Chicago Trip, Girls Only

The first weekend in December, when it was a balmy 60 something degrees, my friends and I took a day trip to Chicago to see White Christmas and do Christmasy things in Chicago.  It was such a fun trip!  And I wouldn't have traded the weather for anything, except maybe less crowds.  Because apparently great weather in December equals everyone in a million mile radius being in Chicago.

The play did not disappoint.  Not the same as the movie, but you can't really mess with a classic.

After the play, we moved on to other Chicago must sees.

I believe this was my first time seeing the huge tree in the park.

Above, the requisite selfie.  Below, someone took pity on us and took our picture.

And we saw the bean.  This was also my first time seeing the bean at night.  I tried to teach Emily how to take a picture of yourself without having your phone in the way.

The buildings all around were lit up for the holiday season

Ice skating outside!  We did not do this, but I decided it deserved a picture!

Pretty city lights reflected in the bean.

Macy's all decked out for Christmas.

Our hot chocolate mugs from Christkindl market.  The extreme crowds made it difficult to enjoy the market, but I was glad to get a new mug.

A lady took expert pictures of us at the bean!

We attempted Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo, but because of the above mentioned millions of people, it was pretty impossible to move around and it was getting late and we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us,

...so we took some selfies to prove we were there and then headed home!

I love this group of ladies that I get to do life with!  We have had many adventures together and I hope we get to continue this tradition and add some more in the future!

Setting up Christmas!

I don't know why I always feel the need to post pictures of setting up Christmas. It looks the same every year, but I like to reference the blog sometimes to answer questions like, "where did I put this last year?"  So really, this is for me, not for you :)  But I'll let you look if you want!

The main difference this year is...the cat.  He made decorating an interesting (and sometimes stressful) experience.  Stressful mostly because I didn't know what to expect from him.  Christmas stuff has been up for over a week and I still check the tree first thing when I walk in the door to see if it's standing.

"helping put up the lights"

Above: He really just wanted to nap and was a little perturbed that I was not sitting in one place for him to do that.  So he forced his way onto my lap anyway.

Supervising the efforts!

This year I stressed about where to put the nativity.  It's pretty expensive and took several years to collect, so I don't really want the cat knocking over the pieces.  Last year I put it in the bay window, but that was most definitely out of the question this year!  It's on my side table.  So far, I've only seen the pieces moved around once or twice.

One of the sets of decorations on one of the bay windows.

The tree with all of its lights.  I waited a couple of days to put the ornaments on.  Someone suggested letting him acclimate to the tree and it would be less likely he would pay attention to the ornaments.  I put the lights on Friday and ornaments on Monday.

My new 2016 ornament from Mom.  I always hang my new ornament first!

All the ornaments on!

The glow of the tree with no other lights on in the room.

The tree sans lights.  Sometimes I like to leave the lights off so I can better see all my ornaments!

The decorations on the TV stand.

The bay window.  I "had" to buy a few new decorations since I couldn't put the nativity set in the window this year.

The centerpiece on the table.  I bought the wheelbarrow for fall decorations but realized I could use it for Christmas too!

Pretty kitty in the lights!

I also have a little two foot tree that I decided to put upstairs in my spare room.

It was a little too much temptation for Quincy.

After three knock overs I took some drastic measures!  Actually, I don't think he was purposefully knocking it over.  I mean, technically he was messing with the tree, but it is small and fairly unstable, so it was falling easily.  The funny thing is, I don't have a skirt for this tree, so if you walk into the room, this is really what you see!

The other reason I share all my decorations is because I realized that I spend all this time putting it up, and hardly anyone comes over, so not very many people actually sees the decorations.  Now, I can share with more people.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day started very differently for me. I woke up in my own home. It was the first year in a long time that I didn't have to travel for Thanksgiving. Unless you count driving across town as travelling.  I got to Dad and Amy's about 11 and hung out with Amy and talked for a while.  There were two "kids" (they are all actually adults, but of the just-barely-adults variety) from Arizona and Caitlyn (also an Arizona kid, but she's going to school in Peoria).  Amy and I talked about doing a puzzle and were surprised when everyone wanted to join us.  It was like my dream come true, everyone sitting around doing puzzles (we actually finished two!  A 500 piece and a 1,000 piece).

And of course we ate lots and lots of food.  This is the only picture of the food that I took!

Daynah and Hayden came later in the evening and I was able to meet Nahla, their new kitty.  If anybody wonders, it did not make me want another kitten!

And of course Elleigh, the monstrous puppy, hung out with us too. 

It was nice to be close to home.  I left their house around 10:00 and had to drive past the mall to get home.  Traffic was almost worse than a normal Saturday!

Time flies...

Where did the 2.8 pound ball of fluff go?!

Visit Part 3

We ended the day at Dad and Amy's house. Again, the weather cooperated fully. The rain stopped as we were leaving the musuem, the temperature dropped, so we were able to have a fire outside as planned.

We made and ate caramel apples (well, John and Amy made them and the rest of us ate them)...

We did dot to dots...

And colored...

And cooked hot dogs and roasted marshmallows...

And played with sticks...

Don't ask me why his jacket was on his head.  I really have no clue.

And played football...

And played with more sticks...

And ate marshmallows...

And played with a flashlight and a fence...

High five! And a heart (awww...)

And played with the kitty, of course!

I loved the time I spent with everyone!  I hope we can do it again!