knowing where to look first, and running around with a huge smile on his face.  We got to see the new Mustang, some really amazing concept cars, a few smaller SUVs that I'm mulling for my next car purchase, the new "affordable" Mercedes, some crazy expensive sports cars, and the cherry on top - the new Corvette Stingray and Z06.

It was a busy, full, exhausting day (we had to park like a mile from McCormick because there were so many people at the auto show..), but we all had a good time.  We had dinner out that night and then crashed hard.  The following morning we woke up to omelets (my dad is the best when it comes to weekend breakfasts), washed up, and then went out to a matinee with my parents.  We saw American Hustle finally and thought that the acting was indeed quite impressive.  I treated everyone to lunch at a Mongolian grill-type restaurant and then we headed home to help hang artwork, get our bags together, and head to the airport.  We had a really fantastic weekend!

That's it for travel for us for a little while now, though.  We're travel-ed out (not to mention broke after my car repair) and so we've declared March a travel-free month.  So here's hoping we actually manage to keep our weekends semi-open so we can enjoy sleeping in and chilling out at home before more craziness kicks in later this spring!

(top picture from here)