Sunday Fun Day in ChiTown USA...

I momentarily forgot where I was again this morning when I opened my eyes, but was immediately reminded that the city awaited us on the other side of the window, 31 stories below:

sunday in the chicago atmosphere

Departure mornings are always a test of initiative, memory, checklisting, communication and the ability to play travel tetris with your luggage, pillows, etc. so you can haul it all in one trip without the bellboy's help. At least that's how it was for us this morning, trying to drag ourselves out of bed, put ourselves together to look mildly human, pack all of our things in a makeshift sense of semblence and then leave the hotel room without leaving anything... behind.

It's a miracle we remembered where the car was parked.

As challenging as the check out process can be, the drive up to Southport Ave. was the complete opposite:

blue skies cruise, a marina and miles of happy people enjoying the day! 

Speaking of happy people, I think we were ALL happy when Britta descended from her apartment a few blocks away to join us for brunch at Southport & Irving! I'd told her I'd love to see her while we were in the city, but I really didn't expect her to come dressed just like Ali.. haha. 

No seriously, I can confidently say that Britta and I hold the record for the shortest amount of time taken for two strangers to become instant friends, but Ali and Britta just came in a close 2nd. I mean the two of them practically dressed like twins, without even a chance to plan it.  

instafriends! 

french toast, ya'll..
southport & irving | chicago, il 

We ate, we laughed, and we snapchatted. Ali & Damanji are officially SC Assassins in my book; they both managed to get some fantastically troll-esque captures of me. Damanji took the liberties of drafting a side-by-side comparison, and I've gotta say, he's not wrong...

grampy troll... and cori. :0|

more snappy fun.. these are reactions to some of the questions our table
received in the span of the hour we were there.. 

After Southport, we traveled just around the riverbend! CORNER.. to GingerSnap; it's a place Ali found online and committed us to because it says Ginger, and because she is the lens behind GingerSnap Photography. So it makes sense. Right? Right.

it's like the place was made for her! 

reunited!! 

In case you missed what I said about Britta & Ali dressing up like twins, there's this nicely posed sorority picture as proof: 

twinsies! 

Damanji & I have been pretending all weekend that we're as hipster as we feel, so we seized this opportunity to do something hipsterish, in the doorways [to the soul] on this street, illuminated by the light of a thousand serenading high-efficiency lightbulbs. Or something. 

you look so.... pensive

Q: How many hipsters does it even take to change a lightbulb?
A: It's a number you probably haven't heard of yet...

deep in thought about life, the universe, and probably donuts.... 

Q: How many kale smoothies did I drink before this picture? 

A: I'll build you the answer out of upcycled pallets. Stay tuned.

yayyy for friends! ♥♥

We finally said our see-ya-later's to Britta, and loaded up for the trip back to Naperville. From there, it was quick hello's and farewell's to the family,l and then Damanji and I were back in our separate cars, bound respectively for STL & Cinci. 

At least it was as beautiful day for a drive! 

don't skip these, kids... don't skip these. 

almost there :) 

they're much prettier in the daytime! 

Happy birthday, Ali... I hope you had the best birthday yet, and I miss the fun already! It was such a fun weekend meeting some new faces and reuniting with the familiar ones! 

See you on the flipside, blogbots..

xo | cmd

Road Trip Ruckus

Have you ever heard it said that if something can go wrong, it will?

Well, it wasn't that bad [for us at least], but it struck me today that literally each time I've been out to Illinois to visit, some sort of obstacle materializes and challenges my determination to get there. Today it was an overturned semi lying across both lanes of the highway, just across the OH/IN state line. The good news, I heard later on, was that the driver was okay [contrary to the rumors from other bystanding OTR'ers that he'd had a heart attack, etc.]

yikes. :(

We waited, parked with vehicles off, for almost three hours. At one point, I spotted a group of people throwing a football, others doing cartwheels in the grass, and someone tailgating in the bed of a truck. We bade our time by picking flowers.

making the best of time-consuming situations!

There's nothin quite like a road-side flower patch. Haha...
They finally righted the truck and dragged it out of the way; we were fortunate to have been just 10-15 cars behind the actual accident so we skirted through in no time. From there, it was smooth sailing aside from the forever on-going road construction on the other end of Indiana... but we finally made it! 

reunited!

^ And no, Stella is not eating Sasha's head. I just realized it looked that way. Haha.

Sooooooo.. we're HERE, and we're spent.

Goooooood night!

xo | cmd

AMA Supercross : Indianapolis

This is backdated.
.... & I don't care.

Soooooo.. in the spirit of being random, Rob and I took off this morning on a semi-scripted road trip to Indianapolis. It's scheduled for me to get Sydni tomorrow here, so we figured we would go ahead and make a weekend venture out of it. A few of his friends were already slated to go to the AMA SX event here today, so we decided we'd either do that, or find something else to get into and just meet up with his friends later. Yep, we're random like that.

Supercross it was! We got last minute tickets and joined the other three for the evening. It was hotel, food and AMA. I could only laugh at Rob for taking a powernap during the 250 prelim heats: "wake me up when 450 starts." Haha.


catnap? sure. yep, i ♥ him.

Here's a few other randoms from the AMA evening:

main event

 

Aaaand...... of course, a video.

Yeah......
As for the REST of the night, well .... All I can say is that there won't be a trip back to Indianapolis for any of us ANY time soon [at least not of our own free will; we'll leave it that way]. It was a fiasco to say the least, but the good news is, we're all heading home soon so no... complaining there.

Oh, and happy Saturday St. Pats to all of you crazy Irish kids out there ;)

xo | cmd

Something Something... Saturday

This was my view for most of this morning.


driving into the sunrise = beautiful.

It really  helped, given the circumstance and the fact that we hit the road right around 5am. This is my least favorite venture every single time I make it, not necessarily even for the distance traveled, but for what I know is waiting at the other end.

The other view I had didn't hurt much, either... and reminded me that there is a purpose behind all of this nonsense.


piggie pillow, apple juice, big smile.
.: LOVE :.

Like I said, not a fun trip to have to make, but it is what it is, and I'm embracing the simple fact that I have such a beautiful daughter to begin with. I made my way back to IL before 11am; I stopped off at the dog pound with the delusional thought that it might cheer me up some. I was clearly out of my mind, because I was two sad barks away from taking home a full wing of homeless canines. Don't do it....


chocolate consolation.
...... ooookay.....



I got home and resigned myself to a sullen state of "blah," which was promptly and thankfully interrupted by Ali and DeShawn. I forced myself out of the house and met them at Red Robin.

Good call. Chocolate cake was there. Whoever said chocolate is soothing was not kidding. It doesn't erase my wandering thoughts today, but it certainly didn't hurt my mood. 

Anyway, we finished at RR and made our way to Toys R Us [I was cheering right up by this point]. Ali needed a birthday present for her friend's little boy, so we tagged along. It wasn't long before the sugar rush from that gigantic piece of chocolate cycled out of my system and I wanted nothing more than a nap....

*insert nap*

Rob conquered the task of coercing me out of the house again [my inner emo being was insisting on a Saturday night of self-loathing indulgence on the couch], so I trekked up to his house. We hopped in the diesel and headed right back down to O'Fallon to Hot Shots for dinner with some of his friends before landing for the rest of the night at Jake's.

All in all, I must say that I'm thankful for these friends of mine; I still feel like I'm in kind of a funk, but I'm sure it'll pass. I'm still kickin', so that's one step ahead of a lot of other folk.

xo | cmd

IL >> IN ... IN >> IL

I did a lot of driving today. It's only 3:30 PM and I've already been to the edge of Kentucky and back.


at least it was beautiful.

It was beautiful outside today; the snow fell pretty heavy last night - early on but not long enough to hinder any of the road cleaning crews. By the time I got on the road with Sydni this morning to meet up with Joe in Indiana, the trees were still covered but the roads were perfectly clear. I couldn't have asked for better driving conditions.

It's safe to say that I don't wanna get back in my car for a little while.
I'm vegging right now...... (:

Happy Saturday. Go enjoy the snow!

xo | cmd

We Are STAFF! [&Welcome Home, Syd!]

Another LOADED Sunday! I'm allllll for it!

with joe | with sydni | with cori
- the dills love you, eric!

.: ONE :.

Happy birthday, Eric!! 

This is Joe's best friend from years ago and still now. He has been a great friend not only to Joe, but to me as well, especially during the time that Joe was gone for military training. I knew if we needed anything, we could count on him. He's Sydni's "Uncle Eric," and we wish him the very very best birthday today! 

It looks like we're headed to see Eric in September in Colorado - looking forward to it :) 

.: TWO :.

It's baptism time! This is the third Sunday in a row [amen? AMEN!] Over the course of VBS, I worked alongside the Burden girls Kirsten & Kaitlyn. Their little brother Tanner went into the baptismal today, followed by Maia! I still remember my baptism; it was an incredible feeling and I love that there are youth in our church getting to experience that same emotion. God is GOOD! 

tanner & maia | congratulations!!!

.: THREE :.

posting on the towerview fb page after church! :)

Today was my Sunday downstairs in the nursery, so I wasn't present for the final verdict in what was a church-wide vote determining whether or not Joe would become an assistant pastor intern at Towerview. I came up at the end of the service to find that he'd been voted in with a 95%, so we are officially STAFF at Towerview! Joe now continues on under the mentorship of our senior pastor Ron and assistant pastor Mike, and will serve in the role of an intern until the time comes to grow into an associate or assistant pastor title. By default, that adds me to the collection of staff wives, where I'm blessed and honored to be among other outstanding women in our church. Thank you again, Towerview!!

.: FOUR :.

My first order of business as a "staff wife" at Towerview?
-- Skipping choir practice!

Haha. well, it wasn't by plan; unfortunately this was the only opportunity we had over the weekend to rendezvous with my parents in Indianapolis [halfway, oy...] to trade off a monster. Sydni's been with my family for the past week, on a mini vacation [for both her and for us!] with the grandparents. This time worked out particularly well, since my family was here last weekend to visit, and took her during the hectic week that was RFL prep time. Funny how that works out.

little sassy pants.... ;) 

It's crazy how I can miss this little bug so much just over the course of one week, but I'm so glad she's home. We're home too, and thoroughly spent. I'm gonna go pretend I don't have to work tomorrow :p. 

xo | cmd

Ohio, Again.

It's wedding season. Everyone knows what that means, especially when the wedding is two states away.



in | ky | oh



Work.

Drive.

Drive some more.
Indiana.

Keep driving.

Kentucky.

Keep driving.

Ohio.

Almost there.

Cincinnati.
*ahhhh, home.

-----

It's gonna be a pretty packed weekend.
Tomorrow = lunch with Lynn & the Wuest rehearsal dinner.
Friday = Wuest wedding!

I can't wait!

xo | cmd

Let's Go See SYDNI!!

Part of me doesn’t feel like it’s been just shy of two full weeks since we last saw Sydni. The other part of me feels like I haven’t seen her in forever, therefore I couldn’t wait to get to Indiana today to meet up with my parents and her. She’s been doing her monthly stay with Nana and Pappy, but with the distance now over double what it was when we lived in Cincinnati, we voted for a two-week stint instead of just one. We’d taken our break after the July 4 weekend; while we’d enjoyed some time sans toddler, we were more than ready to see her.

We got a late start, 150% due to me, as my husband would argue. We were afraid my parents would be left waiting for nearly an hour for us at the hotel. My poor parents got stuck on the outside of Indianapolis behind a haz-mat spill, and ended up gridlocked in traffic for almost 2 hours. We beat them to the hotel, but thankfully they weren’t too far behind us.

Mom, as usual, was prepared for a picnic feast. We set up camp in the hotel dining area, cooler and all. Let me tell you, my mom doesn’t mess around when it comes to food. J



edin outlets



After the late lunch and some settling in, the five of us headed back up the highway to the Edinburgh outlet malls, where we did some shopping and got some decent exercise after hours of being cramped in vehicles.

One day I’m going to look back and wish I had ten thousand more chances to meet up with my parents after they’ve had Sydni for a week, two weeks, etc. I am so blessed to have the parents I have and even more so that they are the people that they are.

Tomorrow we all head back home. Maybe the USA will get a decent win over Japan in the Women’s World Cup. Who knows.. who knows….

ZzZzZz…..

xo | cmd