Chicago for Our 18th!

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary, our family's birthday.  A friend of mine recently referred to the day as such and I suppose I liked it.  It was the official date we became a family and added to our numbers but the reality is that began long before the ceremony.  August 2nd is a special day no doubt and we will mark it with celebratory pause because it is the day where we made public our covenant with God and one another.  At our young ages I am fairly certain that neither of us truly understood the scope of such a commitment.  And maybe even to do this day we don't.  I do know we are learning, more every day about how to have a servant's heart for each other, what this four letter word LOVE really means, especially in the mundane, uphill battles, and the valleys of life, how to lose ourselves and just how to be the bridegroom of Christ before everything else.  Y'all, this marriage business is hard but it is so very worth it.  

So on this day I will wish Husband Jared a happy anniversary.  I will pick him up from the airport and hold his hand while he is driving us home where our Things will be making us breakfast with fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.  They told me so last night and I can hardly wait.  We'll be together, the six of us and whatever we decide to do this day will be cause for rejoicing.  

We made it, another year!

To commemorate that year we snuck away for a night in Chicago last weekend, just the two of us.  It all worked out perfectly.  Thing 3 was flying in to O'Hare the next evening and there was no footie, no commitments and some hotel points waiting to be used!  Man oh man was it fun, albeit less than twenty four hours alone!  To begin with we had a six hour drive with no interruptions, other than our frequent potty stops, ahem, where we discussed each one of the Things, work, life, home, travel, politics, you get the idea!  We quickly changed and ran to dinner at Rick Bayless' Topolobampo where we were told it was going to be a two hour wait.  No thank you.  Next door is his Fronterra restaurant and to our surprise there were two open seats at the bar and that is where we ate the best ceviche we've ever had.    Yes indeed, well other than the ceviche Husband Jared made with fresh red snapper he had caught the day before while we were sea side on the Gulf coast.  Other than that.  The next day was spent wandering around the city, taking in the sights, smells and sounds that is Chicago in the summer.  


Chicago skyline, well part of it anyway and a summer storm approaching.

You know I have to tell about our breakfast meal because it was our first time visiting The Little Goat Diner and I think I could have moved in there.  Eclectic and darling, every last detail, even the cloth napkins rolled with a goat stamped brown paper seal.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  So much to look at and take in and wouldn't you know it, we were able to dine at the bar facing the kitchen.  It was Disneyland for me.  I could even hear the chefs and line cooks in the back, watch the expediter and see all the food before it was whisked away to the tables.  Not to mention the coffee shop/bakery that is attached has an open window to the actual bakery.  I watched them roll out scones before I even had my first sip of coffee.  That my friends is an excellent way to start the day.


My view at breakfast.


Just look at that, bakery bliss.

Back to our walking, there was architecture to gawk at every which way, live music in Millennium Park where we had a fine view of The Bean, a water feature overflowing with laughing children, soaked from head to toe and then a fine Irish pub to watch Manchester United face Barcelona and where I was watching the clock because once the match was over that meant we would be on our way to see our Thing 3, who we had been without for five weeks!

The Bean.

Splash pad in the city.

Time away with him is always the best and I am grateful for our less than twenty four hours together, alone.  Happy anniversary Husband Jared, here's to us!