Happy Birthday Philip!

My brother, Philip turned 18 yesterday! EIGHTEEN! WOW! I can not believe it! He has grown up so much!

This next year he will be a senior in high school and right now he is currently working on enlisting in the Marines!

Sight-seeing in Chicago!

While in Illinois, we spent a day sight seeing in downtown Chicago. We didn't have a lot of time, but we tried to make the best of our time by seeing the most that we could. Our first stop was Millennium park:

In the park there is a huge reflective "bean" called the Cloud Gate. It was fun to look at and take pictures of. After visiting the bean, we ate lunch in the park at a little cafe.

After lunch, we had bought tickets to have a river boat architecture tour. It was a 90 minute tour riding on top of a boat hearing all about the architecture and history of the city. We enjoyed hearing all of the interesting facts and seeing all of the beautiful buildings. It was the best way to see the city!!! We highly recommend it to anyone who is going to Chicago!

After the boat ride, we walked up and down the Magnificent Mile. We didn't have time to do much shopping, but it was fun to window shop.

We loved our day in the city and I hope that we can go back sometime. Next time I would love to visit the museums, eat at some famous restaurants, and see a Cubs game.

Happy Birthday Hubby!

We celebrated Shaun's 26th birthday at Grandma's in Illinois. The day was pretty uneventful. We fished in the morning, had cake in the afternoon, and went to Culver's for dinner. It was a nice change of pace for a birthday celebration.

This past weekend we went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday back in Arizona. Shaun's favorite place to go for his birthday is Benihana's. We have gone there for his birthday almost every year. This year we found out that if you sign up for their rewards club online, the month of your birthday you get $30 off. Sweet!

While at dinner, we were reminiscing about Shaun's past birthdays and what we did for each of them. While we were talking about them, we figured out that this was the 5th birthday that we have spent together. I can not believe it has been 5 years! I don't know why this was so shocking to us, we have been married for 3 years, but for some reason it just does not feel like we have been celebrating birthdays together for 5 years!

Happy Birthday Babe!

Fishing in Illinois

While we were visiting Grandma, we went to the neighborhood "Farm and Fleet" shop. We came across the fishing section and decided that it would be fun to buy a rod and bait, get a fishing license, and go fishing!

The first afternoon that we went we had no luck. The fish were just not hungry.

After a few hours of trying to get the fish to bite, we gave up. It was getting really warm and we were getting a sunburn. We decided that we would get up early the next morning and try again. Thankfully, we had a lot more luck in the morning! I think it was because it was Shaun's birthday!

Although they were small catfish, we still had a lot of fun! Shaun is already ready for us to go fishing again.

Visiting Grandma Palmer

Shaun and I just got back from Illinois where we went with all of the Palmers to visit Shaun's Grandma. We spent four days in a small town two hours outside of Chicago. Grandma came out to Phoenix for our wedding three years ago, but we haven't seen her since. It was great for me to get to know her, since the wedding was too busy for me to actually get to sit down and talk to her.

The scenery in Illinois was gorgeous. I loved seeing all of the green landscape and all of the corn fields everywhere!! It was such a great sight, compared to the desert that we are used to.

The nephew and I. He will say cheese when he takes a picture (hence the funny face that he is making :)

Shaun and I with Grandma Palmer.

We would go on walks at night and at sunset the fireflies would come out. Shaun would catch them for our nephew and show them to him. He loved it! He would say "shaun. catch."

I will post more pictures and stories about fishing, Shaun's birthday and sight-seeing in Chicago in the next few days.