Spring Break 2008

The girls and I went south to go shopping for Spring Break! Both chicks went to Wisconsin Dells with friends early in the week, so we left here Thursday and came home Friday.

Our trip started out with good weather. We got just south of Milwaukee and hit the outlet mall and the snow started. Big fluffy, wet flakes. It didn't stick right away, but we had to run to the car to avoid getting all wet.
By the time we got to Gurnee Mills it was coming down. At GM, our first stop was Ruby Tuesday for lunch. We did some shopping there, then headed south to hit the Magnificent Mile in Downtown Chicago.

The farther we drove south, the heavier the snow got. AND, the more expensive the gas got! Here you can see $3.69 and you can tell it was snowing pretty heavily. People were actually driving pretty safely. Until we got to the Mag. Mile. The buses and taxis were CRAZY! I couldn't take my eyes off the road to even look for parking for fear that we'd hit someone!

We REALLY needed gas, so we got south of the Mag Mile into a not so good area. Closer to the freeway, it wasn't so scary and we found a gas station where I only put in a couple of gallons since it was $3.79 there. Oh my! The snow had kind of slowed down but it was cold and windy and wet.

We checked into the hotel and promptly went to 7-11 for Coke Slurpees! They were so yummy. We went off to find a Japanese market that I had looked up online, but got lost. So, we gave up on that and went to dinner at Chevy's. We brought back some salsa and chips for Travis.

The next morning we finally found Mitsuwa Marketplace What a fun store. It kind of reminded us of Uwajimaya in Beaverton, OR. We bought candy, cookies, rice, various drinks in cute bottles, and even a rice presser thingie for little rice cakes. The sushi looked fantastic and fresh, but we already had lunch in mind....IKEA Swedish Meatballs!!! OH YEAH, BABY! I had to run to Ikea to pick up some kitchen organizers, and plus, just to look around. So first, we hit the restraunt for lunch. This trip was a lot about the food! :) After lunch, I shopped, the girls sat on a couch and listened to their iPods. I got what I needed and we headed to the Woodfield Mall. The girls both got new shoes. :)

Even Foxy made a new friend! At the hotel there was another Element in the parking lot. Of course, we had to park next to it and take a picture from our room. That's the way we are. :)

It was time to head north to go home. Our last stop of our trip was to Trader Joe's in Milwaukee for Mochi Ice Cream. We got a few other things along with our 11 boxes of ice cream. We filled the cooler with our treasures and lots of ice, and headed home. The ice cream and us girls made it home safely and now it's back to normal life.

April started with a bang, well, actually SNOW. :) Travis was MAD. He's so over winter, it's not even funny. Lucky for him it melted pretty quickly. Today is supposed to get close to 50 degrees. The animals and Travis should be happy. :)

I hope you all are having a wonderful, cool or hot (whatever you love) day. :)