what the....?

What's the first word you think of when I say 'Chicago'? If your answer was cold then you are absolutely correct. Never have I been so cold in my life - minus snow camping in northern Wisconsin - anyways, a few weeks back it was in the 60's! Holy cow! Then if dropped to the 30's and 40's so I wore a thin fleece because it felt so "warm". Then this happened (look at below picture). Not only did it happen this time (which was last week) but it also happened last night. I looove Chicago but won't miss this. Two more midwestern winters... I'm over it - 'nuff said. 

view from our front porch... boo...

valentines and other shenanigans

A few weeks ago my oldest sister Carrie came out for a visit for the first time with my mom. We spent a very "romantic" Valentine's weekend together, hit up a bunch of museums, shops, restaurants, and my sister enjoyed some away time from her three little girls (all under the age of 5 might I add...).

Oh my mother will love me for this... on the "L" train - "freaking" out about the pee smell and homeless citizens that get all up in your face.

We had NO idea what it was supposed to be... man? woman? (sorry for the graphic content in this blog)

For our Valentine's dinner we went to Greektown .... Mmmmm...

Every Valentines Ben gets some sort of themed display. I don't know where it came from but here it is. Last year was a Scooby Doo theme (his favorite cartoon) and this year was pirate. I couldn't find ANY pirate valentines so I had to gather as many things related to that as I could and added the little pink cards with saying like: "Aaaaargh ye gonna be mine?" "Yer me matey!" and "Ahoy me valentine!"

The display for my mom and sister.

Ben was a total rock star on Valentine's Day too. First of all he woke up at the crack of dawn to make all of us a huge breakfast and even delivered it to every girl while they were in bed. Then he bought each of us a huge bouquet of flowers. And the best thing that he did was take off a day of studying (which for a med student is impossible/unheard of/suicidal) and took us girls all around the city to stop at random antique and vintage shops for the day. I love this guy!

Everything is amazing, nobody is happy...

the circle of life

I don't blog much about being a teacher. Here are a few reasons why: they're 11 years old so they don't exactly say "cute" things very often, I can't post pictures of them (and I hate posting without pics), and I think people would think it's pretty boring. BUT I may have you all know (all six people that check up on my blog) that I LOVE teaching. And I LOVE this school year. I have 24 students that all have very different backgrounds and most of them not so good backgrounds. Their home lives are not the most ideal but they try their tooshies off and are pretty dang cute. They're my buds. Last week I was teaching a math lesson on patterns and we were discussing patterns that we see in life. One response that was hilarious and quite thought provoking was as follows:

Me: "What are some patterns that you see in life?"

Student 1: "Well, the circle of life."

Me: "What do you mean by that?"

Student 1: "Things, animals, and people are born, they live, they die. This happens over and over like a pattern or something."

Me: "Have you been watching the Lion King lately?"

Student 1: "I go to church." (said in a very flat/"duh" tone)

ice festival in 50 degree weather... sweeet...

Chicago winters are brutal. Beyond brutal... they just hurt. I can't even go out to get the paper (two steps from my doorway) without bundling up like an eskimo or else I just honestly hurt coming back inside. Well the stinkin' groundhog saw his shadow and Chicago said NO WAY and for the past week our weather has been amazing. Saturday was in the fifties and tomorrow (Tuesday) will be in the sixties... what?!? Awesome.. that's all I have to say. Everything is thawing out - including my body. Anyways, we headed downtown for the Ice Fest and fortunately had fun before the "sweltering heat" melted it away. We had our portraits sculpted in ice and bumped into the mayor along the way - what a treat.

Wow! Doesn't it look exactly like us? Ben actually looks like the uni-bomber... creepy...

I got thirsty.

reflection from "the bean" in Millenium Park ( I know I'm an idiot..)

good ol' Mayor Richard M. Daley - the lovely (and corrupt) mayor of Chicago

This is the building and the stairs where Sandra Bullock ran down in the Lakehouse when she realized she had to save Keanu Reeves from dying. We stumbled across it on Saturday. Thrilling... I know...

I don't know if they were going for cheerleaders or young ambassadors...? But I still love it.

you know it's cold when...

... you bike to school in -9 degree weather and find this on your beard... the wind chill brought it down to the -30's!

a whole lotta' ketchup

Okay, huge blog coming up. Here's a rundown of our Christmas vacation in Utah visiting Ben's family. We were able to spend almost 2 weeks out there and had SO much fun. So here is a quick snippet of our vacation. **Below you'll find pictures about skiing with Ben's sister Jenna, visiting Temple Square, snowshoeing with Ben's dad, visiting Kristen, my old roommate from BYU, a taste test of 23 cola products that lasted until 5 in the morning ( I bailed out around 2 am with a tummy ache ), at church where Jenna and her high school ladies choir sang, at a hockey game with Ben's sister Caitlin, her boyfriend Tony, and Ben's dad, Ben wrestling Jenna in the snow, opening presents on Christmas morning, working out with cousins on Christmas Eve, going crazy on Christmas Eve, re-enacting Jesus' birth with Jeff being a sheep and Ben an evil looking wise man, and playing NHL Live for about 3/4 of the time there. 

 

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We also got to eat at Cafe Rio (holy cow!), see A Christmas Carol on stage, visit Body Worlds, walk around BYU's campus and buy chocolate covered cinnamon bears, visit our friends/cousins Alan, Jenny, and Amanda, and see many many movies (A Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Valkyrie, Yes Man, and Australia). It was hard to leave! =(