Staycation Day 1

Jake and I had a fantastic time at the Durham Bulls tonight! This was my first Bulls game since... I learned the rules of baseball.  We had first row seats behind right field, and Jake got a great deal... $4.50 a ticket! Add in a delicious dinner at a Cuban restaurant, and it was a really delightful evening!

I also decided I wanted to learn how to score a game, so Jake taught me. I loved that. Also, my very favorite part of baseball is a pickle, so I excitedly added my own notation when one occurred tonight. (If you can't tell, I drew a pickle which I'm told is not official notation. Hehe.)

Such fun times.

Vacation Adventure: The Sea, The Sky, and Man

Note: This is another post which was made while I was off adventuring

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Yesterday we went to the Chicago aquarium. Jacob took a lot of great video - that works better for fish, I think. They move. :) [insert video]. We had a really fun time. I kinda felt like a kid, seeing the polar bears and the penguins and the jelly fish (Which are much less scary when they are in their tanks and unable to sting you while you swim.) And we got to see the dolphin show, which was very cool. (By the way, if you're planning to visit Chicago, go ahead and get the CityPass. We saved so much money and many hours in line.)

Next we went down to the beach - I really enjoyed people watching there. People are the same everywhere, and I could have stayed there for hours making up voices for all the tourists and locals wandering around.

Then we went up to Hancock Tower at night. What a gorgeous view of the city. I was really glad we did that.

Then today we spent several hours in the Chicago Art Institute. While I could have stayed forever in the medieval, renaissance art (particularly the religious art, and into the impressionists) after a few hours of Monet, El Greco and Cranach, Jake and I were exhausted. We found the van Gogh section and spent a little time there before wandering into Modern art to find Picasso. Picasso is really fun, but what art spirals into as a result of the modern changes is confusing and intimidating to me. We left the museum soon after to take a break.

We then went up in the Sears tower (Or Willet Tower, since they renamed the silly thing...) to see a view of the city during the day. We had a lot of fun at both towers trying to find all the locations we knew (Jacob

obviously knew most of the area, whereas I could only find the couple of places we'd visited.) This is me pinching Jacob's undergraduate school, Moody Bible.

Vacation Adventure: God, Sports and the Arts

Note: This post was typed while out of town, so I thought I would just move the publish date until I was safely home from my adventure.

Sunday July 24, 2011

[insert picture] What a specatcularly spectacular day we had!First we went to Jacob's old church, Covenant, where I about converted myself to Presbyterian. What a gorgeous and soul-refreshing place. Jacob and I were much ministered to through the gorgeous surroundings, the lofty echos of song, and a wonderful sermon about fear, control and faith.

The next landmark of the day was the most AMAZING Cubs game EVER. Anyone who says

baseball is boring has never been to a game like today's. (Which includes me, I'm afraid, before today.) They made a baseball fan out of me! I like it better than even hockey and basketball!

And we rounded the day off with a live performance of Romeo and Juliet by Shattered Globe. Amazing. The characters knew mulitple roles and the audience voted for who played who. Quality, especially since the actors were screaming their lines to be heard. I was quite impressed, amused, and moved.

Vacation Adventure: Traveling

Note: This post was typed while out of town, so I thought I would just move the publish date until I was safely home from my adventure.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

What an adventure we've had getting up to Chicago for vacation!

We left Friday afternoon and made really good time, until we hit the terrible rain. We passed one place where the opposite direction was totally closed because it was under several feet of water (our side was fine). And then we got a flat. There was a terrible road and we hit a couple bad batches before the tire blew. We immediately pulled over and changed to the donut, and then drove to the closest hotel. I was exhausted and started crying, and Jake got me to bed and made an appointment with the mechanic in town the next day. Just as we were drifting off to sleep he said, "Huh, I think Dustin used to live about 30 minutes from here. We should see what he's up to" and sent a late night text. (Dustin is one of Jake's roommates and very close friend's from college.)

Then this morning, we were getting our tire fixed when Dustin texted back. Instead of 30 minutes, he lived 5 minutes down the road! He drove right over and we had a really wonderful breakfast catching up with him. I'm so glad that if God's going to give us a flat tire, it could allow us to spend several hours with a friend. :) That was the best flat tire I've ever gotten, for sure.

Then we drove up to the city. It was another 3 hours before we arrived at our gorgeous, comfortable, clean, happy hotel with working A/C and legit Wi-Fi. (We've stayed in some doozies before and this was a wonderful and much needed change.)

We walked around the city for several hours today, and then met up with our friend George for amazing Lou Manatti's deep dish pizza. The service left something to be desired (They were rushing us) but the pizza and the company was awesome!

I'm sitting here in my bed now - exhausted and very happy. My diet is fairly shot for the day, but I had an awesome time and am really happy for this delightful vacation!