Mini-Vacation

Though it's no sunny Vegas, a couple of days living it up in the big city always feels like a mini vacation to me. This afternoon, Karen and I are heading to Chicago (I've been promised a stop at Beef on the way) to have dinner with our good friend, and my former boss, Kelly. Kelly is in Chicago for a few days for work and this will be the first time we've seen her since July. She now lives in Austin, where she is an event planner for IBM. We miss her a lot, and are very excited to hang out and catch up.

We've got dinner planned at Pizano's Pizza (on upper State), which is a little deep-dish joint that Karen raves about. We're also spending the night in the city. Coincidentally, Kelly has a room at the Sheraton on the river, which is where Karen and I always stay when we're in town. So we're crashing with Kelly for the night, and then we'll spend Friday eating breakfast at Fox and Obel and shopping on Michigan Avenue.

Tomorrow afternoon, Karen and I are heading to Elmhurst to pick up Karen's 8-year-old niece, Megan, who we are taking back with us to Madison for a very special weekend of fun. Karen always plans a "special weekend in Madison with Aunt Karen" every year for each of her three nieces. First up is Megan, the oldest, and we've got all sorts of plans in the works...a trip to the zoo and the pool, a book club, dinner at Chin's, pizza and a sleepover, etc. We're all very excited. It makes me excited to someday be the kind of aunt Karen is to her nieces. Kelly, your kids have big fun to look forward to :)