The Ladies in Chicago

 

I was going to Chicago for work, NeoCon, so I had a plan. My mom & sisters were all off work that weekend already -a miracle in and of itself, and they agreed to drive to Chicago and hang out with me for the weekend. I have been missing my family a lot lately so this worked out to be amazing!

 

We wondered around the mile shopping, eating popsicles, just catching up. Then we went out to dinner and to my favorite bar Violet Hour where we sipped fancy drinks.

 

 

We got to  be silly, annoy one another,

and just be ourselves.

My heart was full & happy I'm

so glad they were able to come!

 

& of course then we got weird

 

We also went on the architectural boat tour in the blazing humid sun (forgot how bad it could be). The textures and shapes of all the buildings are so lovely from the water, plus it was nice to just sit for awhile and stare. The Blackhawks also won the Stanley Cup while I was there so that was kind of nuts. Then my favorite ladies drove home, but not before they hid notes around my hotel room for me so I wouldn't be so sad when I got back to my room and they weren't there anymore. So thankful for that time with them!

 

Portugal!!

Joshua was in Portugal the last few weeks installing one of his machines. He went a few days early and took a day at the end to explore a little and headed to Lisbon and took a train to another nearby town. He checked out a few castles and palaces as well as a cool maritime museum. Also he totally brought home a box of wine! (a few bottles too) and nabbed me some cute cork sandals.

Also he promises to take me back there, ahh I accept!

Here are some (a lot) of his sweet trip photos:

their "thing" is cork

To Canada : Squamish

For my birthday we headed to Squamish to go hiking and camping. We hiked to Shannon Falls and then up the Chief Trail. O the Chief Trail. It started out fine, pretty waterfall, sunshine, a few rocky paths. Then, Then it started going straight up hill with stones kind of acting as steps that were a 2 feet step up at times, weird meandering rocks that were somehow the path, metal ladders to climb, chains to help you get up inclines and a giant GIANT rock face to climb up to the top.

It was hard, a very hard hike, I teased that it wasn't very nice for him to make me do this much work on my birthday, he said he was just trying to make me feel young. BUT at the top it was stunning! The clouds were rolling across the sky and the mountains faded in and out of view while the sunshine filtered down to the water creating fun shapes.

We actually almost felt on top of the world on that giant rock.

When people were climbing down they disappeared as if they'd walked off the earth.

 It was hard, exhausting but so worth it, and it was still a lot of fun.

This is what we climbed to the top of :

Then hubs took me to a birthday dinner at Howe's Brewery. I brought 1 present with me to open on my birthday and part of it was this sweater and necklace my sister got me,so of course I had to wear my new clothes out that night. I was totally overdressed but, meh, I was happy.


 Then we headed to our campsite that was along the water and watched the sun setting while building a fire.It was a really neat camping spot. The tide had come in while we were gone and the water was right up to the edge of us.

Then hubs made me a birthday s'more and sang to me :) It was one of my favorite s'mores ever.

We got rained on that night and packed up a very wet tent, headed home and watched movies on the couch the next day with milkshakes. It was a great whirlwind of a weekend and I'm so glad we can now say we made it to Canada!

Canada : Vancouver

To Canada : Vancouver

For our 3-day weekend we wanted to finally make it to Canada. We 

live so close to Vancouver and have been itching to get out there.

We had a great sunny weekend so we walked across the bridge to get a good view of the city and walked to Granville Island which has a fun market with lots of tasty foods and handmade goods.
We hung out along the water and took an aqua bus back over instead of walking across the bridge again. Ha they were cute and tiny.

Then we lounged around the other side of the water and sat in the sand.

I'm loving that the sand is starting to get warm finally.

Then of course we had poutine! It's fries with gravy and cheese curds- it also tastes like happiness!

We stayed in a hostel which had a fun bar beneath it so we hung out down there that night and then the next morning (my birthday) we walked around Stanley Park which is huge and so pretty. Finally we headed across the bridge to our next part of the weekend.

Canada : Squamish