Wonderfully Busy

In January, when it's freezing cold and life's a bore what do you do??? You take a trip, watch a movie, do some shopping, paint your kitchen, do the laundry, clean your house, eat yummy food! In a nutshell, that was our weekend.

Josh & I headed out as soon as work was done on Friday to our little weekend getaway. We realized that we haven't had a little trip like this in quite a long time--by ourselves. It's surely been a couple of years. We didn't get into much rush hour traffic at all and made it in decent timing. I told Josh on the way into the hotel that it reminded me of basketball/cheerleading season when I used to coach. We used to travel all over the state and then if we had a tournament, we would be spending the night. This was typically in January & February so the cold weather and the hotel all seemed like that time. Funny enough, we walked into the hotel which was Double Tree by Hilton and the large lobby area was FILLED with teenagers. It REALLY felt like basketball season then! We dropped off our stuff and headed out to dinner at none other than PF CHANGS! After waiting about an hour, we got to eat. DELICIOUS! We went to the mall that was right by our hotel and did a teeny bit of shopping--mostly at the Coach store. I was able to get Josh's V-Day gift there. He loves it (yes he got it early). He laughed at the fact that he now has a Coach item. It is a card case (think thin wallet). The funny thing is that after we have purchased this, my co-worker tells me that the normal wallet days are over for guys and the type of wallet Josh got is THE thing. YAY!

The mall closed at 9--way too early if you ask me. We headed to Super Target and did a little shopping. Upon arriving at our hotel, the lobby still smelled like Cold Stone birthday cake ice cream --no idea why, but the teens had moved to a different portion of the hotel. There was dance music playing and the lights were dimmed. As tempting as it was to join them, we headed up to our room. We watched a PPV or a Movie on Demand. Since we missed seeing Fireproof, we got to see it this weekend--it was great.

We got up and went to THE McDonalds. I call it that because it is right across the street from McD's world HQ. I told Josh that this one surely has it all together and that this must be PERFECT McD. It did not disappoint. It had more televisions than many sports bars and barely resembled McD except for the counter where you order. They do have the food right and better tasting than ours. We realized that we have been to 1. the world's biggest McD's 2. the vintage/rock 'n roll McD 3. the HQ McD We aren't like McD people but it just so happens that it is based here in IL.

Shopping was great--although SUPER cold. This is an outdoor type mall. I was glad the girls were not with us b/c they would have been frozen. While there were many choices for lunch like Cheesecake Factory, Maggiano's, Wildfire Grill, etc...we opted to go to PF Changs again!!! I was glad we did. Josh had to get his fix. He tried the Dali Chicken. It was chicken stir fry with Yukon gold potatoes, in a Chili sauce. This meant that it had little chili peppers and it was quite spicy!! He topped that off with a Strawberry Cheesecake mini dessert. It was good--I sampled it. I had honey crispy chicken with white rice and a S'mores mini dessert.

Since we always have an interesting portion of any trip, here it is...
Following dinner we went to this shopping center. We hadn't ever been to any of these stores so names meant nothing. One store we chose to visit was called "Sweet & Sassy". It looked like a children's boutique on the outside. Inside was full of giggles, smells of nail polish, fake hair, make-up, and facial masks. This was one of those stores for little girls on up to tweens to have a spa-day. There were b-day parties going on and just little ones getting the royal treatment I guess. When I say little ones, this starts at age 2 or 3 I guess and goes up to 12-13. Don't get me wrong, I know little girls love this type of stuff, and it's fun to do--but this place was OVER the TOP. It was kind of scary-pageant-ish. There were children with face masks on getting there toes soaked while others were getting manicures. Beyond that, they put on hair extensions or fake hair and whatever else. Josh informed me that it was $70 for your little princess to get the treatment. Honestly, I wish I had time to get a treatment like this--especially a pedicure. For us, we'll just give the girls their pedicures and buy them hairbows =).

We painted the kitchen yesterday and it turned out very nice. This is in preparation for our cabinets. It's all about getting the yucky projects done in the winter!

Well, this has been way LONG enough. Tonight is the Bachelor and True Beauty. I also need to get going on my Christmas Shutterfly book!