HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME...

Friday, April 6th was my birthday and I celebrated with a 3 day weekend full of activities! It's been a long time since I enjoyed my birthday as much as I did this year.

Andrew gave me a certificate for a one hour, full body massage for Valentine's day so I made an appointment for Friday, my birthday, since I had the day off from work. I spent the morning just lounging at home having coffee, relaxing and catching up on a few shows that TiVo has been saving for me. At 1:00pm I made the five minute drive to "All Good Things" where I had my massage. When I left I was so relaxed and mentally "out of it" that I almost felt drunk. In fact, I was parked on the street and on my way to my car I stepped right out into traffic without even thinking about it. I was lucky to have narrowly escaped being mowed down by a passing car. My mind was still lying on that massage table.

Later Friday evening our friend Sue came over and the three of us went to First Avenue Wine House for a blind wine tasting. I discovered that unless you're a true wine enthusiast, it's really difficult to guess most wines by taste alone. Aside from a few of the obvious wines like Merlot and Pinot Noir, my taster was usless. I actually went thinking I would be better at identifying wines than I was. We had a great time and around 7:30pm we headed back to our house for a wonderful dinner that Andrew had prepared earlier. Barbequed pork ribs, wild rice salad and deviled eggs. ...and, of course, more wine and cocktails.

Satruday morning Andrew was up by 6am packing for our weekend trip to chicago. His gift to me was tickets to see the Blue Man Group in Chicago on Saturday night preceeded by dinner at a fantastic Tapas restaurant, Cafe Iberico. In addition to that, tucked into my birthday card was also two tickets to tour Robie House in Hyde Park, a newly opened house designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright from 1908-1910. I was so excited about this I could hardly wait! The house is only in it's fifth year of being completely restored. They estimate that it will be an 8+ year renovation costing millions. Because the restoration is obviously not yet completed, it actually added a lot of interest for me, being able to see how the house was designed and constructed and the pain-staking process in which it is being brought back, very slowly, to it's original beauty.

Even after surprising me with all of this, he still held one more surprise for me. He purposely held back telling me where we were staying while in Chicago. We got into downtown around noon and parked in a garage just off of north Michigan Ave. I figured this was fairly close to where we were staying because he said we'de be leaving the car here overnight. We did a little shopping and around 3pm we walked back to the car to collect our luggage and go check into the hotel. I wondered where we were staying and asked a couple of times, but he'd never answer, he just said "you'll see soon". In just the couple of blocks we walked, we passed a few hotels that I was sure he was going to turn and walk into at any moment, but we just passed on by. We crossed to the East side of Michigan Avenue and we turned South toward the river. At that point I figured we were headed to the Hyatt Regency on East Wacker Dr. where we have stayed a few times before. Nope. Better. Just as we approached the enormous, polished brass, revolving doors of the Hotel Intercontinental, he turned and led us in. "Holy crap", you've got to be kidding. Just for fun, I'd checked out this hotel online while booking for previous trips to Chicago, always hoping to maybe find a deal on a broom closet that they might be able let me curl up in.
We checked into our room on the 18th floor of the historic tower and unpacked our things. This was truly a treat. So many ameneties we just don't get from hotels that we normally stay in; an enormous room with a king size bed with down comforter and pillows, 400 thread count egyptian cotton sheets, embroidered, silk draperies and bathrooms with polished marble on every surface. I never wanted to leave.

Blue Man Group was a blast! I'd been wanting to see it for a long time. I know this show is playing in Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, Boston and London, so if you are near any of these places, don't miss it!

So, that was my birthday weekend. I was pretty spoiled and it was a lot more difficult than usual to go back to work on Monday. Once again, Andrew outdid himself making my birthday special. Thanks babe, you're the best!