Iowa was kind enough to welcome me back with humidity. I told it to go jump in a lake...or the Mississippi, I'd be okay with that

I'm "home" again

I spent so long in Utah that it was a little hard to come back

Lots of tears were shed, and lots of anxiety was felt, but in the end there was only (mostly) joy for getting to see Hubby again

I decided to fly into Chicago because the other airport is really small and was a little expensive to fly into and the flight times were all a little crazy

I'm most definitely not the type of person that likes to get up early in the morning, so anything from 6-8 is a no go

And if I had flown into Des Moines the options to fly out were either 6 am or 8 pm, putting me in Des Moines way late and it's an 1.5 hour drive for us, so that was a no go

My flight into Chicago landed at 6, and with a 3 hour drive, that put us getting home at 9, which is totally doable 

Or so we thought :)

Hubby's body was tired of being in the car, and I was tired after the travelling and not getting a lot of sleep and didn't think I could stay awake for the drive

And since I'm the primary driver in the family, we decided not to risk it so we found a decent priced hotel room and stayed in Chicago for the night

Except it wasn't really Chicago

Outskirt Chicago = cheaper than downtown Chicago

Imagine that

After we got dinner

(which, I have to say, was amazing...a little, authentic Italian restaurant that I wasn't thrilled about because pretty much everything had to do with fish [because hello...Chicago...apparently since they're near a lake that means they have access to fish or something] but our dish was amazing, especially the bruchetta we got...it was hands down the best bruchetta I've ever had)

(just so you know)

We didn't really want to dawdle cause we had this waiting for us me

Sooo nice

It was a beautiful soaking after a long monthish at work

We went to see a movie while in town 

And I insisted we go to a theater in downtown Chicago since in my head the theaters there had to be way better than our theaters

(I'm not impressed with our two theaters)

I'm not really sure what my head was thinking

The theater we found was under construction

And was in a high rise building

And was small

And I honestly don't know why I expected otherwise

Chicago and Orem, UT are very different

Either way, it was still fun

We saw X-Men which was so amazingly good

I loved it

And then, because apparently trying to drive to the theater and trying to find parking wasn't enough,  I decided we needed to brave through the streets one more time so we I could see the Sears Tower

Cause Hubby could really care less

That was nuts

And then to top it all off, I'm not a heights person...so I didn't even go in

This is as close as I got

Pretty ironic that a person who doesn't like heights was so insistent on wanting to see the tower, I know

I was kind of debating on whether or not I actually wanted to go in, but as soon as I saw the height of the tower in person...no way, Jose

And a few more pictures of our time in Chicago

(I was lucky to find this handsome guy at the airport who was nice enough to give me a ride)

(view from our hotel...beautiful!!)

(the two on the left are just for parking)

And then, stupidly, we left tried to leave downtown at 4:30

Hello rush hour traffic

An hour later, we were finally 15 minutes out of downtown, far enough away that we were finally able to drive over 5 mph

My right calf is also slightly more muscular now than my left

From all the stop and go

So that's something I'm going to have to figure out how to fix

Maybe while I'm sitting doing homework I'll just flex only my left leg

And then we saw this on the way home

I just had to stop and take a picture

It was pretty much fate

To top it all off, I came home to this

 Which was really sweet and cute

But then I looked in our fridge and saw a few interesting things...

And that's only a few of them

There's also this that happened

You know that adage "when the cat's away the mice will play"?

Apparently that's what happened with the Hubster while I was gone

This is not where our computers belong

But he decided that he wanted to his computer up to his huge TV and really enjoy life

I'm convinced the sweet note I got was to make up for the all of the "bachelor joys" I found when I arrived back at the house

Anyway...

When I got back I conceded that we could have our computers out there for a little while

Just until we caught up on all of our shows that we didn't watch while I was back home

But we moved them back into their designated homes as soon as we had a second to breathe

Which actually happened to be tonight

It'll be nice that our computer desks can actually fulfill the measure of their creation

He also informed me at some point after arriving back home that he had a missing sock

And that he had looked for it everywhere but couldn't find it

So it was stolen by the sock gremlins

He was sure of it

So he converted the lone sock into our chalkboard eraser

A few days later he was at work and I was folding laundry 

(I'm convinced there was enough laundry for 3 batches worth in our laundry tub)

And guess what I found?

The illusive missing sock

Turns out it wasn't so missing after all

Anyway, life here has mostly settled down now

Hubby just keeps getting busier at work and I keep plugging away at school

But hey, at least I can work on equaling out my calf muscles while I do homework

Between that and always having an extra sock to throw me off, I'm sure I'll stay pretty busy

Well hello there

So hi

I'm in Utah

And have been since May 4th

They called in all reinforcements at the nursery for spring

And obviously I was more than happy to oblige

The chance to come home and visit family and friends, eat at all of my favorite restaurants, see my mountains, just to be in Utah...

Yes please

I can't help it, I'm a Utah girl through and through

It's been nice to be home

I've spent time with lots of friends with more to come

I've worked about 130 hours in 2 weeks

(hence the blog got put on the back burner...for a long time)

And I have siblings that worked more than I did, so that makes me even more tired knowing that they worked over 130 hours

Miracles occurred...Papa Smurf actually helped me do dishes after one of our Sunday dinners

That pretty much never happens

I have gobbled all of the fry sauce within sight because I can't find that anywhere else

I was made an incredible monetary offer I had a super hard time turning down

My nephew (who just turned 4) had been wanting to play on my sister's iPad, but she was using it for work purposes so she told him no

Well, that incredibly generous nephew of mine offered me 2 whole quarters if I would give him her iPad to play on

It was a really tough call, but in the end I decided that it was a better choice to stay on her good side than to become independently wealthy

It's been so nice to see my family again

Especially the nieces and nephews

Especially the younger ones, cause their changes are a little more noticeable

It's been so nice to spend time with friends and caught up on each other's lives

And I'll still be able to fit in some hang outs before I leave

I ended up staying in Utah longer than I thought I would

I only bought a one-way ticket coming out here cause I wasn't sure what would need with happen at work

And then spring was here and I didn't have time or mental energy to think about buying a ticket

Plus the extension I had to buy for my medical billing class, put off  buying the ticket for a little longer so I could have the money

But I have an awesome family and it was decided that the nursery could pay for my ticket home

:)

It's nice to be surrounded by such awesome people who love me

So I'm flying home on the 12th

Hubby's a little disappointed it's not next week, but it was so much cheaper to wait one more week I figured that would be the best bet

Anyway, it's late and today was super busy and long so I'm going to go to bed

 I have a blog in edit mode that is just waiting for me to be back in Iowa

House updates and Oreo reviews await you

Speaking of which...



This is the lastest

And can I just say that I'm the MOST excited for this one?

I better find it soon otherwise I might go mad

Anyway...

My bed is calling my name, so I'm going to be nice and join it

Good night, sleep tight

And give me plenty of Oreos to bite

;)