13th Anniversary Surprise

Peter had responsibility for planning our anniversary this year.  He came home from work early so we could go to dinner.  I was sort of in a grumpy mood but he wouldn't tell me where we are going and I always enjoy a surprise...so...

We drove downtown and he surprised me when we pulled up to Reunion Tower.  In the 7 years we've lived here we've never been up to the top.  I was pretty excited that he chose this for dinner because it's exactly the type of thing I like.  I love trying new things and Peter does not so it's very atypical for him to choose to eat somewhere new.

He made reservations at the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower - "Five Sixty" a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

It was a super nice restaurant with an amazing view at the perfect time - sunset.  Way to go, Peter!  Best anniversary ever!

The menu is Asian Fusion and some of it was a little too fancy for me, but a lot sounded delicious.  We didn't hold back.  :)  We had delicious cocktails (mine was called "Show Me Lov" - fitting, right?), Organic Chicken Dumplings, Crispy Pork Belly Bao Buns, some other appetizer that was exotic and not a hit, and Peter got Sushi.  We were basically full at this point but still had our main courses to enjoy - Peter got fish, I got steak, and some delicious fried rice.

After dinner, I ordered dessert plus they surprised me with an additional dessert to celebrate our anniversary - another surprise from Peter.

Surprise dessert!  I don't remember what it was, but it was delicious!

This is the Bittersweet Chocolate Souffle that I ordered.  We were so full but this dessert sounded so amazing that I couldn't NOT get it.  Well, it takes like 15 minutes to prepare which I was fine with but Peter seemed to be in a hurry.  He kept talking about how we needed to hurry because we had to go pick Joe up from work - his car was in the shop?  It seemed odd since I hadn't heard that before but okay, whatever.  So I wasn't in a big hurry but at this point Peter was really pushing things along.

Reunion Tower

So, we get the car from the Valet and Peter is driving.  As we are leaving downtown, it seems like we are going the wrong way and I mention that to Peter.   But, he was following the GPS directions on his phone so I just chalk it up to the fact that I get so turned around downtown and never am really confident on which way to go on those streets and freeways down there.

Well, so Peter is driving and all of a sudden I realize he's getting off the exit by the fairpark, which I know for sure is the wrong way.  So I start to say something and then I look up on the building in front of me and there's a big sign advertising the musical "Wicked" and it hits me that Peter is taking me to see Wicked!!!!

He totally had me fooled.  I thought we were just going to dinner and then going home, which was totally enough.  He had been so thoughtful in the place he picked for dinner and the money he'd spent on dinner.  I had no idea there was anything else!

So once it hits me we are going to Wicked it then hits me that there are no people around.  Just cars.  Peter then tells me that's why he was trying to hurry things along.  He didn't want to tell me not to get the souffle because then I'd know that something was up but he also was trying to hurry us out of the restaurant.  We were about 15 minutes late at this point.  The good news was that the parking attendants were all gone so at least we didn't have to pay for parking.

I wasn't stressed about missing the first 15 minutes because we've seen the musical before and that wasn't my favorite part anyway.

So, Peter showed the usher our tickets and he led us to our seats... except he kept walking forward, and walking forward...  When he finally stopped we were at some amazing seats!!!  It was so awesome!  

When Peter bought us tickets to go to Wicked before for my birthday.  What I didn't mention previously was where we sat.  We were in the balcony in the very last row to the very far right.  There were about 6 more seats to our right and we would have been in the very far corner of the theater.  Not good seats and I have ribbed Peter about that many times.  (To be fair, they were still expensive!)

So this time he said he wanted to make up for our previous seats and boy, did he do it!  I can only imagine how much money he spent.  I was so very touched that it brought tears to my eyes.  Things have been tense between Peter and I lately and tonight he really did a great job of showing me that he loved me.  The whole evening was carefully orchestrated to be my perfect evening.  Each choice he made with my likes in mind - totally selfless.

Look "badlands"!

I didn't have time to "get ready" for the date because I didn't rush home like I was supposed to because I thought it was going to be no big deal.  I totally felt under dressed for 560.

 

See how many rows are behind us?  If you look up and in the far left corner you can imagine where we sat last time.

It was amazing.  I almost didn't want to leave!  And we both really enjoy the musical now (Peter knows many of the songs).  Maxwell has been begging us to take him and I felt bad for a moment that he wasn't there with us.  But as I watched it, I was glad because there some parts of it that I think it would be better if he were older.

Thanks babe for an amazing anniversary!!!

First visitor in October - Shannon!

October is going to be an amazing month!  We are either going to have visitors here with us or we are going to be going somewhere to visit someone else.

Our first visitor of October was my dear friend Shannon.  We all look forward to her fall visit as a highlight of the year.

She got here on Friday and we went to dinner and hung out.  We also went and got a reflexology foot massage but I don't remember whether we did that Friday or Saturday night.

Saturday morning I took Emmalyn to Kindermusik

Max did a 21 day fix workout video - he wanted to work out.

Shannon and I did some shopping, had some lunch and then it was family time (because all of us want time with Shannon!)

We were going to go downtown - it's a place we've never taken Shannon.  We were going to ride around on the McKinney street trolley.

While we waited for the trolley, we got some frozen yogurt

Riding the trolley.  Maxwell sat on Miss Shannon's lap the whole time.  Sorry it is such a dark picture.

We got to see parts of downtown and then got off the trolley at Klyde Warren Park.  The kids had fun playing in the kids area.

Here's what the trolley looked like (it passed us again as we walked to dinner)

Emmalyn enjoying the queso at the Mexican restaurant we went to.  She was happy when she was eating and was difficult to entertain after that.

The group at dinner - Emmalyn is out of the screen waiting in her stroller to leave

Maxwell and downtown Dallas

We had a fun time riding the trolley around Dallas

Morning with cereal and the ipad

Look!  Emmalyn let Shannon hold her!

For Shannon's last day in town we did another thing she's never done (or us).  We went to the Stockyards in Ft. Worth.

This old cowboy had some pretty cool lasso skills

Watching the cowboy

Shannon and Maxwell

Longhorns are pretty big!!

The kids and I went on a fun little train ride around part of the stockyard

They sat next to each other and at one point held hands.

Max thought it was pretty cool.

We had some time before the cattle drive down the main street so Peter and Maxwell went to go do this maze.

Unfortunately Peter and Maxwell didn't make it out in time to see the cattle drive.  I was expecting the cattle drive to be long with lots of cows.  Instead it was like 13 cows and over in a matter of seconds.

We finished off the day with some Texas Bar-B-Que.  Maxwell was so attached to Shannon.  He was very sad to see her go when we took her to the airport.  

Thanks for coming Shannon!  We always enjoyed your visits and can't wait for the next one!

Since we had a bunch of visitors coming, we decided to go ahead and get a full mattress which will eventually be used when we turn Emmalyn's crib into a full bed.  Butt for now, at least we can have a bed up in the bedroom upstairs and two different real beds for our guests.

Kids playing with legos while we bought the mattress.

Sleeping Kiddos

Turning a work trip to Chicago into a trip to feed my soul

I had a work trip to Chicago for meetings with Kraft.  I knew their building was right downtown, but I had no idea!

EARLY morning flight where we got to enjoy the sunrise as we took off

The view from the offices - the building is literally on the corner of Michigan Ave and the Chicago river.  It's AMAZING!!!  I love big cities so much.  Kraft has two full floors with 360 views.

View of the Tribune tower.

The lake and the river

Another view

A different view from another side of the building

I took time out from dinner to facetime with my babies.

Blowing kisses to Momma

That night after dinner, one of my employees, Chris, and I walked to the Hancock tower. Look how tall that building is!!

94 floors up!  Looking out over Navy Pier

It's a LONG way down to the street

It was such a gorgeous view to look out on this amazing city!

Our hotel was just like 2 blocks away from the office and a few blocks away from Navy Pier so after we visit the Hancock Tower we walked to Navy Pier and caught up with a few more CROSSMARK associates

We enjoyed the fireworks over the lake

Smiley face fireworks!  Loved them!

Our fancy hotel had free shoe shine service so I put my shoes out at night and in the morning they were all shiny.  Not too shabby!

I absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere.  I have always said that I would love to live in a major city where you walk and take public transportation.  I think it's awesome.  I took advantage of every break to get outside and enjoy a short walk on the river or Michigan avenue or just stared up at the gorgeous architecture.

My soul was so happy to sit and soak up the sounds and sights of downtown.

This is the building with Kraft offices.  Not architecturally exciting but sure cool inside and again, with an amazing location. 

Made it down to the river.  I was able to get a lot done in a 20-30 min break!

One day I want to take one of those tour boats up the river.

My kids were doing great without me...(her drool is non-stop!!!)

For dinner the second night we were going out for true Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.  Here's how far the place was from our hotel.  I decided to venture even further away first since we had a couple hours before dinner.  I wanted to "see" Chicago!!  (I have been here MANY times for work before but never have taken the time to do any of the tourist things other than the one time I went to see Wicked during a snow storm.)

First I went to Millennium Park to see the bean.

After that I walked to the Art Institute of Chicago.  I figured I only had about an hour before I needed to walk to dinner.  Luckily the museum had a guide with suggestions of highlights to see with an hours worth of time.

It ended up being the best one hour I've had in a long time.  I had no idea that this museum held so many beautiful works of art that I had studied in school.  I kept pinching myself to be seeing them in person!!!

Nighthawks by Hopper

American Gothic by Grant Wood

Monet's Haystacks

Monet's Water Lily Pond

Money is my absolute favorite painter.  I really love his paintings, his style, the color, the beauty, etc.  I could stare at them for hours.

Up close - - It's just amazing to me when you look closely how the painting comes together.  It was so impressive to me to be able to see his actual strokes, the way he had painted the canvas.  I've looked at these paintings in books, textbooks, and online but to be this close and get to see the texture was indescribable.  I've having a hard time even thinking of the words to fit this experience.  

That's me!  Right there!  Inches away from this gorgeous painting!!!!

Panorama of this room.  It was all Monet.  Every wall was Monet.  My soul was singing and it left me speechless.  I felt like my face must have been emanating my joy and wonder.  I hated to leave but there were a few more things I wanted to see.

Yellow Dancers by Degas

Vincent Van Gogh - The Bedroom

Van Gogh's self portrait

Another Monet.  I had never seen this one before but I instantly loved it.

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat

We studied this painting a lot in my classes at BYU.  It's just amazing.  It was HUGE!  I had no idea when we were studying it that the painting was so large

A little about the painting

The entire painting is just dots and small brush strokes

Another Monet

Another version of A Sunday on la Grande Jatte

My favorite style of art - Impressionism.  No wonder I loved my visit so much, they had so so so so many amazing works of Impressionistic Art.

I am soooooo glad I decided to check out the museum

My deep dish pizza.  (I prefer thin crust or regular pizza)

Facetiming with my family before they went to bed.  Peter's a lucky guy, 'eh?

I walked back from the restaurant with part of our group.  I then went out on the terrace of the hotel and enjoyed looking at the city

Here's my fitbit stats from the day - - - WOW!!! I walked over 9 miles!  AWESOME!  My feet were super sore though.

Final meal with this view - what a way to eat breakfast!

Goodbye Chicago.  Thank you for a wonderful 3 days.  I got the chance to reconnect to parts of me that haven't been fed for years.  I am going to have to come back with my family next time.