Weekend Away!

When you look at these pictures, you may not believe that we were by ourselves and for some of the weekend, we weren't by ourselves!

We were planning on leaving really early Saturday morning. Well, we woke up Friday morning and heard weather reports for the weekend and decided around 6:45AM , that we needed to leave that afternoon. In a furry, we got our hotel room for an extra night, got packed, tried to clean the house and do some laundry, etc. Bri got off work a few hours early and we headed out early afternoon.

Brian's parents too came up Friday night and stayed in the same hotel so they would be able to help Anita Saturday and Sunday and not get snowed into Galesburg. Friday we went to Harry Caray's restaurant with the kids and Bob and Chris.

Here is Alaric on the Harry Caray cow!
Brian loved his beer and Mara wanted one too.

Harry, Alaric, and Brian- all happy campers!

Alaric loved having his own bed. Nothing like jumping on a big bed in a hotel!

Friday night was rough. Bri and I hardly slept at all. Alaric was up 5 times with his night terrors when he talks or screams or hollars and needs to be comforted. Amara's top two teeth were coming in and she was miserable. She was covered in snot, had a fever, and could not get herself comfortable. Bri spent more than two hours in a chair with her rocking and soothing, etc. We both were uncomfortable in the bed and got very little sleep.

SO- we were happy to get the kids to Anita's house at 9Am and get out by ourselves.

OUr first stop was Millenium Park for skating!

Bri was much better than me! I had chin splints in seconds. I'd go around 2 or 3 times and then take a break. He kept going.

Trying to be cool and not slip!

Then we went to Maggiano's Italian Restaurant for lunch. We binged on carbs...we had stuffed mushrooms and tons of bread for appetizers and then Bri had lobster stuffed ravi and I had fettichini alfredo. We had a sampler of three desserts too...cheesecake, cream cake, and apple pie- YUM!

We went back to the hotel and went into a carb induced coma for three hours- just what we needed- SLEEP! Just enough time to get back up and head to the next restaurant for an early dinner. We went to Wild Fire. For an appetizer, we had fried goatcheese and bread. For our meal, Bri had three kinds of filet with different crusts and fries and I had pork chops and a HUGE baked potato with butter and sour cream. We also had 2 beers each. For dessert we had two half portions of two famous desserts- their cream pie and their pecan chocolate chip cookie in a skillet with ice cream! AHHHHHHHH- we were so stuffed we couldn't move. But we were happy!

HEre is the desert plate. We had the middle cookie in a pan thing and the cream pie that is in the middle of the back row...Who on earth with pick those berries in the back with you can have all the other things?

So, when we got back to the hotel we went swimming and in the whirlpool and we still got to sleep around 9! We slpet so much better Saturday night and were out the door to Anita's by 9Am to pick up the kids and head to Great Gram's house in Coal City. We met Grandma, Aunt Mary, and Uncle George at church and then headed back to Gram's house for a pizza lunch.

Overall, it was a WONDERFUL weekend. We got to have time with our kids, time without, and time with family. We are ready tos tart our week.

Oh, by the way- we have a long road ahead of us...Bri and I BOTH gained SEVEN pounds while we were gone- SEVEN!!!!!!!!