A Weekend in Chicago

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Do you remember when I told you about how Princeton was protesting the month of October?  If not, you can read about it here.  Well, November came in with a big bang and a trip to Chicago.  Princeton was not a happy camper...

The good news is that he had a good time visiting with Grandmama and Super Pops (my mom and dad) and when we returned, he hadn't destroyed anything else out of anger.  It was a win-win situation!

Stephen and I had been looking forward to our trip for the longest time, and were thankful for a reason to get away.  We had friends who were tying the knot in Chicago, and we couldn't wait to get there!

As soon as we drove into the city, we headed to one of our most favorite restaurants, Joy Yee.  Joy Yees is a pan Asian restaurant located in Chinatown (I wrote about it here when my sister and her husband visited).  For the past couple of months every time Stephen and I go out to eat, Stephen has shared his craving for Joy Yees.  Thankfully we were able to satisfy this craving on this trip.  It was a night of a double win, as our good friend, Shea, joined us on our Joy Yee extravaganza!  Unfortunately, we have no pictures to document this :-/

Joy Yee, we love you!

Stephen proudly showing us what he's going to order :)

Our meal: Coconut Curry Chicken and Chicken & Shrimp Pad Thai

Stephen double fisting our Bubble Tea choices.  Mine was on the left: a Mango Freeze.  Stephen's is on the right: a Berry Freeze.

On Saturday we enjoyed time with our good friends, Matt and Amy before heading off to Carnivale (a great Brazilian restaurant in downtown Chicago) to enjoy a wonderful wedding!

It's such a fun and beautiful atmosphere, with DELICIOUS food!

They served our table family style with food that was out of this world!  

 Stephen and I are blessed to have such good friends.  Here are our good friends, Debbie and Stephen - both were in our small groups in Chicago. 

The Bride and Groom

After the wedding, Stephen and I headed to our dear friends, Mike and Amanda's apartment (Princeton's previous owners) to hang out with them and our other dear friends, Matt and Amy.  We enjoyed a great night of food (more food?!) and Balderdash.  You can never go wrong with Balderdash and this crowd!  We laughed until we cried!

On Sunday, we were privileged to worship at The Moody Church before we spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends and loving our home away from home even more. 

We even got a chance to drive past our old apartment...

 We love Chicago and miss it daily.  The people make the place, and God definitely blessed us with an amazing Chicago Family that we'll have for the rest of our lives. 

Have you ever been to this great city?  If so, what's your favorite thing to do there?

2 Weeks Already?!?!

{I originally started writing this post last Thursday and I'm just now getting around to finishing it...}
Time sure has flown!  A mere 2 weeks ago, Stephen and I were still in our wonderful apartment in Chicago preparing for our both dreaded and anticipated moving day.  Not only did we have to make sure that we had everything packed up and ready to be moved the following morning, but we also had to make sure that we painted back some parts of our apartment that the following tenants didn't want.  When Stephen and I first moved into our apartment, we decided to paint to make it feel homey-er.  We made this decision, even though we knew there would be a good chance we'd have to paint back.

If you click here, you can see pictures of our apartment from before we moved in.  If you click here you can see some pictures from after we painted.  And, if you click here you can go to the actual rental listing that is still active, even though our apartment has successfully been rented out.

So Stephen and I were faced with the big challenge of painting back our family room, bedroom and kitchen...we were so not looking forward to it!  Thankfully, God blessed us with some ah-mazing Chicago friends (you can read more about them here) and they so sweetly came over and helped us totally repaint in a matter of hours.  What had taken us days to do, only took us hours to undo.

Sweet Debbie painting our family room...what was once burnt orange is now oatmeal...

Stephen captured this great photo of me painting the family room.

A serious crowd getting that kitchen transformed from chocolate to oatmeal!

4/5ths of my amazing small group came - did you know I love these gals???

Check out this progress:

 

What was once our brown kitchen turned into an oatmeal oasis...

Chocolate turned to oatmeal.  The chocolate definitely made those dingy cabinets appear whiter!

Our green bedroom, a now a unique shade of oatmeal.

Our warm, orange family room, now...you guessed it!  Oatmeal!

 

The new tenants wanted the golden color but not the orange...I kept on asking them if they wanted my can of golden paint to paint the whole room the same color, although they didn't.  I'm wondering if they wished they would've taken it after they saw the final results?

It was really sad to leave this home that we loved...however, the new paint color made it easier because it we just didn't think it looked good and it didn't seem like home anymore.  While Stephen and I are still living with my parents, waiting for our new home to officially be ours, we're looking forward to all the new memories that will be made and looking back on our already made memories with a warm heart.  

Goodbye 421 W St James Place, thanks for being so great to us!

A Warm, Toasty Evening

I hate our fireplace.

Stephen and I used to use our fireplace all the time and never had any problems...that was, until the day when our landlord told us that during the chimney inspection they had discovered that repairs were needed.  The repairs were scheduled and we were told that they would be as clean as possible.  With that being said, I did minimal preparations for their arrival - the extent of which being that I moved the couch away from the fireplace and pulled the rug back, thinking nothing of it.  When I returned home that night, our apartment was a sooty-mess and there was a hole in the wall above our fireplace.  Oh, and there was a nice little note from the "Chimney Authority" written on a napkin they had found in our kitchen that read:

In case you can't read that, it says, "We tried to be as clean as possible.  We are sorry and sorry for the hole on your wall! Thank you- Fireplace Chimney Authority'.

really?????

After a lot of anger, frustration and cleaning, fast forward to this past Tuesday night when the temperature in Chicago decided that it was not really ready for Spring and it wanted to revert back to its cold, winter days.  I should mention that Stephen and I enjoy free radiator heat (which is AWESOME) but with the freeness of it, we don't control when it's on and when it's off...Tuesday night, it happened to be off.  Continuing on...

My tootsies were cold, my nose was cold and quite frankly, I was just COLD.  That's when I had a bright idea, "Stephen, do you just want to have a fire?" (because remember, our chimney had been "fixed" by the Chimney Authority....)  

And that's what we did.  We enjoyed our little fire for about 20 minutes before I really realized that, even though the flue was open, the smoke from the fire wasn't properly leaving via the chimney, instead, it was taking a detour into our apartment.  

Insert lots of smoke.

Insert fire alarm.

Insert every window in our apartment being opened (wait, doesn't that defeat the original purpose of having a fire to begin with?)

Picture it: Stephen and I sitting on our couch with our winter coats on, wrapped in blankets.  

Smell it: A hickory, old-school Girl Scout campfire.

Needless to say, even though it's been almost a week, I'm still coming home and being instantly reminded of our fun, smoke-filled evening by that hickory, old-school Girl Scout campfire scent that I mentioned above.  Despite what the Chicago weather may bring (oh, like 33 degrees and snowy this morning), Stephen and I will not be enjoying a warm fire anytime soon.

The Life of a Chair

Once Upon a Time...

There was a piece of furniture named Charles the Chair, his friends called him Charlie.  One day, Charlie was sweating outside in the heat of a hot Chicago August hanging out with some family and friends when 2 crazy women in a Hyundai drove up and starting shoving him (his brother and cousin) into every nook and cranny of the Sonata.

Charlie the Chair lived a good, air conditioned new life.  He spent countless hours of the night wondering whatever happened to his brother and cousin, but when the sun rose and he was able to bask in it, he quickly forgot his old life.  After six long months of living in his new home, his crazy new owner got the burst of energy needed to start tackling a chair renovation...that's when things turned ugly.

After being pushed around, bruised, beaten and stripped of all the thousands of staples that he had in him, Charlie found himself feeling alone and cold.  It's a good thing he lives indoors during this blustery Chicago winter!

As soon as he didn't think it could get any worse, his owner got out some Citristrip and immediately began to slop it on his appendages.  At first it tickled and he didn't mind it...but then, after an hour of sitting on his body, he started to feel sick of the smell and he didn't like the burning sensation he now felt.

After an hour of a Citristrip bath, he watched (in horror) as his owner came at him with a metal paint scrapper.  As if he hadn't been poked and prodded enough!  He began to feel violated.

Naked, and left for dead Charlie the Chair waited to be rescued.

Out of the darkness, an Angel of Wood Stain suddenly appeared before him and offered Charlie the Chair new hope, and a new life.  It was finally beginning to feel as if things were taking a turn for the better.

Will Charlie the Chair survive this mistreatment?

Will the Angel of Wood Stain really fulfill its promise of new life?

Or will Charlie simply become tomorrow's firewood?  

Stay tuned.

A Christmas Facelift

We're all decked out and ready for Christmas here!

Want to make one of those ornament wreaths?  Here's the link to the blog that I used to make mine!

Please forgive the pile of Christmas gifts needing to be wrapped in the corner!

Eventually that Santa will be in my basement next to our sports theme tree :)

Even the bathroom got a little sprucin' up in honor of Christmas!

I hope you're enjoying your Christmas decorations as much as I am!

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Oh the weather outside is frightful....

but the fire is so delightful!

And since we've no place to go....

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!