Last fall, (2010 goal:  timely blog updates!)  the Katies and I boarded a train to Chicago, and we had a blast!  Traveling by train was a new experience for me, and it wasn’t too bad, although I really could have done without the all-night denture-sucking from a gentleman a few rows back.  The is the same gentleman who, when it was announced that our train would be slightly delayed, concocted a ridiculous lie and dialed up some poor third party and forced them to deliver it to his boss.  Instead of, I don’t know, saying “my train was late?”

After checking into our hotel, freshening up, and enjoying a bountiful breakfast at The Original Pancake House, (potato pancakes and bacon pancakes and dutch babies, oh my!  You’ll soon realize that we devoted most of our trip-planning research to our meals.  What can I say, we love good food!) we decided to hit the streets and as you can see, Katie instantly picked up on the fashion style of the windy city:

That night we had a fantastic tapas dinner at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, (tapas are fun!  And delicious!  Except for the fried green peppers.  We do not recommend those) where sangria proved to be too strong for Katie:

After dinner, we headed to The Second City theatre, where they seated us practically onstage.  Really.  I am pretty sure I was resting my elbow on the stage in the picture below.  Thankfully we had the opportunity to relocate to a less neck-craney section before the show started.  The show was hilarious, and we were treated to an extra session at the end where the cast tried out new material.

The next morning, we got up, walked down the street from our hotel (Hotel Indigo) and ate breakfast at The 3rd Coast. (Their Eggs Benedict were fantastic!)  Then we headed over to Navy Pier and took an architectural river boat tour.

It was interesting and maybe just a little too long for our tastes, but was pleasant enough.  Apparently the Katies got bored and started posing while I continued to give the architecture the attention it deserved:

Next was the ferris wheel which was way higher than it looked.  This is me being nervous:

Ah, solid ground, much better!

Then we headed to The Signature Lounge in the Hancock Building to take in the view and enjoy some cocktails.  The view from the ladies bathroom is supposed to be one of the best in the city!  (we hear the mens room has no view at all!):

We finished up the day with a meal at The Home Bistro, a restaurant we will forever be indebted to for introducing us to the brilliance of bacon wrapped dates.  Seriously.  Go wrap some bacon around some dates.  SO good.

The next morning we went to Wrigley Field, where Katie realized her dream to play in the majors (I think really she might just want a statue modeled after her):

We decided to take a tour of Eli’s Cheesecake World, where we answered cheesecake trivia and won approximately 8 billion individual slices of cheesecake.  And an entire cheesecake.  Seriously, we were giving cheesecake away.  Our cab driver got a slice (which was inadvertently thrown AT him through the cab divider by a well-intentioned Katie,) our waitress at Kuma’s got a slice, random passersby got a slice.  We had more cheesecake than we knew what to do with.  Lots and lots of cheesecake, I, I guess… I guess would be the main bullet point of this presentation.

As if we weren’t full enough, we further punished ourselves by eating lunch at Kuma’s Corner, which from here on out will be reverently referred to as the Home of the Best Hamburger I have Ever Eaten in my Life.  SO GOOD.  If you go to Chicago and have only one meal, make it this one.  The Katies and I split a Make Your own Mac & Cheese and the YOB (Smoked Gouda, Bacon, Roasted Red Peppers, Roasted Garlic Mayo on a Pretzel Roll) and it was divine.  I want it RIGHT NOW!

After we rolled ourselves out of Kuma’s, we hit the scary glass boxes at the top of Willis (Née Sears) Tower where some awful person decided to jump up and down to test the glass we were standing on, oh, 1,353 feet off the ground.  (We survived.)

On our last day we ventured out to The Museum of Science & Industry, where we visited the Harry Potter exhibit (Katie elbowed her way to the front of the group to be the first to get sorted- Gryffindor, of course,) watched baby chicks get hatched, and made lots of weird faces.

Chicago, you were funny, delicious, and exhausting.  Let’s do it again sometime.

I am slowly getting the blog caught up (and doing it totally out of order, which in hindsight will probably drive me crazy, doh) on the events of the past 6 months or so.  I have been a bad blogger.

We did have a crazy-busy fall though.  (I realize that doesn’t really account for the current season, considering I am typing this on the last day of February, but help me out here.  Edit:  Okay, I am a moron.  TOMORROW is the last day of February.  Right?  Right???  I mean please tell me it’s not a leap year or I’ll have to edit my edit.)  We had weddings to attend/participate in almost every weekend in October!

First of all, I was the maid (Josh: ahem, MATRON) of honor in Jen and Clint’s wedding.  I didn’t get a whole lot of snaps as I was kind of tied up trying not to fall to my death while holding Jen’s train as we navigated a beautiful but terrifying spiral staircase of doom  (I may have added that last part) but I did take a few while we were getting ready:

The next weekend we headed to Georgia, for an old college buddy’s wedding.  The wedding was gorgeous, and isn’t Dorothy’s dress amazing?

With any new equipment purchase in our household, Holly becomes the guinea pig.  So of course the first photo taken with my new camera was of my favorite model:

While this isn’t the greatest, composition-wise, or terribly creative, (and highlights nicely my tendency to scatter things across the floor, willy nilly…hmm) I love this photo because it was taken in a dark room in my house where I have never been able to get good photos before.  Love this camera!

Holly would like you to know she does not work for free:

She works for Snausages.  (Excuse the blur, I just love that wild, Snausage-loving glint in her eye.)

We had a surprise when we woke up Monday morning!  Snow!  And lots of it.  Holly and I hit the back yard early in the day and had a blast.  Unfortunately I started feeling sick right after we got in and ended up spending the rest of the day in bed, ugh!  Now that I am feeling better I finally had a chance to sift through the dozens of snow photos I took.  We just got a new 85mm 1.8 lens for my work camera and this was the perfect time to play around with it.

Here she is saying, “Just throw it all ready!”

Our neighbor’s dog could hear us through the fence and did not appreciate our backyard ruckus!  So I hopped up on the fence and snagged a shot of Mr. Grumpy himself.  He looks sweet here, but I guarantee you he was pissed!  Good thing I didn’t have to get to close with the new 85mm!

Cathy and Ryan can do more than get dressed up and jump. They are also fabulous models.  This was my first time shooting at Rhodes and I loved it!

Ryan takes his modeling very seriously:

After Rhodes, we headed downtown to grab a few more shots before hitting the roof of the Peabody.  Of course we couldn’t leave out the Gambler!  Isn’t he pretty?  That intense look in his eyes?  Thank the squirrels of Memphis for that one.