my darling chicago

I had a conference in Chicago this past week (as did FIL), so J and I, along with his parents, went up a day early to enjoy the Windy City at Christmastime. I love Chicago...like...looooove. Here are some pics and it is very clear that we ate our way through the city. (Note: J stayed with me 2 nights, so all of this consumption did *not* take place in a 24-hour period! I'm chubby...but not that chubby!)

Here we are during our horsedrawn carriage ride. We grabbed hot cocoa from the Hershey's store and took the carriage ride.

Later, we ate some Chicago-style pizza!! Yummmmm.

We went to the Christkindlmarket German festival and here is a pic of us with the gigantic tree in the background:The next night, we had Chicago-style hot dogs. OMG so good!!Then J surprised me with a More Cupcake. As if I hadn't eaten enough that day!! Mine was Mint Chocolate:J's was caramel:Then J headed home and I still had another 2 days of my conference, so a coworker and I hit the Hershey's store once again for some cocoa and brownies!
Somehow, I managed to still lose a few pounds! I'm seriously not sure how. My 9-lb. loss last week was, in fact, a fluke. We changed the batteries and then I was back to normal. But then this morning, I weighed again and was down 4 lbs! I'll take it!!

Some other goings-on:

• J was in an accident on the way home from Chicago. On the interstate. Talk about SCARY! Thank the Lord, he was fine and no other cars were involved. It was icy and he hit a patch of ice, spun around, hit a guard rail with the back bumper, spun back around and hit the front bumper on the same guard rail. He is fine. That's all that matters. I don't know what I would do without him.
• We booked our little getaway for early 2009!! We nixed the cruise and replaced it with a week in a cabin. We just want to relax and we'll be able to take the pups, so that will be awesome. Even better, I have a coworker who has a time share and she has a few extra weeks, so she offered us the week and we just had to pay the $180 to exchange her week. Holy crap! 7 nights for under $200!! We will have to pay a bit extra for the dogs and we're going to give my coworker a couple hundred bucks to help with her annual fee, but even if we get out of this for under $500, that is an amazing deal!! That will mean a nice little visit to the outlet mall and my favorite store, AT Loft!! Weeee! Seriously, though. How amazing does a week with board games, books, jammies, homemade dinners, lots of wine, two snuggly puppies and a big snuggly hubby sound?? Pretty darn amazing to me!
• AF is officially here, as expected. She came roaring in on Thursday (CD42), so I'm glad that I won't have to deal with it during the holidays. Now the trick will be to avoid her during our January getaway.

Gearing up for the holidays is getting busy. I'm happy the weekend is here. We're going to look at Christmas lights tomorrow night and I have a laundry list of stuff that needs to be done. I hope everyone is enjoying the season!!