Take me down to paradise city......

After a hectic year, at least for Andi and "E", a much needed vacation came our way. Following Christmas with our fam's, the three of us headed down to sunny, beautiful Florida. (We will not discuss the travel nightmares we went through to get there, but none-the-less we arrived!)

What an amazing escape from life.....seriously, how can anyone who lives here worry about anything (except maybe during hurricane season!) We woke up every morning to bright sunshine and 80 degree weather. Our daily routine consisted of coffee, visiting the crabs off the pier, sunbathing on the beach, searching for washed up jellyfish, lunch, mancala hour with our crabby friends, swimming in the pool, some sort of delicious seafood dinner, mancala hour part deux, and falling asleep to the waves outside.

Does anyone want to just say "to heck with it all" and go live in Florida on the beach?

What an amazing way to start the new year.....relaxed and refreshed!!!!

The Progression of a Chicago Christmas Tree

We know it's been a while, and we are sorry for our long absence. We will try to improve!

With that said, we thought we would share with you our first Christmas tree experience in the Windy City. It was definitely a learning experience :)

So, as you may guess, the first tree is a picture of the great Chicago tree in Daley Plaza. It is stunning! The second picture is our Christmas tree that we bought down the street at an urban tree lot for $60. Yes, I said $60. We purchased it mid-December and about 10 days later is looked like the last tree pictured. It literally dropped all of its needles....it sounded like a rainstorm in our apartment each day as branches and branches of dead needles fell to the ground unprovoked.

Did you water it, you ask? Of course we did....and it didn't drink!
Why would such a thing happen, you ask? Well, according to several people it must have been cut in September.

Lesson learned: next year we will either cut our own or go fake!!!!

Funny update: the tress carcus is still sitting in our ally waiting to be taken to the recyclying place.