Showing posts with label IKEA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IKEA. Show all posts

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Anniversary Weekend Celebration: Chicago

On Tuesday, October 2nd we celebrated our second wedding anniversary. I really just cannot believe it has been 2 whole years already. They say time flies when you are having fun and it honestly has flown by. I've heard that it doesn't ever slow down, especially once you have children...I guess I have been warned!

Last weekend we took off for Chicago (about 3 hours away) for a little anniversary get-away. Stephen's parents were nice enough to stay at our house and take care of sweet Louie so I was actually about to relax and not worry about the fur ball every second. Thank you Dave & Bev for taking such good care of him for us!

On the way to Chicago we stopped in Michigan City to hit the outlet mall. The damage was minimal...as it turns out, shopping isn't as much fun when you are pregnant! Stephen did get some new tennis shoes though and that was the purpose of the detour, so I could it a success. We arrived in Chicago at the perfect time to check into our hotel-The Palmer House Hilton. Rant: I have loved this hotel in the past and this is the 3rd time I have stayed there. This time? It did not impress me at all. Also, I didn't sleep well...now, I don't know if that's the hotels fault or my pregnant body's fault. That has yet to be determined. We did decide to try a new hotel next year though! :)

After checking in, I had planned for us to hit the Willis tower but that just didn't happen. I was feeling so tired and Stephen must have been too because he did not object when I suggested to stay in the room and rest/nap. It was so nice!

After resting up, we headed out to our dinner reservations at Texas De Brazil. The walk there was beautiful along the river:

Have you ever been to Texas De Brazil? Oh my, it was DELICIOUS. I may or may not have dreamed about the meal for a couple nights afterwards. No lie. Here we are waiting for our table:


You have to have desert on your anniversary, right?


Walking back from dinner was even better than walking there. The city is just beautiful at night. Seriously, check these out: (taken with iPhone so the quality is not the best, sorry)


Sunday morning we woke up and checked out of our hotel. After checking out we stopped in the city for breakfast at a little corner cafe. We ate here last year and loved it, but this year they seemed to be out of almost everything. It ended up being good anyways and we enjoyed eating outside in the cool weather. Fall has arrived and I am loving it!


After breakfast, where do you think we headed? If you guess Ikea, you are right! We planned on spending some time shopping for a few things for throughout the house and for sweet Baby D. The trip was a total success and we were there for several hours. I really don't see how you could go to Ikea and not be there for at least 2 hours. It's just crazy huge!


Sunday night when we got home the first thing we did was love on Louie. We also settled in to watch The Amazing Race before bed. Monday was coming fast after a busy and fun weekend! As it turns out though, I took a sick day from work due to pregnancy sickies so Monday was actually a nice day spent sleeping in and watching many, many episodes of Grey's Anatomy for me!

Tuesday at work, these beauties arrived:

Aren't they beautiful!?

Tuesday night we decided to use a gift certificate we had for a restaurant in town. It was nice not to cook or clean! We took some pictures before leaving and even made Louie join us for one!

Stephen will probably want to kill me for posting the above picture, but it makes me laugh each time I look at it. He makes the funniest faces when I am testing lighting for photos, it just cracks me up!

And lastly (and not anniversary related), a photo of one of our front tress. It is changing colors and so beautiful! Now it is almost all orange and will soon turn to yellow! I just love fall!


Well, if you made it through this super long anniversary re-cap-congratulations and thanks for reading! I am behind on my weekly bump date, but I hope to have that ready to post tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great week!



Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Chicago Pt. 3

If you missed Pt. 1 or Pt. 2, you can catch them here & here!

On Sunday, we slept in a little bit before getting ready to (sadly) check out of the Palmer House. Have I mentioned how great this hotel is? Seriously, it is da-bomb! After we packed all our things and expanded the one suitcase be brought with us on this trip (necessary to get home), we checked out and looked for someplace to get some grub. AKA, breakfast. Corner Bakery Cafe to the rescue!

Apparently I did too much shopping and could not even fit it all in our suitcase...woops. In my defense, gift wrap could not fit in the suitcase regardless AND it was a great deal!

The home of our yummy breakfast and cute sidewalk table :)

We ate our breakfast outside at one of their cafe tables. I thought that it was really neat because we were sitting almost exactly below the L tracks so there were several trains that passed over us. The city is a really neat place!

Their cookies and muffins looked oh so yummy, but we stuck with egg sandwiches. Mine had bacon, eggs and sliced avocados on it. I can tell you this: it will be on our personal menu at home because it was so good! I actually bought avocados at lunch today to this very purpose :)

I love his V-neck shirt. It took a little convincing to get him to like it, but now he loves it. Yay!

Goodbye, Chicago!

On the way home to Indiana, we drove a little bit out of our way to hit IKEA. Have you shopped there? Well, I had browsed their website several times and received their catalog at home but this was my first time in a store. Oh my! They have so.much.stuff that it is crazy-but so fun! I actually saw lots and lots of things that I liked and would like to add to our home, but we only spent a little bit of money on some much needed items like kid cups (for when our nieces come over-now we won't have to give them glasses!), a wok for Stephen to make his yummy stir-fry in, and some serving utensils. If we ever go back I want to buy a day bed and maybe this couch:
But I would like your opinions...am I crazy for wanting/getting a white couch? I mean, the possibilities of what we could be getting ourselves into is pretty endless, especially if kids arrive in the future-yikes! What do you think? Keep in mind that the cover is removable and washable AND we could purchase additional covers for backups...Also, do any of you have IKEA couches? Do you like them? They looked great in the store showroom, but will they hold up well at home when used daily? I do like that each piece has a 10 year warranty...I think if we bought these and used them for 10 years we would definitely get our monies worth!

So, let me know what you think!

I really wanted to eat while we were at IKEA (I had not idea they have a cafe!) but we were not hungry...I did have a low blood sugar though, so we did get a Coke and some Swedish chocolate. Yummy! I think we (or at least I) will be going back to IKEA to make some larger purchases someday. Let me know if you have a truck we can borrow...hint, hint Mom & Dad!

We made it to our home sweet home Sunday evening during a nice rain storm and just relaxed before unpacking. It was just a great weekend with so many memories!