Category: Excursions

Ohio & Kentucky Mini-Vacation

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We spent a few days out East earlier this week.

Sunday we drove to Columbus, Ohio, arriving around 3:30 pm at the most beautiful hotel we’ve ever had the pleasure of staying in – a Cambria Suites. Seriously, this place was swank without breaking the bank. After taking pics of the place and settling in, we drove over to the nearby mall to check out our dining options. We finally settled on a restaurant just outside the mall. The food was average but the dessert we shared, something they call Pazookie, was delicious. It’s described as a “freshly baked, hot out of the oven, rich and delicious cookie topped with two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and served in its own deep dish.” Mmm, mmm, it was very good; the combination of the hot cookie with the cold ice cream was devine.

After our relatively early dinner we decided to hit the local movie theater to see MacGruber. The movie was about as dumb as we expected, but entertaining. I couldn’t stop laughing at the love-making scene; I was nearly crying! After the movie we went back to the hotel and relaxed in the hot tub for awhile before turning in for the night.

Monday we were up early to get donuts for breakfast, then made our way to Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, home of the famous Jack Hanna who is known for bringing animals on Letterman’s Late Night show. The zoo grounds are beautiful and the zoo is laid out nicely, but I found the exhibits often prevented any decent photography. Obviously the number one priority is to contain the wild animals, but I wish they’d use anti-reflective coating on the glass and wipe off the fingerprints once in awhile. I couldn’t get a decent photo of any of the manatees they have at the zoo, or the cool sea turtle that was in the tank with them. :(

Polar Bear Sleeping

The zoo has an interesting collection of animals, including a very nice Lorikeet Garden which I enjoyed, but I thought it was weird that they don’t have any zebras or giraffes. We tried our best to take our time and not rush through the zoo as we unintentionally tend to do, but even wasting time by riding their train and visiting a few sections twice didn’t stop us from being done by 12:30.

We consulted Yelp and found a cute burger joint for lunch and then drove around a bit. We ended up at a dumpy little amusement place to play some miniature golf and skee-ball before deciding to order pizza for dinner and taking it back to the hotel to munch on while watching the season finales of How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement, and The Big Bang Theory (thank goodness for the nice LCD TV in our room and the digital stations).

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Legos

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I’ve always been a fan of Legos even though I lack the talent to put together anything great scene-wise. The fact that I once built a house on my own without the help of a kit was the highlight of my childhood. In fact I don’t believe I ever owned any official kits other than the small space vehicles with the figures, but I still played with them daily. I still can picture the big blue plastic container where I kept all my bricks.

Northern Illinois Lego Train Club

Last weekend there was a Lego Train show in the nearby town of Geneva so Joe and I checked it out. There was a line outside the building when we arrived, so we stopped down the street for some coffee to kill some time. Once we got there it had calmed down a bit, thankfully. At first I was disappointed, because we went into the 2nd of two areas of Legos. That room was rather dark and the scenes weren’t too impressive to me. But then we found the main room and all was good. We spent a lot of time walking around and around the huge table to take in all the little scenes, many of which were amusing, like the Starbucks billboard pictured here.

BigBucks Coffee

My favorite scenes were Chewbacca coming out of a porta potty, the ipod runner, and the scene from Hot Tub Time Machine. SpongeBob seemed to pop up a lot too.

The whole train thing doesn’t really thrill me that much, but the cute little scenes were well worth the $5 admission price.

Full photo set at Flickr

Catching up & 4-days off

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Last weekend we took the kids to Medieval Times. None of us has ever gone before, or had the desire to go. Boy is it cheesy! But I will say, it was pretty fun too. I can’t imagine ever having the desire to go back, though, given how expensive it is. It cost nearly $140 for the four of us and it’s not like the food is high quality. But the kids had a good time, even K who was not looking forward to it, so that’s a success. And even though our team didn’t win, at least we had the hottest knight. ;)

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Monday Joe and I visited the dentist in the first time in… well, years. For him I think it’s been over a decade! For me it was closer to seven years, because I think I went to the dentist once since we’ve been together, but it was definitely before we moved to our current residence. All things considered, our teeth are in pretty good shape. He has two cavities and I have one – my first one ever! I guess that’s what I get for neglecting my not quite pearly whites. The assistant did my cleaning, but the dentist did Joe’s and Joe said the guy was giving him crap about having such good teeth because he’s not going to make any money off him. We have to schedule a followup to get our cavities filled which I’m not looking forward to doing. I’ll try to do it before another seven years pass at least.

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We’re on day two of our four day weekend but this rain is souring our plans. Yesterday we were going to visit a few nature centers but was too gloomy. We ended up getting a hitch installed on the Escape so that we can buy a bike rack and go riding this year. We also took my car in for an emissions test. None of it was fun, but at least took a lot less time than we expected. Good thing too, because we had the hitch installed at U-Haul and they don’t provide any chairs, or even a waiting room. We just had to stand around the retail portion of their establishment. As for the emissions test, it took two minutes, literally. The guy tapped into the on-board computer and that was it. Nothing like how it used to be!

On the way back from our errands we got Whoppers for the first time in a long time. I have pretty much given up on Burger King because their food sucks ass these days. The fries haven’t been the same since they switched recipes and the Whoppers are usually cold. Luckily the one we stopped at was relatively busy so the food wasn’t bad, but we skipped the fries anyway. Later that evening we met up with friends to play Bingo. We usually go to a local church, but this time we visited a local American Legion Hall. It was nice, even though we didn’t win. The odds are better, though, because there’s about half the number of people there than are usually at the church. Plus the inside temperature is more comfortable and they have cushioned seats so my ass isn’t sore at the end of the night. And it starts a half hour earlier so we got out closer to 10 than 10:30. I’m thinking we’ll end up switching off between that place and our regular joint if we continue to go. I’m getting rather tired of never winning especially when three different people from the same table won last night.

It’s even crappier outside today than yesterday which is why we’re not at Joe’s brother’s house like we originally planned. Instead we stopped at a local arts & crafts fair in the morning. It was lame, though, so we went to the mall. I got a coupon for $10 off a $10+ purchase from Kohl’s and figured I’d buy some new clothes. I couldn’t find anything I liked that fit me, though, but Joe did. Story of my life. At least the coupon wasn’t wasted. We ran a bunch of errands, including getting some hair dye from the beauty supply store. I need to get my hair cut first, but I can’t decide if I should go with the same style but shorter, or add some bangs to the mix. The problem is I can’t stand the way hair on my forehead feels, but I do think I’d look better with bangs than without. It’s a tough decision because it’s going to take awhile for them to grow out if I decide I hate them. I might go with fringe bangs since they aren’t true bangs but might give my hair the lift it so desperately needs on top.

Extended Weekend & Milwaukee

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I love extended weekends. The only thing that sucks about them is that they never last, and mine is now nearing its end. It was fun while it lasted, though!

Friday we prepared to spend the day inside waiting for FedEx to deliver my new computer. Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang at 9 am! I’ve never jumped out of bed so quickly before. Completely unnecessary, however, since Joe was downstairs and answered the door. We unpacked the computer to let it reach room temperature before plugging it in and jumped in the shower. Then we went out to run some errands, including checking out a Chinese restaurant on my Yelp bookmarked list and getting some Xbox stuff from that horrible, horrible store called Fry’s. Read my review if you want to know why I can’t stand that place and don’t plan on shopping there again.

Saturday we saw a matinee of Hot Tub Time Machine which I new wasn’t going to be great, but was actually better than I was expecting. Afterward we did some grocery shopping at Meijer and then came home to clean the house, do laundry, and set up my new computer.

Jellyfish

Sunday we were up early to drive to Milwaukee. First we visited the Discovery World Museum on Lake Michigan. It’s actually a pretty small museum and not at all worth the $17 admission. The only part I even liked was the small aquarium. If not for the very cool jellyfish pictures I got it would have been a total waste. After that I was determined to do something to redeem the fact that we just spent almost two hours driving to walk around a museum for an hour. So off we went to the Mitchell Park Conservatory, otherwise known as The Domes. It’s nothing compared to the size of the Garfield Park Conservatory, yet they charge admission. Luckily it’s not too unreasonable at $6.50 per person. We burned through that place in less than an hour, though, and tried to find something else to do but nothing was panning out. We were thinking about touring the Miller Brewery but they aren’t open to the public on Sundays. Thoughts of food started to take over, but we couldn’t decide on a place to try nearby, so we got back on the expressway toward home figuring we’d stop somewhere on the way. We ended up at Texas Roadhouse in Kenosha. It was good too! I couldn’t believe how crazy busy it was at 1:30 in the afternoon, though. Must be a Sunday thing.

Today we did our weekly Target shopping. After we dropped the food back off at home and had a quick breakfast, we went to the Visionworks in the mall prepared to return my glasses. We had both bought two pairs of glasses each approximately two weeks ago but I could not get used to mine at all. They seemed hazy to me, not to mention I didn’t like how one of the frames I had chosen were fitting. Joe hasn’t had any issues with his glasses, of course. I’m the picky one. When I explained my issue to the woman who helped us, who happened to be the manager, she knew right away why I was having difficulty – I hadn’t gotten the anti-reflective lenses. Apparently with my prescription it’s quite noticeable if the anti-reflective lenses aren’t chosen. She offered to redo the lenses with that added on. I was also able to pick out another frame to replace the pair I wasn’t liking too. So even though it’s going to cost me a bit more, I was able to swap my glasses with two pair that should prove to be much better. Thank goodness for their 30-day money back guarantee! I just hope my new glasses don’t give me any problems. I won’t know until next week since they only had one pair of lenses available and have to order the other. I can wait, though, if they end up being awesome.

Milwaukee Photos @ Perfect Pixels

Flowers, Dining, and LOLing all weekend

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What a fabulous weekend! Friday night we went to Qdoba with friends before heading to BINGO. I’ve been counting calories in order to lose weight, so I got a half naked burrito and half salad off their Craft 2 menu and was surprised by how tasty the salad was considering everything amounted to less than 800 calories. I didn’t win any money at BINGO, but we did win a coupon for a free game in March so that’s nice.

Saturday we were up early for our visit to Garfield Park Conservatory after I realized it had been years since we’ve been there. We intended to get there as soon as they opened at 9 am, but we had to make a pit-stop at my work first to retrieve something I left there by mistake in my haste to leave on Friday.

I love the conservatory because admission and parking are free. Plus it smells like Spring inside. It also reminds me of my grandparents’ house since they had a lot of vegetation near where they lived. I wish I could bottle that smell.

We spent about an hour and a half at the conservatory making sure we covered every square inch. By then it was getting pretty crowded anyway, so we decided to grab lunch. I consulted my Yelp app and found a place featured on Diners, Drive-In, and Dives that I had bookmarked last year. It’s called The Depot, and we scored parking right in front and only had to wait five minutes for a booth. We made it right before the lunch rush; once we were seated the front of the place quickly filled up with waiting diners. The food was delicious! You can read my review on Yelp.

After lunch we made a pit-stop at Target before going home to relax for a few hours before heading back out to meet a group of friends at Bahama Breeze. We ran into some of Joe’s coworkers at the bar while waiting for our group so we had some drinks and chatted until everyone arrived for dinner.

After dinner we headed to the Laugh Out Loud comedy theater. Joe and I thought it was pretty funny even though I don’t think everyone agreed. It’s definitely different than seeing a stand-up show since everything is improvised on the spot based on audience suggestions. But that’s what makes it so much fun – no two shows are the same. I’d like to go back for the later show since it’s adult only.

After the show we walked to the nearby Gameworks for more drinks and fun. And once we grew bored of that, we went back to Laugh Out Loud for their free audience participation show. One of the guys in our party ended up getting on stage to participate in a sketch. He then proceeded to try to get myself and another girl to go up there. No way, buddy! I cannot think on my feet like that. I give those improv comedians a lot of credit as they are very talented.

This morning we headed to Walmart for a few things and then saw Cop Out which wasn’t great, but wasn’t as terrible as the reviews made it sound. Seann William Scott’s character was hilarious. It probably would have been better if Kevin Smith had wrote it and not just directed it. Or maybe he’s just losing his touch. I didn’t think Zack and Miri Make A Porno was that good either. We did see some very interesting previous, however. I want to see all three movies they advertised, particularly the last two:

She’s Out Of My League
Hot Tub Time Machine
Kick-Ass

On the way home we swung by this restaurant called Omega to get some soup for lunch. They have the most amazing cream of chicken with rice soup. I used to eat it at their Downers Grove location years ago and found out through a friend that they had a Schaumburg location too, so I had to get some. You can’t beat the price either – $5.25 for a quart. It is well worth it.

And now I’m just pooped. I think all the running around finally caught up with me. Couch time!

Garfield Park Conservatory photos at Flickr