29

I turned 29 on July 2nd and even though I'm a bit sad to be nearly 30 - life has been great and it was an awesome birthday! I started celebrating the Sunday before with a big group of friends coming to the Maxwell Street Market for delicious quesadillas and tacos and sunshine. It was so nice to spend the afternoon with so many buds! That night we got to go to Cody's bluegrass show and have dinner with the Jensens. They got me a air popper and popcorn accessories and a book to read on vaca! I also received a book and some pretty paper from the Liebls! On Monday everyone sang happy birthday to me at bingo and Joe and Lee got me birthday cards. On my actual birthday, a bunch of my girlfriends helped me celebrate at LUSH Wine & Spirits. We all got bottles of wine and ate some awesome food and caught up. It was such an easy, low stress celebration. It meant a lot to me! My DePaul girls all donated somewhere on my behalf - Shalva picked Cardz for Kidz - brilliant! Tara picked Breakthrough Urban Ministries - my favorite place to volunteer! Cait adopted a freaking polar bear for me! And Ry and Mar donated to DePaul on my behalf. I have the most generous and awesome girlfriends! I also received some lovely gifts from the other ladies - Meg got me a paper cutter and some other crafting goodies - so awesome! And Darc got me a super cute Betsy Johnson wristlet. Cait brought delicious cupcakes, Mary brought an awesome balloon, Ry brought pretty flowers and Tara got me a gorgeous succulent. I got sweet cards from Leah and Mary plus a pretty mug from Mar. They are THE BEST! I'm totally the luckiest! I celebrated with my family on the 4th of July. It was such a nice day! My bro got a pinata and he also got me 2 different types of Jenga! My parents got me this grownup coloring book that I'm obsessed with - it's all paisley designs and it really relaxes me at the end of the day. They also got me a veggie noodle maker that we've been using non stop. I also got a banana republic gift card from them, a Michaels one and nice plant from my aunt anne, winning lotto tix from my cousin Carrie and tea towels and accessories from my cousin Kate. Honestly - I was so spoiled! The next day Rob and I went on our amazing trip to Brown County! Such a generous gift from my babe. I hope the rest of the year is as fabulous as my birthday celebration was!

Summer Travel

This summer is filled with travel for me and Rob! For my birthday, Rob took me to Brown County in Indiana for a little getaway. We went over 4th of July weekend and had the best time! My parents honeymooned there so I've always wanted to go and check it out. We stayed at the beautiful and perfect Robinwood Inn. We stayed in a cottage right next to adorable mini horses, Stormy and Rusty, who I hand-fed everyday. Each morning we enjoyed a home cook breakfast and recommendations from the owners on what to do and see. We absolutely loved staying there! We walked around downtown, watched lots of movies, visited an apple orchard and petting zoo, visited the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Hall of Fame Museum, had some delicious meals and spent a lot of quality time at the giant and beautiful state park. We hiked several miles and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We visited their fabulously retro nature center. The signage and displays clearly haven't been updated since the 70s and it was great. Lots of cool stuff in there including lots of snakes! We loved it and we can't wait to go back!

This Saturday we'll head to Hunky Dory for our annual week long getaway with the Jensen family. I am SO looking forward to it! The Liebls are coming so we can spend lots of quality time with Amy, Tom and the little ones. I'm really looking forward to clearing my head, eating tons of good food and ice cream and soaking in the beauty of Lake Clare. And ofcourse getting some New Glarus!

Shortly after that we'll depart for our big trip to Europe for Vanessa & Tobi's wedding! We'll fly into Munich and have the chance to spend a few days with them before anyone else arrives. We're staying in a hotel in the city center and it'll be great for Rob to explore since it's his first time there. I haven't been back since 2008! We'll go to Merano in Italy for 2 days as well. We're staying in a swanky boutique hotel in the mountains! Such a treat! Then we'll reconnect with Ness & Tobi in the Bavarian countryside for their wonderful wedding! I cannot wait to celebrate them and spend so much time with together! Rob and I haven't been to Europe together since 2010 so it'll be a great treat and adventure for us!

THEN to wrap up the summer we'll be flying to San Francisco to spend Labor Day with the Liebls! We're so glad we could squeeze in a trip there despite my lack of vacation days. It'll be a great way to kick start September and we're so glad we can spend more quality time with Amy, Tom and the kids!

After that we're hoping to take a first anniversary trip to North Carolina to Asheville. We did some research and discovered how beautiful it is there in the fall and how many cool things there are to do there! We'll see if we can make that one happen after all of these other trips. After all of this travel we'll need to have some quality time with our own wonderful city.