Good to be Home!!!

Well, we made it back from our trip to the Windy City .... we had a great flight home. Bruce and Mette Daily finally made it in early Saturday morning. Their flight was cancelled Friday afternoon/evening because of the storm. We decided that it must have been God's provision in some huge way. We hit Starbucks and the Corner Bakery first, being our favorite tradition. Just sitting there in the restaurant and watching everyone hussle and bussle by is just so fun. You could feel the cold air coming in as the doors would open and just the holiday season in the air. We did some shopping. Our favorite was Crate and Barrel. Can I tell you that I think there were at least 500 people in there at one time? Of course, they are spread over four stories and riding escalators up and down. It really is just so fun .... music playing, bumping into people, laughing, etc. You know, in the midst of what felt like a million people, I never saw anyone unkind or outright hateful. That was encouraging to me as we moved down Michigan Avenue. We had the deep dish pizza at Gino's East Side. Patsy was our waitress and been in Chicago for over fifteen years. She had some interesting stories. We talked with the four guys up from Mexico for the Chicago game. They were having some fun for sure. We ended up for dinner at the Chicago Chop House. We never had eaten there before and we tried several places for reservations and everyone was full until at least 10pm. On a whim, we put our name in at the Chop House. They said we could walk back to our apartment and they would call us five minutes prior to our table being ready. So we walked back and sat listening to Christmas Jazz looking at the night skyline thinking to ourselves, "We are soooo not going to eat tonight. They are not going to call us until probably 10pm. Where are we going to eat? WE are going to end up at the TWO STORY McDonalds down the street in Chicago on a Saturday night!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" I kept telling them have faith .... sure enough, it was probably 45 minutes later, they called and told us to come on. It was the best steak we had ever, EVER eaten. If you are ever in Chicago, you have to eat there. Chicago Chop House on Ontario. www.chicagochophouse.com Ask for Blanche!
And believe it or not, we were all asleep before 10pm. We tried to stay up and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation....we were too tired!!! We are getting old!!!! Especially compared to the crowd there. At 2pm, we woke up to horns blaring and people yelling ... down from our building is a bar that stays open serving drinks until 4am. Well, let's just say they get rolling good around 2pm. It didn't matter that it was 10 degrees .... they had plenty of warmth, I'm sure, from their drinks.
Aside from plenty of food, sore feet from walking, and lots of lattes to keep us warm, all in all, we had a wonderful trip. It was good to sit and fellowship, talk and celebrate the goodness of God in our lives; the triumphs, the trials, and the plans for the future. And especially thanking God that He doesn't leave us where we are. Revelations from God .... Thanks for giving in and going again, Bruce and Mette! I hope when we are sixty, we can still enjoy the time and laugh at our memories!!! PS Bruce makes friends everywhere we go! Just ask the clerk at American Girl who couldn't answer Bruce why the dolls are made in China!!!!!!