Go Cubs!

My first Chicago Cubs' Game!! The weather was perfect (ended up being just cool enough to be comfortable in a hat and sweatshirt...although Alli was wearing thermals, a long sleeve shirt and a wool sweater-but she's always cold, so whatever!). I think these buildings are so cool! All the buildings surrounding Wrigley Field have bleachers on the roof.....imagine how much money you could make!
As Alli and I were looking for our 2nd to last row seats, we saw Sheri and Adam Johnson! We joined them and ended up staying there. We were in the upperdeck, but I thought the seats were better than the one's on the level below...there was more to see from up there!

Just a little reminder....

Don't forget to slow down:-)

Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last.

Just kicking down the cobble stones. Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Hello lamppost, What cha knowing? I've come to watch your flowers growing.

Ain't cha got no rhymes for me? Doot-in' doo-doo, Feelin' groovy.

Got no deeds to do, No promises to keep. I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.

Let the morning time drop all its petals on me. Life, I love you, All is groovy.

Chinatown

Today Alli, Anne, Jed, and I went to Chinatown! It was a very original experience...something everyone who lives in Chicago needs to do:-)

Good thing we were in the mood for Chinese food, because we wouldn't have had much luck finding much else:-) We decided to go for Good Fortune Restaurant. We all really enjoyed our meals. Although....the menu did read "no MSG upon request". Oh well...what are ya gonna do??

There were a lot of bakeries so we took advantage of it and stopped in. Now, I decided to be safe with my choices at this place...when there were things like 'Duck Egg Bun' which by the way, Alli got! We didn't get very far into that before we called it quits. At least she tried it!
We went into a lot of the stores to check things out. We had no idea on some of this stuff though. Like this thing below...if you can identify what this is, a genuine Chicago gift will be coming your way....maybe one of these things.



We went into a lot of stores and came across some interesting sites. We roamed around a shop that sold stuff like dried mushrooms and ginseng, tea and dried fruit and veggies. I almost died after I looked at the prices though! For ONE pound of dried ginseng....$150! No joke! In another store (a grocery store with a butcher) we saw them about the "prepare" some toads! We left but Jed stayed to watch the show...yikes! I guess Mom and Dad were telling the truth some of those times that they said we were having frog legs for dinner:-)

Happy Easter!

The Newlins were nice enough to invite me to spend another holiday with them:-) Of course I missed my family, but my midwest family did an incredible job of making me feel at home. I already knew a few of Marit's relatives but I was able to meet the rest of them...they're a fun group of people. It's hard to believe that Marit and I used to be "camp enemies" when we were little...now I can't live without her!

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas

Jen, a friend from work, and I decided to do a little last minute trip for Spring Break this year :-) We tossed around the idea of a cruise but the flights were insane to Florida and California so we did some "last minute" searches and found a great deal to Vegas! I had been one other time but Jen had never been so it was pretty exciting! We stayed in the Tropicana...one of the older hotels but it has a great location on the strip. The room was pretty much like any other reasonable hotel room but the pool was amazing! (which was good because a lot of our time was spent there). My tour guide on my last trip to Vegas didn't teach me much about playing table games in the casino but showed me the basics of video poker:-) We pretty much stuck with the machines... a little (ok, a lot) intimidated by the hard-core gamblers. We had fun though! Jen was a little more daring .... I would cringe at losing my precious five dollar bill. I ended out on top ONCE but then of course went on to another machine and lost it. Oh well, it was fun:-)
Unfortunately, this drink wasn't as good as Jen was hoping it would be. She's probably going to kill me for posting this shot...oh well, she'll deal:-)

We really enjoyed checking out the themes (well Jen liked searching for a Game King machine, but still...) of all the hotels. The one above is the Luxor....very cool building. Everything inside was designed to resemble Egypt. Below was our favorite hotel, New York, New York. It was right across the street and had lots of good places to eat...and lots of Game King machines!
During our last night out we did some shopping in Caesar's Palace. Of course all the stores in there are a little too pricey for us, we did find a Bath and Body Works and an FAO Shwartz. I obviously had to play the big piano...yeah, i was pretty good at it.

Drumroll please....

I will be teaching at Peterson Elementary again in the fall! That in itself is very exciting...I have really enjoyed being there this past year and have made some great friends. The part I am even MORE excited about is the fact that I will be teaching 2nd grade!! I loved my student teaching placement as well as my first teaching job in Florida which were both 2nd grade positions. I'm sure I will have endless stories about the things the kiddies say and do by mid-September...be prepared:-)

Kind of a weird shot...but this is Peterson:-)