Chicago

So our next trip was to Chicago. The husband is a Network Admin for a decent sized company and they get a lot of their supplies from a large vendor. So that vendor had been asking him to come to Chicago, see the Cubs, see the facilities and talk shop a bit. We finally worked it out with grandparents and such that he could go and I could tag along. Also the 5yo had a t-ball game the night we were scheduled to leave. So, the plan was to go to t-ball and send the girls home with the grandparents, leave directly from there to head to Chicago. There was a line of storms coming through, but we couldn't tell exactly where or when we would be when it decided to storm. So we left after t-ball, our kids prefer not to live with us anyway, so there were no tears or anything as we waved goodbye. We got to I-88 before the weather started. At one point it was so dark and the clouds were so ominous we weren't sure what was going to happen.  There was a tornado warning near Dekalb at some point, but I think we stopped at the oasis and got ahead of it by that point. We were headed to Vernon Hills for the first night, once we made it through the storms and navigated our way through Chicago, we found ourselves at the Indigo Hotel Vernon Hills. To be clear, the first two hotels were on the vendor's dime, we didn't pay for them, and we were reimbursed for taxis and valet and tolls.

Hotel Indigo bed (two fulls, we slept separately this night)

The hotel is really nice and very modern. Wood floors (or wood look alike floors) and mounted flat TVs, a sectional couch and a nice modern bathroom area.  Since there were two full sized beds we decided to sleep separately for this night. We prefer a King sized bed and this was just not going to work to sleep together :) The only drawback to separate beds is that I can't wiggle when he starts to snore (the wiggling stops it generally). Oh well, we were pretty tired after the late and stressful drive, so we slept pretty well. There is no free breakfast, but there is free wifi and the hotel is very nice. I think we liked it best of all the hotels on this trip.

Hotel Indigo couch, faces the desk and tv area

Hotel Indigo bathroom

Hotel Indigo dresser and desk, across from couch

Hotel Indigo Sink (all liquid runs AWAY from drain)

Hotel Indigo TV

So when you brush your teeth and spit into this fancy pants sink, all the spit runs AWAY from the drain. Totally gross. Very cool LOOKING sink, but totally gross functionally. Otherwise the room was really nice and felt larger than a hotel room and was super comfortable. We were on the 7th floor also, so we had a nice view in the morning. The husband had some work things in the morning and then came back to the hotel for me and we checked out and headed into downtown Chicago.

3 wheel motorcycle with WALKER strapped to the back

Traffic in Chicago sucks. Driving in Chicago sucks. Therefore I conclude that living in (or near) Chicago must suck. We left around 10:30am Thursday morning from Vernon Hills and I think we arrived at our hotel at close to 11:45am. So..a little over an hour to go about 35 miles. I cannot imagine doing that regularly.  We saw a pickup truck with two mattresses flapping on the back, weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac. I highly doubt they made it to their destination with mattresses intact. We also saw a three wheel motorcycle with an older man and woman riding, with a walker strapped to the back. If you need a walker - GET IN A CAR. Crazy. So our next hotel destination was Omni Hotel Chicago.

Sunset view from our fifth floor room

The Omni is an all suite hotel I believe, with valet service and a fancy pants bar and restaurant on the fourth floor. First of all, the address is 676 Michigan Avenue, which might be where the mailbox is, but it is NOT where the drive up valet is. So we drove past it first, in downtown lunch traffic and had to navigate around a block or two, through the maniac pedestrians to get back to the hotel.  The valet/front of the hotel is on Heron NOT Michigan. Valet parking was $54 which is insane, but what else are you going to do if you don't live there and don't know where else to park? Luckily we're getting that cost back. So the hotel room opens into a living area with a desk and wetbar with a fully stocked fridge. The bathroom is nice and then the bedroom was a king sized bed (yay) with a pocket door leading to the bathroom and french double doors leading to the living area. It was pretty nice. The views are obviously of other large hotels and downtown buildings, but it's still a pretty nice view.

Omni Hotel, Living area

Omni Hotel, wet bar

Omni Hotel, bedroom

Omni Hotel, pocket door into bathroom

The Omni only offers free wifi in the reception area and if you join their membership program (free). I wasn't interested in that, and honestly, for as much as these hotel rooms with valet cost..free wifi and maybe even free breakfast doesn't seem like too much to ask. We'd never stay here on our own, but it was a really nice hotel. We caught a cab and headed to the Cubs game right around noon, to meet our vendor contact and go into the game together. They have a suite at Wrigley so that was...pretty awesome. I had never been to Wrigley before, so that was pretty fun and it was a beautiful day for a baseball game.

Wrigley entrance

cubs vs reds

The suite had beer and drinks and free food and excellent seats. The outside seating area had a little heater over it, which was great because it was shaded and kind of breezy. I brought a cute jacket/blazer thing to wear over my summery outfit which worked out perfectly. The game went to 14 innings. FOURTEEN. We did the seventh inning stretch TWICE. Around inning 11 the rest of our group left to go to a bar, but the husband and I waited it out. We weren't really that interested in the bars and I kind of wanted the full game experience. Well, the Cubs WON and I say it's because we stuck it out. :) It was pretty fun.  We caught a cab a couple blocks from the stadium and headed back to the hotel. We weren't really in the mood to wander around hunting for a restaurant, so we headed to the fourth floor 676 Bar & Restaurant. Very swanky.

Diet Pepsi

View from the 676 Restaurant

The husband had New York Strip steak and I had Lake Michigan White Fish. The restaurant cooks only with locally sourced food which was kinda cool and weird at the same time. I bet that gets difficult in the snowy winter. Both were fantastic. Super delicious and perfectly cooked. My diet pepsi came with the extra in that fancy vase thing, which was weird and fancy. It was expensive, but considering we are being reimbursed for most of the rest of the expenses, we treated ourselves. We could see a giant Apple store out the window of the restaurant and it was really really great food. We probably under-tipped because of the price of everything, but I couldn't make myself do more given what the bill was anyway. It was nice...not something we'd do that often, but it was nice. We were tired from all the driving the last couple days and navigating our way around Chicago and enjoying the game. So we headed up to the room to lounge and then sleep. The husband had more work things Friday morning, and then I checked us out when he was on his way back, we got our car out of the valet and we were done with Chicago.

When we arranged the trip, we sent the kids with the husbands parents for Wed/Thursday night. But they needed to leave to see my sister in law in Georgia, and they wanted to leave on Saturday. They would have stayed for us if necessary but we didn't want to hold them up. So we arranged for my dad and his wife to pick up the girls and take them Friday night. That gave us an extra day to go to IKEA and the Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora. So Friday morning we left the Omni and headed north to Schaumburg.

I hadn't been to this IKEA since my oldest was less than a year old. We go to the Minneapolis IKEA sometimes when we're up there for the Mall of America but its not quite the same as this one. I didn't want to bore the husband, so I had a plan of what I was looking for before we got there. We started with lunch in the cafe, which was good, but disorganized. Then we headed to shopping. I wanted to make a full lap, but not linger anywhere other than the spots I knew I wanted to buy from. So I bought a set of pink magazine holders for the oldest girl, for her desk under her new loft. Then we headed to the chests of drawers. I had looked at the HEMNES 5-drawer chest as a sort of supplemental storage solution for the husband, our new dresser is awesome, but he could use a bit more space. The we saw the BRUSALI 4-drawer. My intention was to put it in our room, where the laundry basket was and move that out to the hall for better access for the kids, but when we did all that, it was just taking up too much space. So..I cleaned out my closet a bit and made room for it just inside. It's perfect. He puts his underwear and work tshirts in the top three drawers, freeing up a drawer in our main dresser, I took the bottom drawer for my workout clothes. I cleaned out my hanging clothes and shoes, which was an added bonus. Yay. I love it.

IKEA chest

Next we found ourselves in the TV stand area of IKEA. It wasn't my intention to stop here, nor to buy anything, but we'd been talking about replacing the basement stand that the husband built ten years ago with something smaller for our new tv.  We needed something at a particular height, that could hold a 60" TV and had a space for the center speaker to be underneath the TV as well as extra spaces for the XBOX, PS3, DirecTV box and Receiver. Some extra storage would be ok too. So we found one that would work great..and then we found another that worked better...and then we found the BESTA. That link isn't exactly right, but it's the closets I could find. It looks just like that, but there are 3 shelves in each spot. It's actually a cabinet with 6 shelves and then an extra one with 3 shelves. We put a door on one of them to hide our junk. It's working perfectly. It cleans up the space and holds everything perfectly.

IKEA tv stand

It was a great IKEA trip. I'm kind of hoping I can get another trip in sometime soon, with my mother in law. We'd have such a great time, just she and I. Maybe a trip for her birthday or something in November, if the snow/weather isn't awful. We then headed to the Outlet malls in Aurora, stopping in Naperville to check into our Best Western Naperville hotel. It was a typical Best Western, not super fancy, great deal, nice room and easy to find. I didn't take any pictures because you all know what a BW looks like. The front desk girl was super friendly so our checkin was easy and quick. We rested a bit and then headed to the shopping. I got quite a few things, but I think I'll save that for another post. We shopped until we couldn't anymore, and then we headed to Panera to take some dinner to the hotel and we called it a night. We checked out Saturday morning and headed back to our children. Chicago was fun, but it was time to go home.

Motorcycle Road Trip

The first weekend in June the husband and I took a motorcycle road trip to Hannibal, Missouri. The birthplace of Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, or whatever. The whole area is confusing with Becky Thatcher's house...a fictional character..and Samuel's father's office..a real man..the fictional pieces are mixed with the real pieces. It's a nice area, right on the Mississippi River (flooding at the time of our visit) but the mix of stories I found to be...confusing.

Tom Sawyer's Fence

A berm keeps the Mississippi from invading Hannibal, but there was definite flooding

We drove down on Friday morning, leaving the children with the in-laws. We drove in about 40-50 miles increments, stopping to stretch and eat lunch as necessary. We've got a new seat on the bike and we got a really great luggage piece to carry all our stuff. It was a beautiful day for riding, cool enough so wearing our protective jackets wasn't too hot, but warm enough we weren't freezing. We arrived around 2pm and headed to Lulabelle's to check in. We stayed in their Main Street Bed & Breakfast, in the Renaissance Room.

Renaissance Room - King Bed

Bathroom counter, mini fridge under counter

Giant tub

Private toilet area

TV stand

Shower, low-flow head

The room was enormous, located directly downtown. It was a great location for walking to all the attractions and bars and restaurants. We parked the bike and just walked everywhere. We were booked for two nights, but the noise from the bars on the street and the incoming storm sent us home Saturday afternoon instead. The B&B owner very nicely refunded our 2nd night. If we had been in our car, we likely would have stayed and just moved rooms to a quieter spot (at Lulabelle's proper probably) but on the bike we couldn't risk the storm and having trouble driving home on Sunday in the rain or even hail. There were also a couple problems with the room (low-flow shower and TV) that would have prompted us to move or leave after one night also.

Lulabelle's Train Mufflers

The room comes with Lulabelle's Train Mufflers because the trains run over by the river throughout the night. The Mississippi was flooded at the time, so the trains weren't running. I did use these to drown out the bar patrons from midnight until 2am when the bars closed, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it a good sign that they provide ear plugs. The room was really large though, on the 2nd floor of an older downtown building, and really nice and clean, so overall we had a great time. There was a note about breakfast on our checkin paper, but we didn't notice that until we packed up to leave. Oh well. The girls stayed with the in-laws the 2nd night anyway, so we still had the weekend on our own, just at home :) It was a great ride and I got to break in my new seat and footboards which were excellent. We even stopped at Shelton's fireworks on the way home and grabbed as many fireworks as we could fit on the back of the bike - it wasn't much :)

Shelton Firewoks, Missouri

The Hannibal area needs to invest some serious time and money into the area if they want it to remain a tourist area. There was construction in front of a stretch of stores, they were all still open, but it was a little hard to navigate and it seems like no one was working on it. We headed to the non-historic part of town to get some snacks at Walmart and I think if they don't get the historic area updated, it'll be less interesting to tourists as they come through.

Summertime

Summertime is over. School started Thursday (the 16th).

This post is going to have a lot of pictures. We tried to make sure our week off, our vacation at home, our staycation if you will was awesome. We didn't want to spend too much so we decided to stay home, but ended up spending plenty of money anyway at the fair and local shopping and mini golfing and bowling. It was a great week though.We started by trampolining at my brother's house. They're moving and not taking the trampoline with them, so we need to get some jump time in on it before its unavailable.

That's the 4yo jumping with her cousin

Next up, bowling! The 4yo had never been bowling and the 9yo had been with her school. So we took some free coupons we had from their reading program at the library and went and bowled just for the cost of shoe rental. That was pretty sweet.

Daddy helping the 4yo to bowl

The 9yo is clearly a pro

I can do it myself!

After bowling we saw the weather was going to get a bit hot. So we got up a little earlier the next morning and went mini golfing. It was perfect, hot enough we didn't want to be there long, but nice enough we could get through 18 mini holes. We even took a break in the middle to cool off in the a/c and take a potty break. I couldn't decide which photos to post..so I'm posting all the good ones. I did mention this was a photo heavy post, right?

Since it was so hot that day we came home, had some lunch and rested for a bit. Then we headed out to the pool. We're pretty lucky to be able to have a pool and the girls love it. They always find ways to make games and play act things out.

 We took a break for the go go go on Wednesday and then we headed out Thursday to do some horseback riding and visit the Iowa State Fair. The 9yo loved horseback riding and I hung with the 4yo while we waited, which was fun too. So much crazy good food and things to see at the fair and we found some pretty cool products to buy as well. I'd actually like to hunt down the nandymemoholder.com people so I can buy more. I also found sudsysoapcakes.com and haredo.com . We spent too much of course, but it was a lot of fun.

making spin art

the finished spin art

ice cream is so good

Friday we took it easy again and then the weekend was sort of full with adult plans. The husband took a long motorcycle ride with some friends (Poopy's Triangle) and then I had a bachelorette party and Sunday the husband golfed and I had a bridal shower. All in all it was an excellent vacation. 

I also thought it'd be easier this summer to exercise, and do things with the kids and do this and do that. I was wrong. Summer break made it harder to get all the things I wanted to do done..I'm too busy playing with my children in all the free time.