Chicago

Nate and I celebrated our anniversary this year in Chicago! It was such a treat for me to have him plan the whole trip. I didn't look at any of the details of the trip so I could be surprised.  We stayed at his parents house in Oakdale, WI and hopped on the Amtrak train in Tomah the next day.  My mom watched the girls for the few days.  The train ride was incredible. We traveled coach going there and enjoyed lunch on the dining car. We really liked the observation car too.  We arrived in Chicago and took a taxi to our hotel, the Palmer Hotel. It was so fancy we each had our own bathroom!  The next day we spent the entire day at the Chicago Art Institute to see the rare Van Gogh bedroom paintings exhibit.  We were so wiped out after walking the museum all day.  The next day we wandered around downtown Chicago and came upon Millennial Park.  We enjoyed a deep dish pizza for lunch and hopped on the Amtrak again heading home.  This time we had a small sleeper car.  We are thinking about possibly traveling to Washington with the kids on the Amtrak.  It was a fun experience.

Observation Deck

Our hotel entrance!

The foyer of the Palmer Hotel

Our room!

Our room's view of Chicago

The Art Institute

Most people recognize this one! It is called American Gothic by Grant Wood.

Beautiful Georgia O'Keeffe painting

Van Gogh!

Life size exhibit of his bedroom

His first painting of his bedroom

His second painting of his bedroom

His third painting

A painting I like by Mary Cassatt

Selfie by some famous stained glass.

I like this one too.  It is by Berthe Morisot.

This one is of sisters and I believe it is a Renoir.

Very famous and huge painting by George Seurat.  It is made up of millions of tiny dots. The technique is called Pointillism and I used to teach it in art classes.

Some of my favorite Monet paintings.

They had an entire section of miniature models of how rooms looked like throughout history.

Millennial Park

This is a larger sleeper car that we peeked into.

Dining Car. Be prepared to sit with strangers. You meet a lot of neat people on the dining car!

American Heritage Girls Winter Cabin Camp

I got to help lead a Geology badge for the girls Cabin Camp at Whitewater State Park.  It was perfect weather. I discovered how much the girls both like to hike!  Here is the gemstone necklace that I worked on with the girls. Mikayla wears hers all the time.

Here are some of our other fun memories:

The girls were in charge of making all the food and cleaning up!

Elyana's Cooking Badge!

I am leading Elyana's American Heritage Girl group in their cooking badge.  It has been fun. We have made camp treats, salads in jars (a layered rainbow fruit salad and a taco salad), and a casserole.  We even got to go to a restaurant and have a chef talk with us and demonstrate.  On Monday we will come to my house where we will make homemade pizzas and cookies.

A few Random things

My friend, Karin gave me this great tip on caulking. Just use painter's tape, caulk, and pull off the tape for a perfect looking caulking job!

This winter, Mikayla's friend, Kaitlyn had a women's dinner at their church we were invited to.  It was fun to get dressed up with Mikayla and get to know Kaitlyn and her mom better.

Here is a rare photo of Mikayla getting some Daddy snuggles:

Another thing that happened this winter was we had to have a large tree in our backyard chopped down. It is an expense that is never budgeted for.  The girls were sad to see it go.

When spring came, Mikayla made a sign in honor of the tree:

She also made a sign for the terrible squirrel that chewed holes in our shed before it died. She insisted on burying the thing in our yard.

I looked out the window this week and saw a squirrel on it's hind legs looking at the sign! Too funny!