Ketchup Day

We only went away for three days, but I feel like I've been running myself ragged this week just trying to "catch up" from being gone--at work, at home, and on my blog. I'm doing OK, but I find that I can't organize my thoughts enough or concentrate on one thing long enough to put together a coherent blog post.

Instead, this will jump around quite a bit, with a little of everything! Get ready to read some of the thoughts rolling around in my head, none of which are really worthy of individual posts.
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At this point, I'm happy to say that with this post, I am officially caught up on my blog. For now. I intended to blog from Chicago since our hotel had free internet access, but every night, I just wanted to relax. Looking back, I can't believe I managed to blog every day of our honeymoon last year. At the time, it didn't even seem like a big deal, and it's not like it really took that much time.

Who was that Heather? I'd like to have her back.
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One thing I failed to mention about Chicago... it's currently in the running to host the Summer Olympics in 2016. I had no idea until we were visiting and I saw all of the advertisements everywhere, and also heard about it on the city's local news.

But how AWESOME would that be??

I can't imagine a better city to serve as host. The other candidate cities are Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid. I don't know how good Chicago's chances are, but if it does get chosen, I'll go ahead and say right now that we would seriously be looking into making a trip to the Olympics.

Not only do I love Chicago, but I loooooove the Olympics. The final selection will be made on October 2. I'm anxious to see what happens.
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The day before we left for Chicago, I did a "portfolio building" photo session with a coworker's son. "Porfolio building" = I offered to do it for free. It went really well, and I've spent the last few nights furiously editing the photos to put together a little collage to display at her son's first birthday (totally cute for my coworker and her family, and totally awesome advertising for me).

Speaking of his first birthday... this same coworker has hired me to photograph the birthday party. I'm still only charging about half of what I probably should be charging, but since I'm just starting out, I'm feeling OK about that. At this point, I'm just excited that people actually want to hire me.

Speaking of HIRING me... I actually have a second paid photo session on Saturday morning. It's to take photos of my friend's son. So Saturday's going to be busy! I have to do his session in the morning, then head over to photograph the coworker's son's big birthday in the afternoon. Fun, fun!

I'm working hard and getting excited about the payoff I'm starting to see. I'm afraid to dream too big, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for me...
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My aerobics classes started up again on Monday night. Well, actually, kickboxing started on Thursday, but I had to skip it since we were flying to Chicago. I'm back on my schedule of step on Monday nights and kickboxing on Thursdays (and regular ol' gym on the weekends, as time permits). So last night was my first class, and wow, it was nice to get back into it. It's nice to have a break over the summer, but I always sort of want to kick my own ass once I realize how much I've let my fitness level slide in those 2.5 months off. Stupid. But the good news is that I'm really not all that sore, so I might not be in as bad shape as I thought. Thank you, 30 Day Shred.

Since I brought that up, I feel the need to confess that I stopped doing The Shred the second week in August. I'm seriously not cut out for DVD workouts. Yes, 20 minute workouts are appealing. But HOLY CRAP did I get bored with it. Sure, the elliptical is boring as hell, but I keep myself entertained with reading my books. I'd much rather spend 60 minutes reading on the elliptical than spend 20 minutes following along with Jillian Michaels, knowing every word she's going to say before she even says it. Knowing the workout by heart made it seem impossibly and torturously long.

The good thing is that I felt so guilty for giving up the 30 Day Shred that I actually started going to the gym more often. Funny how that works.
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Now that our weekend in Chicago has come and gone, this is the first time in over a year that we have not had our next vacation already planned. We've done quite a bit of traveling over these past 15 months of marriage. First came Hawaii, then Charlotte, then Vegas, then Seattle and San Francisco, and finally Chicago. Since I'm a planner by nature, we always had the "next" thing planned. Now? Nothing. It's a weird feeling, and I'm not sure I like it. Since we got married, I've liked always having a trip to look forward to.

We'd like to remedy this by planning our next vacation, but there seem to be a lot of variables. Mainly, where do we want to go? And when? We have quite a few places on our "list," but we're sort of having trouble prioritizing. I think some research is in order.
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I'm feeling the need to tell you that when I did a Google Image search for "Ketchup Day" for this post, I came across a picture of ketchup cake. I love me some ketchup (like, seriously love) but even I think that ketchup cake is wrong on so many levels. I'm thinking that those crazy, ketchup-loving Canadians must be responsible for that. ;)

Anyway, I think that's enough randomness for one day. But this was actually really fun--perhaps more "Ketchup Days" are in the cards for Heather Drive?

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Just Keep Swimming

When we went to San Francisco, I really wanted to go to the aquarium there. It's been years since I've been to one, and I just think that they are so neat. Well, when we got to the aquarium in San Francisco, it was closing. :( Poor planning on our part. Anyway, when one of you readers mentioned the aquarium in your recommendations, it was on our "maybe" list--something to do if we had enough time.

Well, with our flight not leaving until 2:20 p.m., we decided to get up a little extra early this morning so that we could get to the aquarium, spend a few hours there, and then head back to the hotel, pick up our stuff, and travel to the airport.

We got down to the aquarium right after it opened.

Admission was $24.95, which is a little bit expensive in my opinion, but when you consider how much time you could spend there, it's worth it. Plus, I can't imagine how much money they have to spend to care for the animals, acquire the animals, hire qualified staff, etc., so I think the cost is probably justified.

Anyway, we went right into the exhibits to make the most of our time there.
Turtles! I love turtles.
These guys were eating breakfast. It looked like a really nice fruit salad, actually.
Big ass fish.
This guy's eyes were really creepy.
Speaking of creepy... we thought this guy was fake. He wasn't.
These fish have built-in bouffants. I like to call them Amy Winehouse fish.
Iguana
This frog was cracking me up. Check out how he was just hanging there!
This guy has a "Penelope" nose.
This turtle was in a giant tank that was in the middle of one of the big halls. It had all sorts of fish in it, as well as sting rays, and even a few small sharks. Look at him! He was chillin' with his head between the branches of a plant. At first, I questioned whether he was even real, as he wasn't moving at all.
Really cool display of jellyfish. I think they're awesome as long as they're not swimming with me.
Dolphins from above.
Dolphins from below.
Beluga whales.

I didn't get any good pictures of them because they move so damn fast, but the penguins were so much fun. LOVE the penguins.
Who can go to an aquarium without thinking about Nemo the whole time? Anyway, we found him.

A cute little side story... We were in an exhibit area where there were scuba divers in the tanks with the fish to feed them, clean the tanks, etc. This little girl standing next to me says to her father, "A diver, like in Nemo!" Her father responds, "Yes, but this is a nice diver." The little girl says, all serious, "Yeah, a nice diver. Nemo's diver was mean." :) Made me laugh.
We managed to make it through the whole aquarium in about two hours, and then we had to head out to get back to the hotel in time for checkout before getting on the train for the airport.
But of course, we had to take one last shot of the skyline (view from outside of Shedd Aquarium).

We had an absolutely wonderful time in Chicago. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a long weekend getaway... or even if you have longer to spend there. I'm sure you won't run out of things to do. I honestly think Chicago has surpassed NYC on my list of favorite cities. There's just something about Chicago that I like better, but I can't really put my finger on it. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Who knows... maybe next year!

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Skyscrapin'

We woke up ready for another day in the city. It was a little bit hazy this morning, but it mostly burned off and we had another gorgeous, sunny day here in Chicago.

We set off from our hotel around 9:00 a.m. and headed down to the Willis Tower (or, if you refuse to conform, like me, you can continue calling it the Sears Tower).

One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday was that we picked up two $14 3-day CTA passes which give us unlimited rides on the trains (the "L"), as well as buses. It's really come in handy so far and we know that we'll get our money's worth. It's a great deal, so I highly recommend the multi-day passes if you visit. You can't get them at the train stations, though. (This was confusing to me, as I always buy multi-day subway passes on my trips to NYC, and I've always purchased them right in the subway stations.) We had to go to a CVS to buy them, but that was fine as it wasn't too far out of the way.

Anyway, so we left our hotel and hopped on the Red Line for a few stops, then walked several blocks over to the Sears Tower. Once we got there, the woman in the lobby told us that visibility was pretty poor up there this morning (only 0-5 miles), but that it was expected to get better later in the day. We quickly decided to postpone our trip up to the top and come back later.

Instead, we did some more walking, and hopped back on the train up toward Michigan Avenue. Our other plans for the day included an architecture boat tour, so we figured we'd check that out while we were waiting for the fog to clear from the top of Sears Tower. There are several companies that do these architecture boat tours, but we went with Wendella. Tickets were $22.

We got there about 1/2 hour before our tour was to start, so we purchased the tickets, then waited for a few minutes. Soon enough, they were boarding us onto the boat, so it wasn't much of a wait after all.
This was the view from the Wendella "station" while we waited. Not a bad place to spend a few minutes.
This beautiful building was towering over us as we waited for the ride to begin. I wasn't at all surprised when I found out that this is the new Trump International Tower. Say what you want about him--the guy certainly knows how to build stuff.

Once we started moving, our tour guide immediately launched into her explanation of all of the amazing buildings located along the Chicago River, and even some of the ones set further back. I was immediately impressed with her memorization skills, as her delivery of this information was flawless. All of the architects, the timelines for construction, the square feet or the heights of the buildings... whoa.

Anyway, the sights were rather impressive, too.





The tour was 60 minutes and it was a really great way to see the city. Plus, it was such a perfect day to be cruising along the river. The tour was really informative, mixing history and some interesting trivia.
Before we got off the boat, we had someone take a photo of us.

At this point, it was noon, and we wanted to head back down to the Sears Tower. But not before making a crucial pit stop (more on that in a second).
On our way back over the river, I stopped to take this photo on one of the bridges. LOVE THIS CITY.

Once over the river, we quickly made our way to our non-negotiable pit stop. Where's that, you ask?

It was a little place called Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique.
One of my lovely blog readers went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and happened to mention to me that she and her husband found this little bakery. And um, hello, I am ME, after all, and I wasn't going to let that piece of information go unnoticed.
Inside, we were greeted with... well, CUPCAKES. The most adorable, delicious-looking cupcakes. In several flavors. We had trouble deciding, really.
Ultimately, we chose Strawberry Dream (fresh strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese icing) and a traditional Black & White (dark chocolate cake, vanilla buttercream icing).

Just look at them! They're GLORIOUS!

As cute as the bakery was, they didn't offer much in the way of seating, so we decided to get our cupcakes to go. Which ended up being awesome, since they put them in that sweet little box for us. We walked them over to Millenium Park and sat in the shade to enjoy every single morsel.
See? Here I am, enjoying it before I've even tasted it. YUM.

After the cupcakes (the Black & White was my favorite, by the way), we headed back down to the Sears Tower.
Thankfully, there weren't any lines outside, so we were able to get right into the building and to the floor where they do ticketing/security. There was a bit of a line there, so we were delayed for probably half an hour to 45 minutes or so? It wasn't bad.

Before we knew it, our ears were popping as we rode the elevator all the way to the top--to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor. We immediately walked around to the other side of the building to the Skydeck Ledge, since we knew they were a big attraction. After waiting for a few minutes in the crowd, we made our way out onto the Ledge.
First Michael...
Then my turn...
Then a fellow tourist took a few photos of the both of us. The Ledges are really cool. I was sort of freaked out by it at first but I didn't have any problems walking out onto it. It's a strange feeling to stand out there and look straight down.

We moved out of the box to give other people a chance, and wandered around the Skydeck, just checking out the view.

Then Michael had an idea. He wanted me to go onto one Ledge, while he went in the other, then take pictures that way. They came out pretty cool...
Unfortunately, there was a lot of sun glare on Michael's side!
We spent some more time looking around and taking photos...

...and eventually made our way to the elevators and back down to ground level.

From there, we went back to the hotel for a little bit to relax and figure out where to head to dinner. After looking at various restaurants, we decided to go to a little Irish pub called Timothy O'Toole's.
This place was great. I was hungry and it totally hit the spot. I had an awesome turkey club sandwich (with honey mustard instead of mayo!). The turkey was amazing (had a honey roasted taste). Also, they have a ton of flat-panel TVs in the place, making it a perfect place to watch sports. We enjoyed some college football while eating our meal.

After dinner, we cut back over to Michigan Avenue, which was only a few blocks away. On the way over there, we unfortunately saw this: Man Dies in Plunge from Building. We didn't actually witness the incident (THANK GOD), but we came upon police cars and a taped off area of the street. And then we saw the white sheet. It was pretty shocking, and greatly disturbing. We paused for a few seconds, but ultimately kept moving. I am so grateful we only came upon the scene after it had already happened.

Switching gears back to "happy" and "fun"...

We wandered Michigan Avenue for a little bit, waiting for it to get dark. We browsed Crate and Barrel, and went to "visit" our dream computer at the Apple Store. From there, we walked down to the Hancock Building and once again, found ourselves in an elevator all the way up to the top.
Many people had recommended we enjoy cocktails at The Signature Lounge, which is located on the 96th floor of the Hancock Center. Disappointingly, it was a little foggy up there, so visibility wasn't all that great. Plus, all of the tables by the windows were understandably occupied. Still, we had fun and enjoyed our drinks.

It felt nice to be on ground level again. We seemingly spent a lot of time in elevators today! And we were all about the skyscrapers--looking up at them, traveling to the top of them, etc. It certainly gave us an appreciation for the architecture in Chicago.

Since we were blessed with another gorgeous late summer evening, we took our time walking back to our hotel.
On Michigan Avenue...
A view of the river and skyline on the way back.

And so the book closes on another wonderful day in Chicago. We get to enjoy the city for a few more hours in the morning before we have to head to the airport to go home! We'll be sad to leave but it is always nice to get home.

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