ARHLCHOC

Um, yeah, that's the acronym for our new hospital. The Ann and Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Gazuntite. We got to go on a tour (actually we had to go on a tour, but it was pretty cool) of the 1st, 2nd, 11th, and 12th floors of our new hospital. It's scheduled to open June 10th. Enjoy the virtual tour! (I should also mention that the hospital is still quite under construction. The Sky Garden actually doesn't even have any plants in it yet!)

These whales were donated by the Shedd Aquarium and hang in the lobby

The ER entrance on the 2nd floor

The Sky Garden on the 11th floor right across from the cafeteria

These murals are spread out throughout the hospital

Each floor is associated with a different animal

The main conference room on the 11th floor complete with part of the hand and view of the lake

Play fire engine for the kids, and these cute doggies! I love that they wrote a note and signed it "The D's"

The Chapel

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tom and I celebrated Valentine's day Saturday night...really, just an excuse to eat pizza and bake cookies :) We were going to do our usual Pizza Hut dinner date, but decided to make a homemade heartshaped pizza instead. I had some of Pioneer Woman's pizza dough frozen in the freezer (well, my pizza dough, her recipe) and so we made artichoke, chicken, pesto & mozzarella pizza. Yum.

10 Years ago, Tom and I had only been dating a few months and he was living in Pottstown doing a co-op and I was still at Penn State. I drove down to visit him for the weekend and made him heart shaped cookies with little phrases on them like the Candy Hearts. I had some leftover sugar cookie dough from my Christmas Baking extravaganza, so we decided to make heart cookies again. They are so good! We were kind of in a hurry when we were decorating them because we just wanted to eat them, so you'll have to excuse the fact that it looks like they were iced by a four year old :)

CSM in Chicago = Busy Week!

This week was crazy busy, but very fun. Over 10,000 PT's flooded Chicago this week for our national PT conference (Combined Sections Meeting). This week was probably one of the busiest work week's I've had in over a year too, so I'm so thankful for having this weekend to recover and rejuvinate!

Monday night I went downtown to have dinner with my director from Children's in Bham. We ate at the Atwood Cafe. It was fancy schmancy and quite delicious. I got the scoop on what's been going on since I left and updates on how all of my coworkers in Bham are doing. (I miss you guys if you're reading this!!)

Thursday night I went downtown (for the 2nd time that day - first time was to tour our new Children's Hospital...more on that later), to meet Curry and Julie (friends from PT school) and attend our Drexel alumni reception. It was so great to catch up with Curry and Julie (I wish we had more time to talk!) and to chat with some professors as well. Here's a pic of us from Thursday night, (with one of our Ortho professors) and then below that is a pic from the last time we were all at CSM together. 2005 in New Orleans...SEVEN years ago! I can't even believe that was 7 years ago.

Friday night Tom and I both went back downtown (yes, the 4th time in one week...normally I go downtown like once/month if that!) to meet one of my favorite (Hi Dorothy!) former PT students. We enjoyed a (couple) beverages at Rock Bottom Brewery (Thanks Dorothy!) and then went to Xoco for dinner. It was packed and delicious and the perfect place to catch up with Dorothy and escape from the snow for a little while!

Target Ad and the Puppy Bowl

Tom's mom sent us this picture of a Target ad the other day, with a comment that says "Anne and Tom, haha!" I can't help but think she is somehow a fly on the wall in our apartment, as this couldn't be more accurate! I'm always lounging on the couch on Dell mini and Tom always vacuums. Although for the record (and so you don't think I'm a complete bum) I am usually somewhere else in the apartment cleaning when Tom is vacuuming.
Today Bailey and I watched the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. At first she was more interested in the squirrels in the tree outside the window than the adorable puppies on the tv.

But then she finally decided to watch. I think she was trying to figure out where the squeaker toys were hiding. She could hear them but the only thing she could find on the floor was what's left of her raccoon carcass from Christmas.

Project Goal Update and a few more goals

I'm happy to report that I have crossed several things off of my To-Do list! Here is an updated list, plus a few more goals for the month of February.

Take down the Christmas tree
Put away Christmas decorations
Go through stuff and make another trip to Good Will
Organize coat closet (This should probably be done before the Good Will trip)
Reorganize 2 of our kitchen cabinets and find homes for everything (just about everything) that has been living on the countertop for the past month
Go through my file drawer
Move my desk contents over to Tom's our desk (we consolidated to 1 computer)
Decorate for Valentine's Day
Plan and cook meals for February vacation
Inventory the freezer contents
Plan meals for upcoming busy week nights
Do our taxes
Apply for promotion at work
Apply for Early Intervention credentialing in the state of Illinois

And here's a pic of my "splurge" at Home Goods last month. I LOVE it. I think maybe because we don't really ever have any red in our decor, it just looks so pretty in the hallway. The pic is a little blurry because it's from my phone.

Photo Update: Snow, Bars, iPhone, JoePa, Dad

Last Friday we got several inches of snow. Bailey had a blast, as always. She loves "attacking" Tom and trying to steal his gloves.Friday night we ventured out in the snow to Beckett's Public House to celebrate our neighbor's birthday. We had a good time hanging out with the neighbors and swapping stories...I'm sure going to miss them when they move!

I broke down and ordered a new iphone cover a few weeks ago. I've been wanting it for a while but have resisted buying it....until now. It came in the mail this weekend and I love it!!

And of course, we've been in mourning since the passing of JoePa. Regardless of what he did or didn't do, it's still a shame that the last few weeks of his life had to play out like they did. My heart breaks for SuePa.

When facebook flooded with Joe Paterno and Penn State comments, I thought it only fitting to change my profile picture to this one of me and my dad (circa 1984ish I think??)

Wordless Wednesday

Project Goal Update: Kitchen Cabinets

So far, so good! Here are some before (brace yourself) and after pics of re-organizing the kitchen cabinets. I actually forgot to take a before picture of the main cabinet...which is a shame because it was a mess and that was the biggest project. I'm so glad I was able to get some of the STUFF off of the countertops. I LOVE how it looks so neat and clean. We'll see how long that lasts ;)

Some Project Goals

So I feel as though I'm a pretty goal oriented person, however I have kind of been slacking on my monthly goals for the past, oh I don't know, year and a half! I think I've been a little hesitant to keep up with my monthy goals because I have a tendency to put too much on my plate and then stress out when I don't accomplish all of it, even if there aren't "real" deadlines associated with it.

With the new year comes my rejuvination for being organized and productive, and with being organized and productive comes (my favorite) lists! I thought about making a weekly post with one project goal that I would like to accomplish each weekend, but again I don't want to put any time constraints on this and the last thing I need to do is stress out over it. So here is my list of weekend projects that I hope to complete over the next few months (some obviously sooner than others).

• Take down the Christmas tree


• Put away Christmas decorations


• Go through stuff and make another trip to Good Will


• Organize coat closet (This should probably be done before the Good Will trip)


• Reorganize 2 of our kitchen cabinets and find homes for everything (just about everything) that has been living on the countertop for the past month


• Go through my file drawer


• Move my desk contents over to Tom's our desk (we consolidated to 1 computer)


• Decorate for Valentine's Day


• Plan and cook meals for February vacation


• Inventory the freezer contents


• Plan meals for upcoming busy week nights

2011: Year in Review!

January

Matt comes to visit

February

The Blizzaster strikes Chicago Bham Reunion in Milwaukee

March

We became Chi-rish New couches

April

Matt visits again We experience burger bliss

May

Brie & Margaret come to visit Penny comes to visit Grilling out with the neighbors

June

5 Year Anniversary and Trip to Michiana Shores

July

Birthday Week and Bailey's 1st trip to the lake Jess's 4th of July Party Mini Family Reunion in Chicago

August

Paw Paw Vacation

September

Milwaukee trip New Furniture

October

Penn State/Northwestern Game Halloween with the neighbors

November

10 Years Together

December

Holiday Party Jess's Party Christkindle Market Sweatpants NYE & Paige visits

Sweatpants NYE & Paige's visit

Happy New Year!! Here's hoping 2012 is an amazing year for everyone! We've had a fun NYE Weekend so far. Our friend Paige and her fiance were in town Friday night so we took the train down to meet up with them. They were staying at The W, so we figured we would go have a drink in the lobby while we waited for them to arrive. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. Here's a pic of the giant lamps and disco ball themed lobby.
After they got settled, we went to Rosebud Prime for dinner. Everything was delicious and we couldn't believe the restaurant was practically empty on the Friday night of NYE weekend. We ate and drank and talked and laughed and it was so so good to see Paige again!! I can't wait until she moves to Ohio and can be our halfway stop on the drive home for Christmas next year!! (And Bailey can finally be reunited with her BFF Jack!!)
A few weeks ago we had the ingenious idea of celebrating NYE with our neighbors and thus the idea of Progressive Sweatpants New Year's Eve was born. What can be better than hanging out with friends, not having to leave the building, AND getting to wear sweatpants all night?! We started out the night at our place for appetizers. For the main course (homemade tomato soup and some amazing grilled cheese) we went downstairs to Catherine and Brad's apartment, and for dessert we went to the "Party Room" which is attached to Michael and Leslie's apartment. We went back to Catherine and Brad's to ring in the new year because we didn't want to wake Micahel and Leslie's baby. Good thing we did or else we would have missed the classy people ringing in the New Year on our sidewalk jamming to the music they were blasting out of their car. I'm not sure why we thought it was a good idea to go outside and Cheers them, but I don't think they minded us crashing their "party." We had a great night and I am so thankful we have such great neighbors living in our building!!

Today and tomorrow are going to be spent watching football and lounging on the couch. I can't think of a better way to kick off 2012!