St. Louie

I didn't put pictures up of St. Louis because I already had a long post about Chicago. After we left Chicago on Monday, we drove to St. Louis and stayed there for 3 days. I had never been to St. Louis so we did all of the tourist things. We went to the arch on Tuesday. I was pretty excited about seeing the view of the city.

view of Busch stadium from the arch

After the arch, we went to Grant's house. I was excited about this because I teach about Grant during our Civil War unit. So I will now have some more information on this famous general/president.

Interesting color huh??

A letter Grant had written.

On Wednesday, we went to the St. Louis Zoo. We went early in the morning because it was so hot. I was impressed with this zoo. It had a lot of great exhibits.

Chimpanzees

Penguins

Camels

We had a great time at the zoo, even though it was hot. We did a little shopping at the Galleria (well I did) and then we just relaxed before we drove home. I had a great vacation! 

Chi-Town

We had a great time on vacation!! We drove to Chicago a week ago today, it was a long drive but not too bad. We were so excited when we finally could see the city in sight. When we arrived, we went straight to Riley and Sarah's apartment. They live downtown in the middle of everything...it was so convenient. 

This is their apartment building, they live on the 40th floor. 

View of the city from their apartment

Andy and I on their balcony

Standing on the LaSalle Street bridge, with the Chicago River in the background. On Friday night, Sarah and Riley took us to one of their favorite italian restaurants. It was really good!! Then we walked around Michigan Avenue and had some yogurt for dessert. Saturday we had a busy day planned. We first went to Millenium park and saw the bean and the fountain.

This is the famous bean, I had no idea what to expect and had never heard of it.

Sarah and I in front of the bean

This was a neat fountain..there were kids and adults playing in the water. Some of the kids had their swimming suits on and were just having a ball. After Millenium park, we headed to ride the "L" to Wrigleyville. The L is an elevated subway, thats why they call it the L. It was my first experience on a subway and it was pretty neat. However, if I had to navigate my way on it alone I would never get to my destination. It's a little confusing. Andy and Sarah were making fun of me because I was acting like a tourist and taking pictures of everything. Here is a picture of the tunnel where the subway is

We went to a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley field. It was so fun! They lost to the Angels but the atmosphere is awesome! Here are some pictures from the game..

Andy and I in front of the Wrigley Field sign.

The infamous Chicago Dog, which I did not try. This was a little much for me but I did try one similiar but without most of the toppings.

All of us at the game. We had a great time, even though the Cubs lost. After the game, Sarah and I went shopping and Andy and Riley went to one of Riley's friends house for a cookout. That night we went to the John Hancock Building. It has the fastest elevator and an awesome view of the city. 

View of Navy Pier

Picture of the sun setting from the tower. I really enjoyed the view, I took lots of pictures. Riley told us that you can see three states from the tower, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. After the tower, we went to Giordanos to have Chicago style pizza. It was so yummy..

On Sunday, Andy and I celebrated our one year anniversary!! What better place to celebrate than Chicago! We had another busy day planned. We went on a architecture boat ride through the city.

The trump tower

Corn on the cob buildings

Merchandise Mart it is the second largest building in terms of square feet in the U.S.  It is over 4 million square feet. The first largest is the Pentagon.

The darker building is the Sears now called the Willis Tower. We did not go up in this one. On Friday night, there were some strong winds with heavy rain and it busted out a window in the Sears building. That is the first time that has ever happened. After our boat ride, we went to the Shedd Aquarium.

After the Aquarium, we walked back to their apartment. We had to stop and get our picture taken in front of the Chicago sign

We then went back to their apartment to pack up our things. My uncle reserved a hotel room for us at the Embassy Suites. We headed to Embassy and then went to dinner at Carmines for our anniversary. It was a great choice and in a great location. On the way to dinner, we saw a lot of fire trucks and ambulances and were wondering what was going on. There had been a fire on the L. Pretty scary, but that didn't stop us from riding it on Monday. Monday was our last day in Chicago. We went to the Field Museum and then to Michigan Avenue to go to Crate and Barrel. The only reason I wanted to go to the Field Museum was to see Sue and here she is.

This was the highlight of the museum. After the museum we headed back to the apartment and loaded up our car. We left on Monday afternoon and went to St. Louis. Andy and I had a great time in Chicago and want to go back! 

Guess where we are going??

Can you guess where we are going from this picture???? This is our vacation destination for Summer 2010.

I am so excited about our vacation this year...I mean it is definitely not relaxing on the beach all day but I'm super pumped about going to CHICAGO!! My good friend Sarah and her husband Riley live there and they have graciously opened up their home to us. We are going to stay with them for a couple of days and tour this fabulous city that I have been dying to see for years. We are leaving tomorrow at 5 am, it is roughly a 10 hour drive so we have to get an early start. I'm not thrilled about the drive but I think it will be okay since we have a DVD player in the Yukon. Once we arrive we are going to go to dinner and go to John Hopkins building. I'm not exactly sure what we are going to do Saturday morning but we are going to a Cubs game on Saturday afternoon.

I can't wait to go to the game at Wrigley Field, it will be a blast! On Sunday we will celebrate our one year anniversary!! The time has flown by and I'm so blessed to be married to an amazing man. We are going to go on an Architecture Boat Ride in the morning. I think Andy will really enjoy this!

My uncle has generously offered a hotel room at the Embassy Suites downtown for our anniversary night. He travels a lot and had enough points for us to stay for free!! He is the best! I think we are going to have dinner at Carmines and then just hang out downtown. I am super excited about this trip. After Chicago, we are going to drive to St. Louis and spend a couple of days there. I have never been there either so I'm excited. I think we are going to go to the zoo, shop, and maybe some museums. All in all our vacation should be awesome! We will return on Thursday June 24th, and I will have plenty of pictures to post!!

This weekend I have been in the painting mood. I have painted a kitchen rug for my mom and a vase for my kitchen. My friend Ashley painted this vase for her house and I loved it...so I went to Hobby Lobby bought the vase, paint, and initial and went to work. Ashley made it sound so easy and I had a few minor difficulties. In the end it turned out pretty good...

I have also been in the baking mood. Only in summer do I make this dessert...fruit pizza!! It is so yummy! I invited my neighbor Whitney over tonight to try it and she loved it!! She said it was definitely something I needed to blog about. So thats what I am doing..here is the recipe for Fruit Pizza:

18 oz. sugar cookie roll

8 oz. cream cheese

1/3 cup of sugar

1/2 tsp. of vanilla

Any Fruit of your choice ( I use strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, pineapple, and mandarin oranges)

1/2 cup of strawberry preserves

2 tbs. of water

Directions:

1. Slice cookies and line pizza pan to make crust

2. Bake crust at 350 for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown

3. Let crust cool completely

4. Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and then spread on crust

5. Drain fruit and arrange over cream cheese mixture

6. Mix preserves and water and drizzle over fruit

7. Cover and refrigerate

8. Enjoy!

Painting

I have been painting another rug this week for my momma. She wanted one just like mine except of course for the initial. I was able to paint this one a little faster than the first one, which is definitely a good thing. I am hoping to paint another one for my classroom. This is my mom's rug for her kitchen...I used a different size letter on hers and I like it! It stands out more than the one I have! I hope she likes it!

My two friends also came over and painted rugs too! This is one that Ashley painted...I love it! So cute!

The other rug is not finished so I will post a picture of that later! We had a good time hanging out and painting! We hope to make some more soon! 

26

Yesterday was my hubby's birthday...he turned 26. Last night we went to Herman's for his birthday dinner. He had never been there before...it was so good! On Monday night we all got together with his family and my family for his birthday. We went and ate at Gusano's then came back to our house for cake and ice cream. He wanted me to make him a chocolate cake and I was a little nervous about that! I mean I have made cakes before but not one like this! It must have been pretty good because this is all that was left...

It was pretty good!! After we had cake Andy opened his presents. He doesn't get too excited about things but I think he was excited about his presents. Here he is opening his gifts

His work bench..he put it together the night he got it!

Andy and I on the patio! I can't believe I married such an amazing man!! I love him so much!!