Chicago and Thanksgiving Update

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So.... I'm back. I've been doing a LOT of traveling the last week. It's been GREAT though!!

Last Saturday morning my parents drove me to the airport. I got there 2 hours early because I've never flown by myself before, so naturally I was a little nervous I wouldn't be able to find my way around. Well... I got to my gate within 20 minutes. So I sat at my gate, had a latte, and read for about 2 hours before boarding the plane. The plane ride was so incredibly fast!! It seemed like as soon as we hit elevation we were going back down. It was crazy! I got to Chicago Airport and basically ran people down because there was this very attractive man waiting for me at my baggage claim. :-) We got my bag and headed back to his college. I got a little bit of the tour, and then we headed to the train station by his college and rode an hour into the city. (By this time I was already a little tired of the traveling....)

We got into the city and did some exploring. Here is our day in pictures:

It really is the windy city--Look at that hair! Me in front of the Sears Tower

I can't decide between the one above or below for my FIRST EVER EXPOSAROONIE CHALLENGE!!!! Anyone have any suggestions?
Or this one:

That might be the winner.....

Anyways..... Matt and I in Millennium Park
Yes, we took our picture in the big bean! HAHA Such Tourists...
Us with a huge Christmas tree on the Magnificent Mile!Waiting on the parade to start--It was FREEZING!!! We stood in this same spot for like 2 hours. I was honestly so frozen solid that when we went to walk, my body honestly hurt.
Mickey Mouse kicked off the parade--the christmas lights that light up the Magnificent Mile trees all lit up at Mickey's command. Who knew he was so powerful... Hehe!
Santa ended the parade-of course. A really crappy picture of him though...I had lots of children standing in front of me so it was hard to get good pictures when I was trying to keep them all from knocking over the barricade.


After the parade-making it out of downtown Chicago was a NIGHTMARE! We tried to eat at the Cheesecake Factory downtown. The wait was 75 minutes!!! No way we were waiting that long... so our romantic dinner that night was spent sitting on the floor of Union Station eating chinese food out of a Styrofoam to go box! :-) hehe! That was pretty funny....

We rode the train back to Deerfield and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up early to do some MORE traveling! YAY!!! We drove 2 hours up to Madison, Wisconsin to visit some friends ouf ours. Skye and Janna moved there this summer when they got married. We went to church and then ate at this place called The Old Fashioned. We got brunch. It was so yummy!! Then we went shopping in downton Madison. Except for the fact that Matt and I BOTH left our wallets in his car on accident. OOPS!

We went to this really fun hat shop. Janna and I decided we looked good in red hats and thought we might become members of the Red Hat Society! HAHA!
Skye can also rock the Santa Pimp hat pretty well... haha

We hung out with them in Madison and stayed for their weekly Sunday Night Movie Night. We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Monday we just hung out around Matt's campus. We had a "library date" for a couple hours as well. Did some homework. How cool are we?!

We finally ate at the Cheesecake factory to celebrate our 3 Year Anniversary-Which actually isn't until December 2nd. But, we won't be together then. So, we celebrated then instead.

Tuesday- I spent in the library while Matt was working and in class. At 4:00 we headed home for our 11 hour journey! Mapquest says it should be a 9 and a half hour trip.... well... again.. we left at 4:00. We got stuck in some MAJOR Chicago rush hour traffic! We ended up making it to Fairmont, WV at about 4:30 am. It was no fun at all. I slept a lot of it... and Matt says I would wake up every like hour or so and yell "I'M SORRY!" because I was trying so hard to stay awake because I didn't think it was fair of me to drive while he was driving so long and so late at night. I just couldn't help it though! I was so tired of traveling I just wanted to sleep!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was GREAT! :-) My mom made all kinds of good new things. She made cheddar biscuits like at Red Lobster, and some kind of good wild rice and brocolli stuff. It was so good!! Thanks mom, for being so great and such a great cook! We called her Diana Dean (like Paula Dean). I show you a picture of her nice Thanksgiving sweater she was so proud of.
My brother told her never to be seen out in public with him with that on. HAHA!! Only she can pull it off....

This morning I woke up and did some Black Friday early bird shopping. I'm so excited for Christmas Break!!!


This is really long and I feel like I've wasted enough of your time now..... so I'm gonna end this here.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!