Back from Chicago

We are back from a whirlwind (and expensive!) belated anniversary weekend in Chicago. While Cousin Heather and Nana and Papa took turns watching Lucy, we were walking and shopping our tushes off in downtown Chicago. We stayed at the historical Palmer House Hilton hotel. It is a beautiful hotel with excellent service.

We arrived Friday early evening and settled into our room. Not quite hungry yet we walked up State Street to peruse Macy's and a few other shops before dinner at a small joint next to our hotel. A coworker of mine who works in our Michigan office was in town that week for training and staying until Saturday. We agreed to meet up for breakfast in the morning.

Here I am at Macy's posing with the unicorns, a tribute to my friend Kellie:

Saturday morning we met Diane and her husband Joe at the hotel and went to the Corner Bakery for breakfast and chit chat. We all headed over to the Christkindlmarket but it was not open yet, so we parted ways. Troy and I headed back to the hotel where we spent a lot at a particular store I cannot mention until after the holidays (as we did some gift shopping here!). Then it was a cab ride over to Gino's East for lunch of their fabulous deep dish pizza - yum!

Troy at Gino's in their infamously graffitied booths:

After lunch we cabbed it back to the Christkindlmarket, now open and wall to wall with everyone in the city. We perused all the booths, drank some Kinder Gluwein and did more Christmas shopping.

Here I am looking at some beautiful nutcrackers:

Us in front of the big tree at the Christkindlmarket:

After a brief rest at our hotel, it was starting to rain, so we took a cab over to a mall on the Michigan Mile, where we walked down Michigan Avenue checking out many shops. Our first was, duh, the Hershey store:

A few hours, a few blocks, and more purchases later, we cabbed it back to the hotel where I could've collapsed except it was onlyh 5:30 and that would be lame! We asked our concierge for a recommendation on a CLOSE restaurant for good steak or seafood. He recommended the Rose Pointe and made us reservations.

We hoofed it in the rain to the restaurant and it was so worth not crawling into bed for! It was voted by both of us as the best meal we have eaten in our entire lives! The ambience was awesome, the waiters were decked out, just perfect. Being a steak house, the entrees were a la carte. We both decided to have our meals (Troy had a top sirloin, bone in, huge steak, and I had the Rose Pointe bone-in filet) served "Oscar style", which means, served on a bed of asparagus, topped in KING CRAB, with hollandaise sauce on the side. Say no more. We shared a side of wild rice, which was completely unnecessary. The photo below is of Troy's steak before he started. It really does it no justice. He DID finish the whole thing. I however sadly left half of mine.

The waiter overheard it was our anniversary and brought us out a complimentary key lime pie. I normally don't eat much in the pie department but this was homemade with real key limes and pure heaven. Not a bite was wasted. For me, it was like having a margarita in dessert form.

Stuffed and unable to move, we waddled back to our hotel where Troy immediately called his parents to give details on the meal we just ate (it was THAT GOOD). Then we collapsed into bed.

Up early this morning, we headed for home around 8:45 with word of storms heading our way. Needless to say we missed whatever they were predicting, minus some minor drizzle, we were home by 2:45 and very anxious to see Lucy! We had never left her minus a parent over night, either one of us have been away for a few nights, but not both. She survived, I missed her terribly!

Christmas is approaching soon and I'm glad I took tomorrow off as a vacation day. A lot of projects to get done as I do some handmade gifts myself. Nearly 26 weeks pregnant here with the baby boy we call "Max". (Cute story here - while we were away, Abby was diligently keeping guard over her "baby" Lucy, following her everywhere. When we got home, Troy asked Abby "did you take care of your baby while we were gone?" and Lucy says "Max?")

Happy holidays everyone, and if I don't post again, I'm sure it will be after Christmas with LOTS of pictures!