Chicago Weekend

Barry and I headed up by train to the Credit Union of Illinois' Annual Convention at the Hilton Chicago on Michigan Avenue.He had some meetings throughout the days on Thursday, Fri, and Saturday. At night our job was to take his board of directors out for dinner (on the credit union's bill). It was their thank you for serving the Credit Union another year. They are all nice people and we spent the dinners just chatting and eating, of course. We went to The Chop House and Fogo De Chao's. Oh my.....these places were amazingly good. The Hilton was a very nice hotel and close to everything. Thursday afternoon I walked to the Shedd Aquarium. Friday I walked for HOURS! I wanted to find the Macy's on State Street and did that successfully and then walked to find the Grand Lux Cafe(yummy asian chicken salad!) to meet a friend. I had lunch with Karna, a high school friend and got to rest for a great lunch visit. Karna works at the Sears Tower so it is nice that I can have lunch with her now each Spring when we go up there for the convention. We ended up at Water Tower.I was so pooped that I took a cab back to the Hilton. I walked around the exhibit hall in the afternoons with Barry. They were all eager to give their speech to him on why his Credit Union needed their product. I was there to smile, shake hands, and of course, take all the free pens, paper, magnets, etc. that I knew the kids would LOVE.

I roamed around and took lots of pictures, too. It was a fun weekend...exhausting, but fun. It was nice getting a closer work at what Credit Unions do. It was interesting learning some new things at a couple of the meetings that I went to. I won't dread next year, but I look forward to it now.

The train back was interesting with a horrible passenger that we had to sit near. He got kicked off at Joliet, but it sure was the LONGEST ride until he was off. He was cursing, threatening passengers, calling people names (including my husband!). It was very bad. The conductor did apprehend the man and put him in holding or something after things got bad near us.

Thanks to the Grandparents at home who took care of the Schmidt Trio at home and also my friend, Elisa, who helped with Brandon!