Happy Birthday to ME

I’ll be honest, I’m not big on celebrating birthdays. nbsp;Maybe because I keep mynbsp;expectationsnbsp;low so I’m notnbsp;disappointed if everyone in the world forgets. This year was COMPLETELY different. nbsp;Becausenbsp;a href=”http://www.daveramseyroad.com/2011/06/sweet-home-chicago.html”I was in Chicago/a for my birthday, I expected a GREAT birthday. nbsp;And I got it!!br /br /My 10th Anniversary of my 29th birthday started with 10 hours of sleep! nbsp;I felt so refreshed! nbsp;Then I just lounged around the room for about an hour. nbsp;What a way to start my day! I had no schedule, no one to take care of and no one to feed except me. The night before I had gone to a local market and bought some breakfast goodies so I wouldn’t have to go far to feed myself.br /br /I then decided to take advantage of the fitness center. i{Not sure why…maybe getting older motivates one to be healthier?}/inbsp;I got ready threw wallet in the safe and got ready to head up. nbsp;Then I realized I forgot to put my cell phone in the safe, opened it up, typed in the code and got ready to head up. Then I saw my jewelry lying on the dresser….arrggghhh…I had to get my act together. nbsp;Opened up the safe threw it in there, typed in the code and then froze as I heard the safe lock. nbsp;The safe didn’t except all four of my numbers, just three, but it still locked. nbsp;To make sure I remembered the three numbers I typed them in and got an error code. nbsp;Did that about four more times and was locked out for 15 minutes. Tried after 15 minutes and still couldn’t get in. I couldn’t believe it! nbsp;I locked my life in that safe and I couldn’t get back into it. nbsp;I decided to forget about it for an hour, go work out and come back. nbsp;When I returned I called the front desk and told themnbsp;strikeI’m an idiot and somehow I can’t get into the safe with the numbers I punched in/strike I was locked out of the safe. They sent someone up and within minutes, I had my life back in my hands…phew!br /br /A few minutes after the safe-opener guy left, my hubby popped in real quick with a surprise treat…chocolate covered strawberries from Fanny May. YUM!! He wished me a quick Happy Birthday and left to go back to his meeting.br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HOa1H1ajJNM/TgfbT4-GpbI/AAAAAAAAAbM/4t0KJ0Ha6E4/s1600/IMAG0279.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”190″ src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HOa1H1ajJNM/TgfbT4-GpbI/AAAAAAAAAbM/4t0KJ0Ha6E4/s320/IMAG0279.jpg” width=”320″ //a/divbr /After strikescarfing down/strike eating my goodies, I showered up and headed out to explore Chicago. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago and would visit the city from time to time, but I never really experienced it by myself. I made a quick stop into a Starbucks to get my FREE drink which was an Iced Caramel Macchiato.br /br /a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i-N-oWAeAlo/TgfcK_D1jOI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/Cz-iAoM3KOY/s1600/IMAG0291.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”320″ src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i-N-oWAeAlo/TgfcK_D1jOI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/Cz-iAoM3KOY/s320/IMAG0291.jpg” width=”191″ //aMy next stop was to find Garrett’s Popcorn Shop. nbsp;The first time I ever had their popcorn was the weekend of my brother’s wedding. nbsp;It was DELISH! My mom asked me to get her some while I was there and since she so kindly gave me airplane tickets to Chicago, I obliged. I got a jumbo bag ofnbsp;caramelnbsp;popcorn and a small bag of the Chicago mix i{caramel and cheese popcorn mixed-don’t knock it till you try it!}nbsp;/ibr /ibr //ibr /After that, I wandered around the Magnificent Mile. Which I realized I had never been on before. I am sure I had been on Michigan Ave, but I never spent anytime in the shops.br /br /Then I saw a really big store that had a lot of Apple products in it, so I went in. I had never seen a 2-story Apple store before. I headed upstairs since I couldn’t imagine what would be up there, but they had theater seating for the classes they offered. nbsp;Wouldn’t you know it, I stumbled across an iPhone/iPad class. nbsp;I don’t own an iPhone, but I had my iPad with me and sat down and learned something new! I enjoyed it tremendously.br /br /I headed back to the hotel to meet my hubby since he was going to take me out to dinner. I decided to go to one of my favorite restaurants.br /br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cxcaus8PQjk/TgfeYPxdF1I/AAAAAAAAAbU/6DtPvz8wSHM/s1600/IMAG0292.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”191″ src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cxcaus8PQjk/TgfeYPxdF1I/AAAAAAAAAbU/6DtPvz8wSHM/s320/IMAG0292.jpg” width=”320″ //a/divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”br //divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”I know there are Melting Pots everywhere, but I like fondue and it was my birthday. After our two hour meal i{because when you do 4 courses that is how long it takes} /iwe headed out into one of the worst storms that IL had that night. The storm wasn’t so bad in the city, but apparently it hit some of the suburbs pretty hard. It was raining hard enough i{and got cold enough}/i that we opted for a cab back to the hotel.nbsp;/divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”br //divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”All-in-all it was one of the best birthday’s I have ever had! The best part of my birthday? I still had two more days in Chicago!!nbsp;/diva href=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” target=”_blank”img alt=”Anna” border=”0″ src=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” //a