The Windy City

We have been SO LUCKY so far with this great weather! All the locals seem to be so confused since it is the second week of January and there has been less than an inch of snow. Woo hoo! Jason and I decided to take advantage and go see the sights of Chicago. It was an amazing day!

We drove in on Lake Shore Drive.  You can see what a beautiful day it was, we could see the skyline from miles away...

With the lake and the Gold Coast off to the left it was incredible!

We crossed the Chicago River and got a great shot of the Trump Tower and Chicago's downtown...

We decided out first stop was Willis Tower, otherwise known as Sears Tower.  

It was so tall it hurt my neck to look up from the street! Incredible!

We went out on the SkyDeck which is 1,300 feet above ground.  Thats the 103rd floor!  

Lets just say the elevator ride to the top was a little nauseating!

 

We realized how lucky we were to have a clear day to see all the way back to Wisconsin and even to Indiana! It was pretty amazing, I have to admit...

After what seemed like waiting hours in line for the SkyDeck, we were hungry and Jason let me choose where we should eat lunch...

I thought about the best place I could go to eat and feel like a "local" in Chicago...

Then it came to me...

Trump Tower!!!  

Really I just wanted to see inside of the billion dollar hotel... and it was beautiful!  Luckily there was a restaurant on the 16th floor that we could eat a "light" lunch at...

(By "light" I of course mean in the amount of food, not dollars spent, haha funny, right Jason?)

The views were great of the Chicago River, you can see the bridge we drove across earlier in the day at the mouth of the river.

And it was neat to see the architecture of some of the older buildings at eye level.  We want to come back in the spring and sit on the terrace which is supposed to be fantastic on a warm day.

All the decor inside was amazing and very high end.  I found a light fixture that I want in my next home...

And look, my drink even matched my nail polish!  I think I must belong here...

After lunch we walked to Marshall Fields which is now one of Macy's flagship stores.  It takes up a whole block and the building is over 100 years old.

Here is the plaque on the corner of the building...

And the Tiffany glass dome in the center of the store.  It was like shopping in a museum!

Right next door was the Chicago theatre with the famous Chicago sign, the pictures just don't do it justice...

We were so excited because we saw that Kathy Griffin was on the marquee for a show later this month!  She is my favorite comedienne and we try to see her whenever we can, well I do, Jason just does it to be nice.  What a good husband...

On our walk we smelled delicious Garrett's Popcorn, which is apparently a chicago staple.  Of course we had to get some "Chicago Mix" which is cheese and carmel popcorn mixed.  It was surprisingly good!

It was a very fun and romantic day!

Later on that week, however...

Remember what I said about us being so lucky with the weather?  

I was wrong... 

I jinxed it... 

I need to just keep my mouth shut!!!!

Its going to be a long winter!!!!

Current Location

Milwaukee, WI

We're not in California anymore...

Ok, we are alive but COLD!!!

We made it safe and sound to Milwaukee, moved in to our condo that sadly pales in comparison to our vacation home in Carmel...

You can see our amazing view, and yes it was snowing...

Jason and I agree we have never felt this kind of cold before.  One morning we woke up and the thermometer said 8! No, I didn't miss a number and mean to write 38, or even 28... It said 8 degrees.

WHAT DID WE GET OURSELVES INTO!?!?!

Even so, we are trying to make the best out of this, shall we say, interesting situation.

We have tried some of the local delicacies such as:

Yes, those are cheese curds...

Which are usually served fried accompanying what is called a Butterburger.  I literally almost threw up from the amount of fat in this meal alone.

We also sampled some very good beer... this was a very fun night at a great German place called Maders.  It is a well known restaurant that has been visited by many important people such as JFK, Frank Sinatra, and even Britney Spears!!

Jason insisted that we had to go to a Packers Game to see Lambeau Field.  We compromised and agreed to go right away so we could avoid the snow...

The Packers stadium was really amazing.  It was huge and in this tiny town with really nothing else going on...

To park, everyone just pays $20 and parks on someones lawn in the neighborhood.  We chose this house. Seriously!  We were laughing the whole time!! They even let us use their bathroom!

We got some food from the pub, and what do you know... more fried cheese curds, cheese and beer soup and Jason's burger even had this strange cheese butter spread on it.  After this meal we decided to stop trying the local delicacies... Our pants are getting too tight. Haha, no really...

The field was beautiful...

Jason was so excited...

  

I was just really, really cold.  Everyone around us kept commenting on how nice it was that night, I just kept my mouth shut and covered...

The sunset was beautiful...

All in all, we had a great time.  Milwaukee is nice, but its no California.  We are appreciating the fact that we get to see other parts of the country but also are realizing how wonderful we had it at home...  Its nice to know that where your family and friends live is exactly where you want to be...

You know what they say...

Theres no place like home!

Current Location:

Milwaukee, WI

Moving to Milwaukee

The time has come to leave California...  We knew this was going to happen, it just came so soon!

Having to transport 2 cars, a cat, a dog and all our stuff, the only option to get from point A (California) to point B (Wisconsin) was to drive!  We loaded up after our last day of work in Monterey, said goodbye to the beach and got on our way!

We decided to take the Southern route to avoid the blizzard-like conditions in the Rockies.  We know we are going to have to drive in snow soon anyway but wanted to put is off for as long as possible!

Our first night was spent in Bakersfield, CA... Not too interesting.

However the next day we got to Arizona...

If you look really closely you can see the "Welcome to Arizona" sign!  Bear with me for the photography for this post, most of the pictures were taken at 60 mph!

In Arizona traveled through Kingman where there were beautiful canyons and the start of route 66.  We were offered a position in Kingman, Arizona and immediately turned in down, but seeing how beautiful it is, we thought maybe someday...

In Arizona, we stayed in Flagstaff, where what do you know? There was snow on the ground! (no pictures because it was dark)  It was a nice introduction to the coldness that was to come!

After Flagstaff we continued on our way through New Mexico.  The rock formations were amazing and you could really understand why they call it "the Painted Desert."  And seriously, there is nothing there except those rocks!  It was at this point in the trip that I started getting tired and stopped taking pictures, so in place I will have professional pictures of what we actually saw :)

We stopped off in Albuquerque to let Stanley play in a dog park to get some energy out and were on our way!

From Albuquerque, we traveled into Texas were we have never seen such flat land in our lives!  It just went on, and on, and on, and on.  Then getting out of the car to get some gas we realized we had never felt such wind in our life!  It was holding us up sideways complete with tumbleweeds! Something we will never forget...

Our next stop was Oklahoma City, OK.  Here, the land was still very flat but the fall foliage was beautiful...

Jason and I spent the whole time looking out the window for signs of Tornados!  Ridiculous, we know!  I think we were watching too much weather channel at that point :)

Our Travel Companions!!

Next stop was St. Louis, Missouri.  Here we got a chance to see the amazing arch on the Mississippi River...

It was beautiful and we got to see it in the morning before any crowds got there.

It was really huge...

and very neat to see the Mississippi!

Finally, on our last leg of the trip we went through the Illinois flatlands on our way to Chicago...

There was nothing but cornfields and long stretches of road as far as the eyes could see!

But we did drive through the town of Dwight!!  We had to get out and take a picture:)

Finally, last stop was Chicago which was HUGE and had the WORST traffic!  It didn't matter, we were almost "home"!!

This is only part of the Chicago skyline, I couldn't fit it all in the camera shot!

We are here!!!  It was such a long trip but very interesting to see incredible parts of our country.  We will be in Wisconsin for 6 months and are excited to explore Chicago, a Packers game, some good beer, lots of cheese and the SNOW!!

Current Location:

Milwaukee, WI