Chicago and Jimmy Buffett

What a combination! Yesterday, Jeremy and I returned home from a 4-day trip to Chicago and Lake Geneva for the Jimmy Buffett concert. We had a very busy couple of days, and are still exhausted.

After dropping off the dogs at their doggy hotel, we left early Thursday morning for the Windy City. We arrived at our swanky hotel - we stayed at the Hilton - and off we set for some fun! We walked down to Lake Michigan, stopping at the Buckingham Memorial Fountain, and then made our way down to Navy Pier. Navy Pier was a lot of fun - we went on a giant Ferris wheel, walked through a pretty greenhouse, and ate ice-cream from Ben & Jerry's. Then it was back to the hotel to get dressed for our dinner cruise on the Spirit of Chicago. We got all gussied up - I wore a cute dress I had bought especially for the occasion, and Jeremy donned his suit - only to find when we arrived that most people on board were simply wearing cargo shorts and t-shirts!! I guess they didn't read the dress code, which calls for "business casual to dressy". Oh well. In the same vein, our food left much to be desired and the DJ was kind of tacky. But the views were beautiful, and the Blues band that was playing on the upper deck was actually pretty good. All-in-all, I definitely wouldn't recommend paying the money, but it was still an ok way to spend the night. After the cruise, we headed back to the Hilton and had a couple of drinks at Kitty O'Shea's, an Irish pub attached to our hotel. They had a (real Irish) lady and a man playing Irish music and they turned out to be excellent, which made our night much better.

Friday morning we woke up relatively early and, after breakfast at the Artist's Cafe, we decided to hit the Art Institute before heading up to Wisconsin. If anyone is ever in Chicago, make sure that you reserve at least a day (you'll probably need two) to explore the museum...it was amazing! We'd been to the Corcoran Gallery in DC, and I had been to the National Gallery of Art in DC without Jeremy, but they simply don't compare to the Art Institute. It was incredible...it's hard to believe that right in front of you are pieces of priceless art by Monet and Renoir and artists from all over the world. It was beautiful. I just wish that we had more time to spend - we only had about an hour and we only got to see 3 of the 15 collections (and that was without taking time to really read about each piece). Oh well...I'm just grateful we got to see any of it at all.

After that it was off to Nikki and Corey's place before heading up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We arrived at our hotel, unloaded our bags, and headed down to the bar for a cocktail and a light lunch. Then we walked around the town, which was very similar to Montville or Maleny in that it's touristy and family-oriented. We had dinner at a cute little Italian bistro (and sat next to a group of middle-aged people who tanned waaaay too much and enjoyed a little too much plastic surgery), and then it was off to Hog's and Kisses for some drinks and dancing. We finally made it home and curled up in bed, ready for a big day at the concert on Saturday.

We arrived at Alpine Valley at about 2pm, and set up for an afternoon of tailgating. Tailgating at a Jimmy Buffett concert is absolutely crazy - there were some amazing set-ups and a lot (and I mean a LOT) of very drunk people doing very silly things. We pretty much just hung around our car, drank margaritas and beer, and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The concert was a lot of fun, even though we were stuck at the very back and couldn't really see or hear Jimmy. We somehow managed to beat the rush of people leaving, and got to bed sometime around 2am (after wrestling with an inflatable mattress that needed four D batteries that of course we didn't have).

Sunday morning (well, it was really about noon but it felt like morning to us) Jeremy and I left and drove back to Jeremy's parents house to spend the night. After 3 days of staying up late and drinking a few too many drinks, it was nice to finally unwind a little and just relax. We ate a delicious dinner at Rosebud, which is a restaurant that has hosted many famous guests - photos of Frank Sinatra, Robert DeNiro and many other celebrites grace the walls. Then it was in bed early, up at 4am, and on a 6:45 flight back to DC and back to work. We had such a great long weekend, and are still buggered. We took a total of 150 photos, so I pulled out the good ones and have posted them on a separate website.

Chicago and Jimmy Buffett

Oh, and a huuuuge congratulations to Andrew and Christie AND Matt and Mel on their recent engagements! Wow!! Two at once! We wish you all the happiness in the world!

Happy Independence Day!!

Well, it's the day after the 4th of July, and Jeremy and I are dead tired from going into DC to watch the fireworks last night. We rode the Metro (DC's commuter train line) into the city at 3pm, to make it to a dinner reservation at 5. After a couple of mojitos for me and beers for Jeremy, it started to rain. We hung around for a bit hoping it would stop, and then decided we should probably just go home. While we were waiting at the Metro station, the skies parted and sun once again shone through. Woo! So we made our way to the Mall (no, not a shopping center, but rather a long stretch of grass/park that connects the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol building). Of course the ground was wet from the rain, so we had to steal an old box from one of the stalls to sit on. Classy. The fireworks started at about 9pm and went for a good 20 minutes. Leaving the Mall was like taking part in a mass exodus - there were hundreds of thousands of people all going in the same direction. At the Metro station, people were lined up all along the platform, at least 3 people deep the entire stretch. The trains were full by the time they got to our platform, so we had to squish on. I felt like a sardine. Yuck! Oh well. We finally made it home shortly after midnight, and now it's back to work as usual.

Waiting, waiting, waiting....

After the rain...so beautiful!

Still waiting....

Nope, no fireworks yet...

Our stylish accommodations (I look like a hippy in this photo)!

Jeremy getting sleepy...

These kids were adorable! They sang and danced to some patriotic song...fun! Check out the tiny little ones on the far right...they must have been no older than 3!

Finally!! A little blurry, but you get the gist. The fireworks were absolutely amazing!

Wow, have we been boring these last few weeks or what?! I apologize for not writing on here sooner, but we really haven't done anything especially noteworthy. We're like an old married couple! Haha. No, seriously. Here's a list of the few things we've done over the past few weeks:

1. We've gone out to eat (what a surprise) at Sweet Water Tavern, Chili's, and Sequoia.

2. I hit the outlet malls with my girlfriend from work, Melyssa, and spent a little too much money.

3. We finally cleared out the pile of junk from our living room that had been there since we moved (2 months ago!).

4. We've been to the movies to see Knocked Up and Live Free or Die Hard. Knocked Up was actually a really great movie, and Jeremy is still grinning over how "awesome" Die Hard was (it really was ok - much more of a boy's movie than what I like).

5. Jeremy found out that his resume has been passed onto the hiring manager at the US Forest Service (for a police/investigator position), and he's planning on taking his FBI agent interview sometime in the near future. In the meantime, he's been doing great at work - he's pretty much taking over responsibility for his team when the "team lead" is out of the office.

6. I had an exam in DC for my Motivation & Emotion class. We'll see how well I did - I didn't get to read all the books I was supposed to.

7. Jeremy and I had our immigration interview to prove that we did in fact love each other. That was weird. We had to answer questions like "What do you love about each other?", "How did you meet?" and "What was your first date like?". Those questions seem easy, but those types of things are sometimes hard to quantify. It's hard to list the reasons you chose to marry someone - it's much easier to simply recognize that they exist.

And I think that's about it. We've just been working and going about our day-to-day. I wish we were more exciting for you all. Oh well.

Oh, and check out the cool slideshow I did up to show our wedding pictures. Yay!

Our wedding photos...