I forgot to mention...

...that Lexus parks itself! EJ punched some buttons on this TV screen in the car, and put his hands behind his head. It parallel parked itself! (In case you were wondering why it cost $130k)

Also, he said that in August we should come back because the hotel is buying a $400k Mercedes for its VIP guests. Like me and Teri.

Sunday in Chicago

Well Sunday we pretty much had breakfast, shopped and ate and shopped and ate.

We had dinner at McCormick's and it was yummmmmmmmmmm. I had the crab legs and filet mignon and Teri had just crab legs. Caught on the boat that Deadliest Catch is filmed on!





We didn't have to be to the airport until 9pm so we had a nice full day of shopping. It was great. I ended up buying:
- 8 pairs of underwear. (Supplies are getting low.)
- A ridiculously expensive pair of jeans. Somehow got $50 off at the register, and still they were too much. But I love them. I think I might wear them every day this week.
- A pair of UGG sandals (cute!)
- A ring (from Tiffany's, I LOVE IT, and will never take it off.)

Here's a picture of the ADORABLE shoes Teri bought:

Saturday Night

Mom and Pete and Kelly told us how they saw a homeless guy eating right out of the garbage can. He was leaning on the sides of the can with his elbows and was absolutely going to town on a hamburger and fries and was so happy. He was eating really fast and bits of burger and fries were flying everywhere. What made me laugh the most though was when Pete was telling the story, he described the guy's mood as being like he was "eating caviar. With a golden spoon."

We got to ride in the Lexus a second time on Saturday night! Our driver was in the lobby after we finished dinner and asked if we wanted a City Tour. Of course we said "YES!" and hurried my family out the door.

We got to hang out the windows and wave to my family as they stood on the sidewalk. It was fun. Here are some pics of the car and EJ the driver.

He brought us over to the stadium where the baseball team plays (Cubs? who cares?) Anyways then we parked the car and got out and took photos of the amazing skyline. SO pretty.

More Chicago

After my last post, we walked down to Millenium Park and took lots of photos and enjoyed the weather. It was SO nice out.

Chicago has beautiful amazing flowers planted everywhere in all of their boulevards and pavilions. Millions and millions of flowers.

We called this one, "Tulips on my Face":

They have a magic mirrored bean in Millenium Park. It's hours and hours of fun and we were laughing so hard at how fun it was. Here are some of the pics we took.

Then my brother called and we met up with my family for a bit, which ended up that we just got a ride further down the Miracle Mile for shopping. We had fun shopping for about 3 or 4 hours and then met back up with my family for dinner at our hotel. A lil' tapas place called Mercat.

Chicago Chicago you're a wonderful town

So I'm in Chicago! So far, the two most amazing things happened to me:

There is a TV in the mirror in the bathroom of my hotel room! You can watch the news while you brush your teeth.



Last night Teri and I wanted to walk to the Hancock building and get a martini in the lounge. We asked the hotel how far it was to walk and he arranged for us to take the private hotel car, which happened to be a $130k Lexus. For free! The driver showed us all it's little bells and whistles and we felt very spesh.

BUT here's how dumb I am:
When we got in the car, I didn't know what kind it was, but it looked really nice, and was quite comfortable in the back, so I go to the driver, "This is a nice little car." And he goes, "blah blah blah Hyundai $28000." And then I felt bad for the hotel and the car because it was like it was trying to look like a nice car with a driver but was only a Hyundai. And then Teri told me later he said, "a hundred and twenty eight thousand". And then when we got out I saw that it was a Lexus.

It was pretty cool to have our own private driver bring us to the Hancock Center.

The best view of Chicago happened to be in the women's restroom. We had a couple mojitos (at $14.50 a pop) and some snacks and then we went back to the hotel room.

Today we are going to go shopping. We just got done having a really yummy breakfast at 11 City Grill and it was TO DIE FOR. Teri had French Toast and I had a pesto basil omelette.

Off to Miracle Mile for some shopping and then we're meeting up with my mom and Pete and Kelly for a Greek dinner.

Ciao!

My new sofa

aka couch. I got it on facebook, which is the new craigslist. They're delivering it tomorrow just as I leave for the airport. I won't even get to really enjoy it until later. But Nancy and Beata and Kalea and Summer will get to enjoy it, cuz they're all having a slumber party WITHOUT ME. At my HOUSE.

Kinda makes me sad.

But then I remember, I'm going to Chicago! And I feel better.

Snowboarding

So here we go again. Another attempt up the mountain. This time it wasn't so bad. Traffic was better, we got up even earlier, and Steven's Pass was open! The only crappy part was me having to go pee so bad I couldn't even see straight and jumping out while everybody else was parking, and running to the chalet to pee and then having to walk ALL the way to the car to find everybody and then hurry to get my boots on because they already had their boots on. The boys were anxious to get rolling and so we did and we took a couple runs but after two we were starving. That's what I love about the mountains. You're ready for a break after two runs because the runs are super duper long. And so are the chairlifts.

Lunch was a yummy burger that was much too small. We ate outside because we're from Minnesota and what's a little snow and cold?

After lunch, the boys wanted to get rolling again and Anna and I decided we needed more beer and so we let them go and we rested/warmed up a little bit more. We took to the slopes and enjoyed a nice, laid-back afternoon of runs composed of lots of resting and taking pictures. My kinda day.

And then it was time to take another break. We had some more beers, and went out one last time.




Pretty fun. Tired and sore. But a good day. And then we headed back to Shea and Lena's place for some fun times and baby-holding:

Who knew there was a gum wall in Seattle?

This wall is near Pike's Place Market. Not all the local folks knew where it was when we asked around. But it does exist, and it is SO GROSS. It's just a brick wall where people stick their gum. Some people spell stuff, some people string their gum across other gum, and some people throw their gum way up high to try to make it stick up there.
A girl walking away from the wall as we arrived was chewing gum and I was like, "free gum? Awesome!"

Irish Pub

As I mentioned it was very cold...and so we moved quickly from the Aquarium to lunch. We happened upon Fado's, an Irish Pub on 1st Street, a few blocks down from Pike's Place Market and the Aquarium. We ate lunch and had a Guiness.



The best tomato soup I have ever had:

Abra cadabra!:

Seattle Aquarium

So Anna and Jake decided to go skiing/snowboarding on January 2nd. We still weren't sure if the Pass would be open, and we were a little sick of sitting in the car and so Cory and I decided to hit the Seattle sights for the day. We started by grabbing coffee right next door to our Condo. Then we walked over to the Seattle Aquarium. On the way Cory set up his tripod and took some photos of the city. It's such a pretty city, but don't you think it looks fake?

It was SO COLD that day. Shortly after this photo was taken I wrapped the scarf right around my head. But it was nowhere near as cold as Minneapolis, and so we didn't mind.

We got to the aquarium and basically paid $16 each to warm up. Cory goes, "that's like $1 a fish". And then he said for that price they should at least give you a sushi meal at the end of it.

This lady was talking to us right through her mask into a microphone. I thought that was really cool. Here she is placing a sea anemone into a spot and then it will sort of grow legs and stick there.

They had two octopuses. They were complete Mush and very boring. Apparently they are cannibals and will eat eachother. A female octopus can receive a gift of sperm from a male octopus and decide whether or not she wants to get pregnant with that sperm. If another, more attractive octopus comes along, she simply discards the sperm from the lesser attractive octopus and impregnates herself with the sperm from the more attractive one. Genius!

Space Pin

On the way up the elevator to the top, the woman told us that the Puget Sound has one of the world's largest species of Octopus. I thought that was weird. Here in the good ol' USA? Octopus. Preposterous!

View from the top:

Dinner at Cutters afterward: (Salmon)

We had the BEST SUSHI EVER that night. YUM.

Our waiter was knowledgable, but very snooty. When Jake ordered a Brandy Manhattan, he sort of dissed Jake's Brandy by saying that he used that brand to "cook with". Also he showed us the wine list and said that he had been "working with the chef on this list for 10 years."

We were like, Really? 10 years? You? Working with the Chef? Of Cutters? I think we only felt that way because of his snooty-ness.

And then Cory made this lil' lady out of his discarded Edamame shells, and we had fun making her talk.

More Seattle

So the first night we arrived was New Year's Eve. I'm not gonna lie. I love fireworks. So when I found out that the Space Pin has fireworks and it was five blocks from our condo, I was sorta excited. Then Jakey Jake and his Reasonable Traveler's Disposition stepped into remind me that we were getting up at 6am to go snowboarding the next day. So I reluctantly agreed to go to bed early. It wasn't easy either, because our condo was on a very busy street and all night we could hear revelers out there partying it right on up. It didn't help that we had some sort of air conditioning contraption ("Danger, Will Robinson") thing sticking out the window and that didn't provide too much sound proofing. Ever laid in bed, listening to a New Year's countdown, wanting to be sleeping but wanting to be watching fireworks?

So then we got up at 6am. I don't get up super easy in the morn', so this wasn't easy for me. But we got on the road by 7:20 (Jake wanted to be out by 7:15...you know me, always 5 minutes late.) We drove for about 45 minutes to a town called Monroe to meet up with Jake's friend Shea and then got in his stinky Suburban and started up the mountain. I felt bad for thinking it was stinky, and then found out it was because he bought it one week ago from a guy who was living in it. But not until the guy told him all about his nasty divorce and got a call from the ex and started the call with the I Love You's and the I'm Sorry's and ended it by calling the woman a B*tch several times screaming in to the phone. Shea said he got a great deal. Anyway the Suburban smelled like puke. But I digress. So it was damp in Seattle and drizzley up to Monroe and then as we climbed the mountain, it started to snow. Here are some pics:

I took this first one out of the window. That snow is as tall as the window on a Suburban truck. p.s. the window wouldn't roll back up right away. Thank goodness Cory figured out how to fix it.

We were in stop-and-go traffic for about 50 miles and it took several hours. Shea was passing people who were spinning out. There were people stopping everywhere to put chains on their tires. There were even designated pull-over spots for chaining up. NOBODY knew how to drive in it. Nobody would let you in. Nobody would use the extra lane. Then they all used the extra lane and then they all created a third lane. NOBODY was coming down the mountain. A plow came. We passed some more people. Pretty soon it's 11:30 AM and we see this information sign.

Also can you see how deep the snow is? It's as tall as that Honda! Anyway, the sign says: "Due to avalanche, Stevens Pass closed" HA! An AVALANCHE!! All that driving and we didn't even get to go snowboarding. And so I was a teensy bit disappointed but it was a funny little adventure. 4 hours on the road. In a stinky truck.

We decided to go back to Seattle and salvage what we could of the day. We went back to Monroe and had nachos and wings and beers and bought some discounted passes, and then headed into Seattle and went to the Space Needle. But Anna called it the Space Pin. And then eventually the Pin Space.