Our Stay-cation

On Sunday we traveled to the big city to be early for an appointment on Monday.

Every time we go to the city we take the days off and spend some time together.

Our first mission when we reached the city was finding food. We tried Chipotle for the first time, and Wesley was very disappointed he had to wait in the car. Chipotle was less impressive than all the hype made it out to be, we still prefer Qudoba.

We stayed in my favorite hotel, The ClubHouse. 

We alternate between Michaels favorite hotel (The Wingate by Wyndham) and this one every time we go to this city. I prefer The ClubHouse Hotel because its a beautiful 5 star Hotel, its not super expensive, and its Dog friendly (Which means my "kids" get to come along for the weekend)

 This is the entry when you first walk in.

 And this is the "Courtyard" in the summer. There is also a really nice restaurant attached to the Hotel, but it is pretty expensive so we don't eat there often.

This was our room. I get a double queen so the dogs can have their own bed.

 They made themselves comfy and got settled in.

When we got up to go to our appointment on Monday morning, we were informed that due to the weather the Dr. was not able to fly in and all appointments were postponed until Tuesday.

So we had to call in for another day off work, and extend our stay another night. 

The Hotel was very happy to extend our say (Especially because the rates went up an additional $20 for Monday nights) :/ 

 We stayed in all day and had a pajama day / binge movie day. It was nice to spend a whole day together and do nothing but hang out. We ordered food and played on our phones, and watched all the new FreeForm episodes. We never get a vacation, so we made the most of our Free day.

The cutest Hotel

Today we got to stay in the cutest Hotel for our Trip to the city! 

The Wingate by Wyndham. Michael says this is his new favorite and he wants to stay here more, but they are only semi-dog friendly (for the right price of $50 non refundable deposit on top of the room charge) So I don't think we will bring the dogs with us when we plan to come to this one next time.

This is the entry when you first walk in.

This was our room. Its a lot bigger than it looks here. Behind me is a kitchen area with a stove, dishwasher and the works. They even have plates, knifes, and utensils so everything you will need if you stay there long term. And they also have a Keurig with good coffee, not the cheep crap most places give you.

I made the dogs stay in the bathroom because I was afraid Radar would do something stupid and cost us more in damages (He's a little wrecking ball sometimes.)

Wesley was not happy about not getting to sleep in our bed, but made himself comfy on all of the towels and the towel shelf.  

I love getting to go away for the weekend and take a little road trip with the dogs. They don't like to hold still when Im driving, but Michael took care of that. lol

HIDA Scan

Today was Ambers HIDA Scan to see if her gallbladder is what has been making her so sick lately.

(excuse my face, I always feel like Im gonna pass out when they start an IV)

Its a 2 hour test, so my insurance pretty much paid for me to take a long uncomfortable nap. Michael had to take 2 hours out of his work day to drive me down to the hospital for the test in case they had to use Morphine and I couldn't drive home. 

We will find out next Wednesday (1-25-17) what the results were and I will post them below:

The Results came back as 86% Normal Function. 

Merry Christmas 2016

Our 3rd Christmas together. 

Michael was told he would more than likely have to work Christmas. So we decided to celebrate our Christmas a day early and open our gifts on Christmas eve.

On Christmas "Adam" Michael wanted e to open one of my gifts. lol He is terrible with surprises and anticipation. So I got my schnauzer slippers 2 days early. But I LOVE THEM! I told him that he is "Winning at Christmas" and it is the perfect gift.

We made brownies and cookies (and bought some cuter christmas cookies to add) and made little gifts for our neighbors and friends.

We didnt have a tree (I refuse to set one up again) so we stacked our gifts on the desk. As soon as we woke up on Christmas Eve Michael wanted to open the gifts. So we ripped open all our presents before we even got out of bed. Im glad he still gets so excited.

After we got our presents we went and got breakfast. Then we delivered our cookie tin gifts to everyone. And hung out at the house and watched movies all day.

 Christmas morning I woke up to the traditional phone call from my little brothers telling me I have 10 minutes to get on Skype so they could open their gifts. 

Its nice to know that Christmas hasen't changed at all since it was when I was a kid at home. I think its more fun to be the adult watching the excitement sometimes.

I recorded the FaceTime video of them opening gifts and it is on our YouTube Channel. You can click HERE to watch it.

We almost bought a Turkey the other day... but I don't know how to cook one haha Plus Im pretty sure you need a special pot which I don't have. So we decided on Roast instead. Christmas Roast sounds like a legit thing. 

As soon as all our families get home from church we are going to Skype everyone and see how they are. I really hope next Christmas we can spend it with the family. 

Christmas night we have plans to go to the Oak Park Light Show. Which is basically the city's display of Christmas lights they charge you to drive through to raise money for charity. Its really cool and Ive waned to go all month. So Im excited for it.

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Our Second Anniversary

Today Michael and I are celebrating our 2nd Wedding Anniversary. 

So much has happened this last year. We got a new puppy. Got a car. Explored our new home state. Traveled to visit family. My sister came and lived with us for part of the summer. We adopted a cat. We went swimming in Canadian water. lol Just so many little adventures. 

With as much time as we spend working and just taking care of our place and things out here Im surprised at how many adventures we did have.
Michael got me a new bead for my charm bracelet.

                               

Since our anniversary is so close to the new year anyways I like to make a "Year in Review" kind of slideshow to save all those pictures and share them with family. I got this idea from my In-laws who made a family slideshow the first couple years I was in the family. So Im making our own tradition of doing so. If you would like to watch the video I posted it below and it is on our YouTube channel as well.

Thank you to all of you who are part of our lives.

 2016 has been a pretty good year for us, and we have high hopes for 2017.

The Journey of a Thousand Miles

Actually its 931 miles- but who's counting?

I was able to go down to my home town from Sunday the 4th till Friday the 9th.
I took Sam's cat Presley home to her. He hated the ride but no one threw up, so Im counting that as a success. 

Traveling with 2 dogs and a cat is not always fun.

Luckily we got to sleep most of the way.

It took all of Saturday to get half way. We finally reached our hotel after 10pm

It was also a casino (which I was not aware of at the time when we booked it) but it was actually very quiet and classy. Plus we won $12 

I was nervous about being switched to a "Pet Friendly" room, because usually they are not as nice as the rest of the Hotel. You can stay in a 5 star hotel and pet rooms are 3 star quality. But this one was Very nice. 12' ceilings and hardwood floors. 

It was one of the nicest hotels we have stayed in. And the shower was amazing! 

I am so excited for this Trip, its been almost a year since I've seen my family. 

Today when I got out of the vehicle I got stampeded by family members who were excited and surprised to see me.

While we were not able to go around Christmas break, my siblings took sick days from school and we all hung out. I was able to spend my Grandpa's birthday with him, and my Birthday with my own family, which was nice.

It was a short trip, but no length of visit feels long enough while we live so far away. I was sad that Michael was not able to see his family while we were down there. Hopefully I can arrange something soon so he can visit them.

We did lots of fun things while I was there, too many to post here. But I made a vlog video on our YouTube Channel which you can watch below:

Amber turns 22

I was so lucky to be able to spend my birthday with my family this year. 

I traveled down and my mom, siblings, and husband all took the day off to spend with me. 

Michael gave me another necklace this year. It is absolutely beautiful. 

This has been one of my favorite birthdays ever! I feel so lucky that I got to spend it with my family.

You can see last years necklace and birthday here: http://mikeandmeambermarie.blogspot.com/2015/12/ambers-21st-birthday.html