I Don't Get Off of the Farm Much...

We have all been looking forward to this adventure for months.  I'm not even joking!  I really don't know how it all came about, but it was decided that Lu and I would spend a couple of days at Alison's house after the Staff Retreat.  We would spend a day in the city and a day at Alison's house.

We planned and plotted for weeks.  

We counted down.  

We mapped our route. 

 And then it was time to head out.

Lu needed to leave her car in Strawberry Point and I was leading the way.  Before we even got out of Lansing, we had to turn around because I had different directions than what I thought I had...  And then before we left Strawberry Point, we had to turn around because I goofed.

5 hours in the car with Lu is interesting to say the least.  I am a good driver, I promise, but on long drives when I have passengers, I tend to give examples that would defy that statement.  We started counting deer and by the end of the drive, we got to 22.  In Dubuque, I 'almost' hit some 'gangsters.'  We stopped at a 'dirty' gas station.  Lu steered me the wrong way because she didn't look at the directions.  This was after she wiggled my rear view mirror all around to shut the light off.  Seriously, the last 20 minutes or so, I was crying and snorting because I was laughing so unbelievably hard!  We were almost there when Lu told me to look to the left at some lit up castle.  At the same time, I saw a sign for pony rides, and then a guard rail was getting a little too close for comfort...  We made it alright in the end though, and we were both glad to park my car and have it sit for a couple of days.

Monday was reserved for our trip into Chicago.  We got to ride the train into the city!  A double-decker train!  With a conductor!  We walked all the way up Madison Ave. until we got to the good part.  Like the Millennium Park, The Bean, The Art Institute good part.  After a great lunch at Noodles and Company, we headed to the Art Institute.  A big thank you to Alison's dad for making that one possible!  After checking our skates and such, we headed in.  I've never been to a place like this, and to do it for my first time with an art major was a lot of fun!  Lu kept reporting facts to us about practically EVERY painting!  :)  I got to see a lot of great paintings that I've only ever seen in books.  I live only about an hour away from the American Gothic house and have never been there.  I've seen it, but have never actually stopped.  Maybe when they come visit me, we'll go!

After that, it was time to make our way back to Millennium Park.  Sometimes, I do like to do the typical tourist activities, and I have been talking about seeing the Bean for weeks!  It ranks rather high on my list!  :) Honestly, I didn't expect it to be that large!  It was a little dirty from all the fingerprints and such, but shiny none the less!

It was then on to what I was most looking forward to!  I mean, I brought my own skates so we wouldn't have to stand in line for hours just to rent a pair.  The best part about skating in Millennium Park was that we did it for free!!!  That's right!  FREE!  There were so many people and the line for rentals wrapped around the rink!  It was a blast!  I was the one who biffed it badly and gave all those people watchers a good show. I made sure to get back up real quick!  Lu managed to step in gum while wearing Grammy's skates that are antiques!  I just don't know what to do with that girl sometimes!

After the skating was through, we felt the need to warm up for a quick minute, so we crossed the street for Caribou Coffee, and Lu needed a grilled cheese.  After a long walk back with a quick stop for Garrett popcorn, we were finally boarding the train to head back to Wheaton.  This train ride was far more entertaining with random train goers.  There was one guy sleeping, and a few others that kept talking to us about our popcorn.

Alison's parents hosted a New Year's party, so we joined in on the fun!  After a couple eventful rounds of Telephone Pictionary, we moved onto Spoons, followed by Split Decision.  I had only ever played Spoons before, so the others were a BLAST to learn!  There was so much laughter bursting through the house!  We watched the ball drop at 11, and kept ourselves busy until the approach of midnight.  The champagne was poured and passed out, and the minutes ticked by.  At long last, it was time to yell out 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, clink glasses, and shout, "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!"  Then it was that time when Lu kept shooting the champagne poppers at me, even if it tells you not to in the instructions!

Tuesday morning proved eventful.  Please, next year someone tell my body that it is okay to sleep past 9 on New Year's Day.  I was up at 8:15.  I at least got a lot of reading done before Alison and Lu woke up.  Granted that I did my fair share in helping Lu wake up!  :)  Today was a major take it easy day with a brunch of cinnamon rolls.  After running a couple of errands, we settled in for a game of Monopoly that Lu was determined to play to the end.  That was until I started dominating and putting up houses and hotels and gloating my way through all my winnings! Things were a little tense for a while, so we decided that we needed to make rice krispies!  This has to be my ultimate food weakness...  The best part was that we made them into Disney shapes with cookie cutters!  Buzz Lightyear's spaceship looked more like a PacMan ghost, but they still tasted great!

Portillo's for supper!  Wow!  What a great burger!  I am a sucker fore bacon cheeseburgers and this one hit the spot!  Also, this place was gangster themed.  And it was the good kind of gangster too, like the 20's flapper kind of gangster.  It even had some great music playing in the background.

One thing that Alison asked me to bring to her house was my jean quilt.  This was the quilt that we used during TAG time every day during Senior High.  We had a good solid half hour spread out on this quilt at the top of the stairs on our last night together.  Such a wonderful time spent in prayer and in the Word.  This was such a wonderful weekend of refreshment.

The rest of the night was spent watching Beauty and the Beast.  Lu was knitting, I was doing embroidery, and Alison was crocheting.  Seriously, we're 21/22 going on 80 and perfectly happy with that!  God has given me a lot when he put these two amazing women in my life, and I know that I will have their friendships forever, and not the cheesy BFF kind, but the encouraging, challenging, adventurous kind.  We definitely don't live close enough to each other, and we don't see each other as often as we'd like, but it is great to have friends like these who will take 5 hour drives with you, or lead you around in a big city when you are all but fresh off the farm!  :)