Jess, Polly, and I had a most excellent trip down to see Kristie this past weekend. Friday we picked up Polly and headed out at around 3:30. We stopped at good ole MickeyD's on the way for dinner and drove straight through the rest of the way. Got to Kristie's apt in Hoffman Estates, IL at about 9:40. We got the grand tour of her apartment, it is so cute and has so much closet space!

We gave her her housewarming gifts and she loved em all!!! Polly got her a set of glass coasters that you can put pictures in with the words Live Laugh Love around the border. Jess gave her a really cool bowl made of a wire flower design filled with those cool twine balls. I bought her a framed black and white picture of a road and some trees. She had liked our tree pic in our bedroom and I saw it and thought of her. Just like I figured she wasn't expecting any gifts, which made it all the more fun to give them to her!!!

Anywho, after gifts we were starving so we headed out to Portillo's and we all got a shake/malt and foods, I had a wonderfully delicious Chicago Dog! It was so good, we all had a good time laughing about it though because the end of the hot dog sticking out looked exactly like a big toe!!! I'll post a pic on here once I get them all uploaded (hopefully tomorrow!).

Saturday morning we woke up and headed downtown Chicago! We took Jonathan's jeep, which was so nice because it had the ipass and we didn't have to pay any tolls! (Kristie also paid for our parking downtown- thanks K!) Kristie asked me to drive, which I was totally cool with, I have this ability to stay calm in downtown driving situations, even if I'm lost I'm able to keep my cool, which we kind of did end up lost cause the GPS went wacko but we figured it out and it was all good. We parked at Millenium Park and our first order of business was to see the big silver bean!!! (AKA Cloud Gate) We took many cool pics. After we walked down to Buckingham fountain but it was closed for repairs. Then we headed up the Magnificent Mile and shopped away!!! Even though Illinois' clothing tax is 10.25%- blah!!! We helped Kristie pick out a bunch of new work clothes and a really gorgeous black suit jacket.

Stopped for lunch at a cute little corner deli and we all had some soup and sandwiches. After we continued our trek along the MM. We ended at the John Hancock Tower and Jessica proceeded to buy us each our $15 ticket to the top- THanks so much Jess!!! The view was incredible!!! It was so cool to be up there, I took a ton of pictures and will have to post a few on here

After the tower we decided it was time to head back to the car. We walked a block to catch the last free trolley to our car.

While on the trolley I got a really sad phone call from one of my friends, but I won't go into it here…

After we got to the car we headed to Giordano's back in Hoffman Estates to meet Jonathan and his friend Nick for Chicago style pizza! It was so wonderfully delicious! At the end of dinner Jonathan grabbed the tab and told us to get the tip, so so sweet of him. Polly and I split the tip since JEss paid for our Hancock tour.

By then it was almost 10pm and we headed back to K's once again and chilled and talked til late and we were all sleepy.

Sunday we woke up to a cute little continental breakfast Kristie had set out for us and a super sweet note from Jonathan letting us know we need to visit again and soon!

After the 4 of us were ready we headed out to Kristie's church, Life Changers. The place was HUGE!!! Kristie jokingly calls it Solomon's Temple, it has huge columns and kind of looks like a temple. The inside was gorgeous! We got a tour of the place from Kristie and the place is huge and decorated beautifully. All of the women's bathrooms have a cute little sitting area with nice chairs and/or couches.

We also got to see Kristie's Kindergarten classroom. It was so cute! Then during our tour a little girl came running up to Kristie shouting 'Mrs. Hayes!' and gave her a really big hug, so darn cute!

After church we went to my long awaited Baja Fresh! IT was so so delicious and everything I remembered and hoped it would be!!! The other girls liked it, but not quite as much as me, lol…

After lunch we headed back to K's and got packed up and said our goodbyes and hit the road. It was a very uneventful drive home. Had KFC for dinner, that's bout it…

Anywho, it's good to be home and not so good to be back at work, but oh well.

~Amy