He Had A Blast...and We Survived!

Jonathan and I went to Chicago last weekend to take a few days for ourselves... I was a nervous wreck to leave Tucker for the first time, but it was a great time for all.  Tucker stayed with my parents for a night and the Golding's for a few nights.  It was apparently a ton of fun for him, which made it easy for me to not worry about him.  We were also able to face time him via the iPhone4 - That's pretty much a lifesaver when your child can't talk!  That way he could see us, but I could also see his precious little face and get a little fix every day :).

Sweet smiling boy headed to church

His new favorite toy- grammy's hair dryer

Eating a whole banana and loving it!

Chilling with Popa

Just woke up - first morning we were gone

Everyone said that we wouldn't last the whole time because we would miss him so much, but I have to be honest, I felt guilty for having such a great time.  No doubt I missed him, but we were so busy that it was pretty much no down time, and we had a blast.  We left Wednesday night after Jonathan got out of class.  The trip there started at midnight and we finally arrived at our destination at 4pm.  We had some fun experiences along the way - for one, Jonathan realized we needed gas about Caro, but decided that he would get it after we passed over the Mississippi river.  To his dismay, there were several exits, but no gas, so we asked Seri (his phone) where the gas was, and there was a gas station about 5 miles up the road - if that's what you wanted to call it. When we pulled into town, it was all dark, and the "gas station" was one pump, and it was by no means 24 hours, so we decided we should turn back and go back over the river.  We had been averaging 21.3 miles a gallon and we had 20 miles or so back to the closest gas station, so we prayed hard on the way back hoping that at 3am we would not run out of gas.  Thankfully the Lord heard our prayers and we were able to fill up.  Once we were back on our way we started really looking for gas - we were at exit 1 once we passed over the bridge, and exit 56 was the next place we could get gas - SO SO GLAD WE TURNED AROUND!

We also stopped at the Ikea store in Chicago.  I have always wanted to go, but I have to be honest and say that I wasn't really impressed, which made me so sad.  They had some really cool decor and organizing things, but the furniture seemed to be very cheaply made.  We also went to a few other stores and then on to our hotel.  We stayed in Elk Grove Village, which was about 30 minutes outside of Chicago.  It was fine, but if we ever go back we will try to stay within the loop - Just for transportation reasons.  It was fun to ride the train in every day, and the L around the city was a little hard to figure out at first, but once we got it we were pros!

Thursday night we went to Giordano's Pizza and had a Chicago pizza and raspberry tea.  I know it's crazy, but if you eat at Giordano's, you've GOT to get the raspberry tea- AMAZING...we wanted to go back just to get more of that awesome tea. 

Friday we left Elk Grove and headed to Chicago around 9 and arrived in Chicago about 10.  It was so cold - and apparently that's the hottest it's been ever in March - we were both bundled up so much and the locals were walking around in short sleeves and no coats.  I believe we walked about 50 miles on Friday.  That night we missed the train back at 7:30 by about 2 minutes so we had to wait until the next train at 8:30 and we decided to just find a restaurant around our hotel to eat at once we got back.  To our surprise, we went to Seasons 52 and had the best meal I believe I've ever put in my mouth.  We both had a filet minion with asparagus, green beans, and carrots.  It was a very nice restaurant.  I wish they had something like this in the south, but maybe one day.  All of their entrees were under 475 calories, and the menu changes every season.  They also have a weekly special that is unique and completely different - 52 weeks out of the year.  We thoroughly enjoyed eating while we were gone, but hands down this was the best restaurant we ate at while we were gone.

Saturday we met up with my Aunt and Uncle that live in Wisconsin.  They came to Chicago and we went to the Navy Peer.  It was fun to see and walk around the peer for a little while and we had lunch at Bubba Gump's.  It was a fun day. We got up early Sunday morning and headed home.  It was so great to see Tucker, but he really didn't care - he was busy playing, but he came around and was happy to see us eventually.  :)

All in all we had a great time!