Summer Summer Summertime!

Andy and I in downtown Chicago

I finished reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. Such an excellent book, I would recommend it to anyone who has been looking for a spiritual philosophical book to get them thinking. It is one of those books where you can read a chapter and think about it for days. Then go back for more, and there is more that makes you think. It was terrific.

I then read "Blue like Jazz" by Donald Miller. I heard it was a good one too, so I gave it a shot. It was definitely different than Velvet Elvis, yet still highly entertaining. I laughed out loud many times.

Andy and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary in July!

Doesn't this cake look awesome?!?! It tasted as good as it looks. Graciously given to us by Aunt Loretta.

We first went to the Indiana Dunes and went shopping at the outlet mall. Fun! Swam in the hotel pool and had a nice relaxing day. The next day we went to Chicago and stayed at the lovely Palmer House. We somehow managed to get the best room in the hotel. The top floor in the executive suites, the only room on the floor with a window facing Lake Michigan. It helped that we booked it ahead of time I'm sure, and that we stayed there on a Sunday night. Our anniversary was on a Monday this year. Sunday night we went to the Chicago Chop House -Andy's favorite! We had tried going there before on previous Chicago trips but they were always booked. Again, we got the best seat in the house. This idea of reserving in advance really works.

We had taken an expensive cab to the restaurant and decided to walk off our dinner back to the hotel. Andy was so impressed i walked over a mile in heels. I said, "try to walk a mile in my shoes!" ha ha. Then we watched a movie we brought and started searching around for stuff to do. We didn't plan this part of the trip because we figured there would be tons of things in Chicago. On a Sunday night? Not so much. There were reject no-names at the comedy clubs (we you-tubed them), and no cool bands at the hot spots I knew of. In all of our google searching, we found that Shirley Johnson was this large black woman who sang the blues. (Andy's mother -also named Shirley.) We sampled her songs on amazon's website and pictured this being Andy's mom. We roared in laughter.

Then we decided to go back downtown to the Redhead Piano Bar. We had passed it in our walk earlier, and Andy had heard of it before. Seemed pretty cool. I wised up and got my socks and nike shoes on to take the 1.5 mile walk this time. I bagged my heels in my "purse" (aka laptop bag) and then headed out. It worked out well because the dress code required nice clothes and this way, my feet weren't going to kill me PLUS we didn't have to blow money on cab fair.

They have a large list of martini's. Their specialty. I had never had a martini that I actually liked, I confessed to our waitress. She was helpful and picked me out a winner. I wanted to drink

5 of them. But they were $12 each, so Andy kept

me at a 2 drink minimum. They were worth it. And two drinks to me is like 5 drinks to someone who actually drinks. So I was having a blast.
They played the Billy Vera and the Beaters song, "At this Moment". I went up and sang with the piano guy. It was great. That's one of my favorite songs of the 80's. They played "Colors of the Wind" and I couldn't stop thinking of how weird the song sounds like from a piano bar setting. It was just out of place. Andy video'd me making fun of the guy belting out the tune. We had this huge table of 40 something men and women come in and sit by us. They were acting all obnoxious and loud. As if they were 18. It added to the entertainment value of the night.

The next day, (our official anniversary) we went to Navy Pier where Andy asked me to marry him. We found the bench in the Crystal Gardens that he proposed and took pictures together. As you can see, we wore our authentic Hawaii outfits to remember our honeymoon.

The bench that we sat on when Andy asked me to marry him, had a information board (like you see in a zoo) about the Hibiscus flower. It's a Hawaiian flower, and if they would be something you could buy (and not die immeiately after) we would've used them in our wedding. US States have designated flowers -- this one is our relationship flower.

It was a perfect weekend getaway and a fabulous cap on an awesome first year of marriage together.