You always take care of me...

My husband and I have always been far away from family so getting away for a little trip is not really easy for us. Of course dates are nice, but there is something about completely getting away that is a lot nicer, any parent would understand that. So if you're reading this and you live near your parents or in-laws, I hope you realize how lucky you are. Anywho, my husband and I were able to plan a little getaway thanks to our wonderful friends who watched our son for us. (BTW, if you are reading this Jackie, thanks again, a million times!!!) My husband has always wanted to go to Chicago, especially since moving to Ohio. It's less than 4 hours away from us so you would think it would be easy to just go, but visiting Chicago can be quite expensive and mainly because of the parking. After a lot of searching we chose to stay here.....

This is the Renaissance Blackstone hotel and it was pretty gorgeous and lovely on the inside. I got a great deal that included parking and a few other great things and it costs under the normal price of staying there one night. It still costs a nice little penny, but it was the best deal all around and hey we were celebrating our anniversary and our new baby girl on the way so it was worth it. This hotel has a lot of history, specifically, gangster history. It's been said that Al Capone was a frequent customer there. As a matter of fact, "The Untouchables" was filmed there because of his frequent visits. The hotel also has a history of a lot of former presidents staying there. I thought all those things were pretty interesting, but I didn't really care too much about it. I just wanted my bed to be comfy. We arrived earlier than check in time and were told that they would hold our bags so we can walk the city, but luckily they had a room ready and better yet they upgraded our room to a lake view!! I was very happy to hear that!! Our room was awesome and so was the view. We dropped our things in the room and started touring the city.

We were hungry, scratch that, PJ was really hungry!! Of course we saw a lot of places we know, but we were in Chicago and obviously wanted to eat something different. That something different for PJ was deep dish pizza. We went to Giordano's and even though it says its stuffed pizza, it's pretty much deep dish and huge. Throughout this pregnancy I haven't been too fond of red sauce so I didn't think I would have a slice, so I bought a big chicken salad that was really good. PJ had to wait 40 minutes for his pizza so by the time it came out, I was done eating my salad. So the menu said his small pizza could feed 2 but I think they meant 4. PJ can eat, but looking at other pizzas that people had, I thought even that's too much for you babe. He grabbed a slice and bit into it and the look on his face was priceless. He said, "Babe, this is sooo good!!!". I thought okay I will try it because the sauce didn't seem to be too much and you know I had to help him eat all that pizza lol. I took a bite and I said,"Oh yeah this is good". I only had most of one slice, but PJ ate 3, so he did pretty good. It was just really nice to be sitting outside with him relaxing and having adult conversation. It would have been a complete different experience had we brought Peanut and the couple next to us with their three kids proved that to us. Thanks to that family PJ and I will have an ongoing joke for the rest of our lives.

After our meal, we went walking to the Navy Pier and of course got on the Ferris wheel. If there's a Ferris wheel and I'm with PJ, I want to go on it. I love being with him like that. After our lil tour there we headed to see The Bean in Millineum Park. My honest opinion on the Bean was, it's a bean lol. It was nice to see, but nothing I would get extra excited about. After that we heading back to our hotel before dinner. I would write about our experience at dinner, but it's still a memory I try not to remember. A very expensive, tasteless memory. As a matter of fact, PJ said we aren't to speak of it for years to come hahahaha. 

Other than that dinner experience, everything else we ate was great. The picture above was from dinner the next night. We ate at The Gage and it was very very good and a lot less expensive. The picture below has a few pics of other places we ate. I know we were in Chicago, but no matter where I am, if there is a Cheesecake Factory, I'm getting some cheesecake!! I love their cheesecake!! Mmmmmm I want some cheesecake now. I kind of felt bad for PJ because he's down to eat anywhere and unfortunately I don't have any kind of appetite in this pregnancy so picking somewhere to eat would be a complicated sometimes, but eventually we got food in our bellies.

Our second day in Chicago was more sightseeing. We went to the John Hancock Observatory and as our friend Katie Spink would say, we got a sweeeeeet deal. A lot of the tourists sites offer military discounts and it only costs 15 dollars for both of us to see the view. That was pretty cool since the original price was nearly 40. Just goes to show that you always ask for a military discount no matter where you are. I would say that view was uuummmmmm AWESOME!! You know what was really great? There was basically no one up there, so it was almost as if we had the place to ourselves. Actually, this whole trip was pretty nice when it came to other tourists being around. We came right before tourists really start to come through and see the city and the weather was perfect. I thanked The Lord for that every day.

After the Observatory we went to the Water Tower Place and did some shopping and had lunch. Apparently R.Kelly was there, which was kind of funny because PJ kept joking that he was going to find him and some random black girl told PJ he was upstairs. I say black girl because we all know if PJ wasn't black she wouldn't have came up to him and said, "Ummmmm I know I don't know you, but R. Kelly is on the 7th floor". PJ just said, "Okay". I think R.Kelly was trying to find material for the 176th chapter of Trapped in the Closet lol.

All that walking was making my feet hurt, so I thought we were going to do a boat tour to rest but PJ wanted to just rest in the hotel so we made our way back there, but I had to stop. I'm over 5 months pregnant so I had to listen to my body and say I need to stop. We stopped at this water fountain art area in Millineum park and I walked in the water and it felt sooooooooo good!! It's as almost as if my feet were saying THANK YOU!!!!!!! It felt incredible on my burning feet and it was nice kicking water around with the little kids, especially the little girls since it only made me think about my baby girl. 

Our last day we spent at The Field Musem. I have to say that was one place where I really missed Peanut. He would have loved the dinosaurs. PJ and him would have had a great time together at that place because PJ is really into "old" things lol. We got to take a stroll and spend time together by the lake as well. It was just awesome to have nothing to do, but spend time together and love on each other. Sure we could have done a whole lot more, but the focus was on us. 

I posted this picture of our breakfast because that was another thing that was included in our package.  The funny thing is, where we had breakfast is where we had the regretful dinner experience. Thankfully the breakfast was really yummy and so fancy looking, the dinner was fancy looking and nasty hahaha. I swear you could put anything on these types of plates and it makes you want to eat it. It was nice having a full breakfast every morning. Before we headed back to reality (home), we had our last breakfast there and enjoyed the last view moments of sanity.

    So you might be wondering why (or maybe you're not) I titled this post the way I did. I mean technically it has nothing to really do with Chicago to most people. It does for me though. Throughout this trip, as I said before, we did a lot of walking. In my "condition" walking around for long periods of time and getting up and sitting down can take a lot out of me. My husband was always helping me, but there was this one time when I didn't need help up but he gave me a napkin or something, he basically made sure I had what I needed before him and I just smiled inside and told him, "You always take care of me". You might say, well he's suppose to or yeah so my husband does the same thing, but how often do we forget to tell our husbands how grateful we are for the little things they do, especially little things that are really big things. In that moment I was reminded of all the little things my husband has done to protect me. From holding out his hand for me to grab to keep me from something, to walking behind me in a crowded area, to putting his arm in front of me to keep me hitting something, or just going without something because his wife and son were more important. I know my husband is in the military, but I honestly believe that has nothing to do with how protective he is over me. Since we have been together I have always seen how important I am to him and how even though he jokes about me fending for myself if the house caught on fire, he would do anything to protect our family. My husband is not the most vocal person when it comes to sharing his love for me, but I've always known and felt his love for me because of his actions. Anyone can say I love you, but showing your love is a lot different. Sure, he works my nerves at times, but he's suppose to. Seriously, him working my nerves only helps me to grow in learning to love him more. Anyways, being on this trip with him and having all the laughs and conversations with him was just another reminder of not just why I married him, but why he's my best friend. My prayer before going on this trip was that The Lord would bless it and we would have a great time, and we did. We didn't want to leave. I'm very thankful that God granted us this time together, it was pretty sweet, just like our view every morning. I love you PJ, looking forward to our next getaway.......