Chicago! (part 1)

This past weekend my parents, sisters, Sean, Adam (Ashley's fiance), and I all went to Chicago. Ashley found an ad in a magazine about a month ago about this bridal show downtown and ordered free tickets (more on the bridal show in the next post).

Friday night my dad, my mom, and Abby came over to spend the night and we also went out to dinner. We went to Blackstone in the east side of Iowa City for dinner. It was really good and we had a good time! After dinner, we stopped and got some cookie dough to make cookies back at home for dessert. Again, no pictures for the night :( Sorry! The rest of the night we spent watching tv and talking.

Early Saturday morning all of us except Ashley and Adam left for Chicago. We made a quick stop at Brugger's bagels (I wish it would have been Cj's) for breakfast. Then we made our way to the suburbs for the day. About the time we hit the Illinois border we started seeing hundreds of geese. Throughout the trip it was kind of a joke that they were mocking Sean because he couldn't shoot them. As we continued driving we estimated over a thousand geese all in one spot. The flock was so big we could see it about 5 miles away.

PART of the huge flock of geese

no geese in this one, just pretty fall trees :)

Anways, we stopped at the outlet in Aurora and then a couple other malls in Oak Brook where we stayed. We eneded up going to 4 malls that day. YES! I said 4 malls! I was exhausted and Sean got shopped out in the middle of the second place but he was a trooper and he even found a really nice black winter coat!

We also picked out our unity candle vase. It was on sale at Marshall's/HomeGoods (love that store!)

Quick note: During our shopping I discovered my new favorite store. WEST ELM! In the store they had their Christmas decor out. It was full of shiny murcury glass, feathers, sequins, and sparkly things. I loved everything. I so can't wait until I am done with school so I can afford stuff like that! I'm going to do a whole other post (yes, it's that cool) so stay tuned!!

Saturday night my parents took us out for a really nice dinner. It was Maggiano's in the Oak Brook mall. When my dad made the reservations he told them we were celebrating our engagement so when we sat down at dinner they brought us out a bottle of champagne on the house. Then after dinner they brought us out a plate of really good lemon cookies with 2 candles (a pink and a blue) that were twisted together. For dessert we all also split a pumpkin cheesecake and a HUGE slice of tiramisu. The dinner was amazing. I think it's my new favorite restaurant!!

is the picture in the background crooked to you guys, too?