Meet me at the Muny - The Little Mermaid

Muny season has officially started in St. Louis!

The first show was "Jesus Christ Superstar" and I gave those tickets away as we were busy that night.  So my first show of the season was "The Little Mermaid" with my sister:

Because we both are obsessed with Disney, its a given that she will always go to that particular show of the season.  We grabbed dinner at Brewhaus 141 before settling in to the rare cool night for the great show:

It was a great show - but they always are!

Meet us at the Muny next week for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."

Vacation 2017 - Six Flags Great America (Chicago)

Our final destination of our trip was spending a day at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee/Chicago, IL.

Because we are gold season pass holders for the parks, it allows you access to any of the parks in the United States.  We've been to Six Flags over Texas and were excited to visit the next one closest to us.

We knew it was going to be a hot day and that everyone was going to be out and enjoy the weather.  Our plan was not to do the rides we have here but the rides they are known for.  This park is more of a thrill park than family rides but there's plenty mixed in for everyone to enjoy.

We reached our above goal and had a great time doing it.  The only ride we didn't get on was their newest, the Joker, because it kept breaking down and we weren't going to wait as they didn't know when it was going to open back up.  The lines weren't that long, the longest we waited was an hour but we knew we wanted to ride it.  We did not do their waterpark but we did do the log flume, which is much faster and bigger than the one here in STL.  We also made sure to ride the 2 story carousel:

We had a great day at the park!  Couldn't have asked for a better ending to our vacation:

After the park we learned there was a Giordano's nearby and we can't say no to Chicago style pizza, especially this close to the city, so we relaxed there for a bit to unwind from our day.  It was delicious!  To lesson our drive the next day, we decided to drive to Lincolnshire for our hotel that night.  We stayed at the SpringHill Suites which was much more "our style" than the hotel in Milwaukee the night before.  They were very welcoming, the pool and hot tub were great and they had breakfast in the morning.

Sunday was our "we will get home when we get home" day so after breakfast we chilled out until check out time and began our drive.  Since we had chicago style pizza the night before, it was only fitting that we try to find a Garrett's Popcorn without actually having to go into the city and yay because the mall in Schaumburg had one.  So we stopped there to get a snack for the drive and eventually made our way home.

It was a great trip!  I was super excited because it was all new to us and it didn't revolve around hockey.  As much as I love hockey, its good to show Keith that you can have fun and not have to go to a hockey game ;)

Until our next trip!

What's up Wednesday!

What we're eating this week:

Monday ~ chicken potstickers

Tuesday ~ fajitas & margaritas

Wednesday ~ spicy chicken with veggies

Thursday ~ pizza

Friday ~ out

Saturday ~ out

Sunday ~ chicken or ribs

What I'm reminiscing about:

Our vacation to Wisconsin because of course it came and went too fast!  But luckily there's only 3 weeks until we leave on our next one.

What I'm loving:

being lazy!  Seriously, during the school year I never stop and this summer has been about relaxing, looking for jobs and getting caught up.  Keith works M-TR still during the summers so on Fridays I kinda have to step up my game ;)

What we've been up to:

Work, trying to have fun, eating healthy, working out

What I'm dreading:

the dentist...bleh

What I'm working on:

We've been in our house over a year now and I finally got everything in its place from all our storage units.  So now I've been trying to layout my scrapbooks and get caught up on that.  For the most part they just need assembling, the pictures have been printed and the pages matched up.  I'd love to be done with 2015 and 2016 by the end of summer.

What I'm excited about:

our next vacation in July to Branson with the family.

What I'm watching/reading:

TV: Bachelorette, Southern Charm, Southern Charm Savannah, All the Housewives series, Nashville

Books: My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella

What I'm listening to:

Nothing, its quiet today!

What I'm wearing:

still in my PJs

What I'm doing this weekend:

we have ZERO things on the calendar for now.  That could easily change within a few hours!

What I'm looking forward to next month:

our trip to Branson, more Muny shows, welcoming my newest cousin to the world

What else is new?

Not much.  Still on the job hunt so keep fingers crossed on that front.  This week is vacation bible school so its been quite busy.

~*~

Have a great Wednesday!  Pop by tomorrow to read about our final day of our vacation.  It was quite a thrill!

Vacation 2017 - Jelly Belly Factory

If you're like me, and going on a road trip, when I map our routes I always look to see what we could stop at on our way to our destinations.

Saturday morning we woke up early, said goodbye to Milwaukee and began our drive south to Chicago.  Our first stop of the day was in Pleasant Prairie, WI to visit the Jelly Belly Factory:

Who doesn't love Jelly Belly!!

Once inside the visitor's center, we were instructed to put on hats and make our way to the Jelly Belly train:

Once aboard the train, it takes you through Candy Alley, their working warehouse with a guide telling you everything about Jelly Belly.  There are stops along the way that tell you about the various ins and outs of the candy business:

At the end of the tour, they hand you a good sized sample packet as you walk into their Jelly Belly store.  In the store you can taste anything imaginable and purchase anything imaginable:

After a few samples and a few mixed together to make foods (blueberry cobbler, s'mores, lemon meringue pie) we picked our favorites and purchased a few for the road.  Keith really liked the blueberry concoctions and I favored the cocktail concoctions.

It was a fun stop and a great start to a fun day!  After the tour, we said goodbye to Wisconsin and headed south more into Illinois to spend the rest of our day in Gurnee at Six Flags Great America.  Visit Thursday to read about our final vacation day!

Vacation 2017 - Milwaukee Downtown

After touring Miller Valley, we headed to check in at our hotel for the night.

Aloft is a part of the hotel portfolio that I work for and the only one of the portfolio downtown.  Having never stayed with this brand, we were interested in seeing how it was.  I'll give it a 3/5 stars to be completely honest.  I won't bore you with details, and if you decide to stay there message me and I'll go more in depth.

After talking with the front desk staff, they recommended we eat at AJ Bombers:

this establishment well known for all their food, won awards with the travel channel so we were excited.  We arrived and the moment we sat down, they shot peanuts to us through a tube to our table, how neat:

It was a great meal!  I did not try their award winning peanut butter cheeseburger (ick) but did finally try true Wisconsin cheddar cheese curds which were a delicious gooey goodness!  The meal was great, the staff was awesome, I highly recommend this place if you're in the area.

After dinner we decided to explore the city as much as we could.  We walked all round, up and down their riverwalk and got to see the bridge rise up for the boats:

before retreating back to the hotel for the night.  It appears that when you're in Milwaukee, the thing to do is a boat ride.  Everybody was around the river for a ride on a great evening.  We have certainly added to our list for when we might venture up here again.  Once back at the hotel we mingled at the hotel bar for a bit then got some much needed sleep for our big day on Saturday.

Vacation 2017 - Milwaukee - Miller Brewery

After 2.5 great days in the Dells, we headed east to:

Our first stop in this famous beer city was, of course, the Miller Brewery in Miller Valley.  We live in St. Louis and are home to Anheuser-Busch but I can tell you with certainty, we will only drink AB products if nothing else is available.  Keith will always go for something else, Miller being one of his top favorites.

Not knowing what time we would be arriving in town, we loved the fact that we didn't have to reserve a time for the tour nor purchase tickets in advance as its all complimentary.  Our tour guide Julie (hmm I liked her, wonder why?!?) was very knowledgeable and took us from building to building and even into the beer caves.

The tour ended at Miller Inn, a pub where you are treated to your first full size sample of Miller Lite.

 After Miller Inn, they walk you across the street to their outdoor beer garden where you are invited for more samples, soda if you choose, little snacks and just time to take in the smells of a brewery.

Of course we needed to hit up the gift shop and get a few goodies to highlight our visit.  On our way out we made sure to go in the Miller High Life bus which gave you a few more insides to to the rich history: 

A part of our original plan while in Miller Valley was to see a Brewers game that night.  As our luck would have it, we read the schedule wrong and the Brewers were in St. Louis that night playing, not the opposite.  What a bummer but we agreed that we would like to come up again and maybe see a game between the 2 teams in the future.  Because plan #1 didn't pan out, a backup plan was created and we still had a fun night to follow in Milwaukee!

Vacation 2017 - Wisconsin Dells Day #2

Day #2 came quite fast.  After breakfast we decided we wanted to kayak on CMV's lake.  Once the area was open, we headed on over and got suited up for the boats:

I've got to say we lucked out bit time with the weather on our trip.  Not too hot, not too chilly, just right!  After our kayaking excursion, it was suggested to use by the resort that we stop at Fawn Creek Winery.  We never say no to wine so we trekked out to it and loved our time there.  They gave us a complimentary wine tasting of every.single.wine they had which was great in helping us decide which bottles to buy.  We picked up a bottle of their Razz-Prairie Pinot Noir, and a bag of snacks, and sat out on their deck enjoying the wonderful Wisconsin weather:

After a few hours, we had them recork our bottle and we made one more stop in the Dells, Outlets at the Dells, for some shopping.  I love going to other outlet malls because the selection is always different from what we have in Missouri and Keith was in heaven because his stores in particular had items that we hadn't gotten around to getting yet (meaning having to drive to the lake for a certain pair of pants, etc).  He was a happy shopper ;)

After the the outlet mall, it was time to leave the Dells and continue our road trip east to Milwaukee....get ready for Miller Time tomorrow!

Vacation 2017 - Wisconsin Dells Day #1

After stopping for a few hours in Madison, we did the last leg of our trip up to Wisconsin Dells.  Our home away from home was Bluegreen Christmas Mountain Village:

In the summer, CMV is a golf/pool family resort with over 800 acres of land to a lot of activities.  In the winter in transforms into a nice ski resort.  All their accommodations have cute names and we stayed in a timber.

Our final stop of the night on our first day was dinner and I spotted a moose!

We ate dinner at Moosejaw Pizza & Brewing and it was delicious!  Certainly a great kick start to a few days in the Dells.  I'm one who likes to talk to the locals for ideas and our waiter was full of knowledge.  We told him what we were thinking of doing and he suggested a few things and it helped us tremendously on deciding what to do.

The next morning we headed out to Devil's Lake State Park to do a little hiking and spend some time at the lake.  The weather was perfect, not hot and sticky and the lake was GORGEOUS:

We started on the north side of the lake and walked around it to the bluffs.  We then decided to take the East Bluff trail up the cliffs to see all the rock formations:

Once back at the bottom of the bluff, our hike ended up being 8 miles and it was a fun time!  We headed back to the resort and ate a late lunch at Mulligan's Bar N' Grill which Thursdays happen to be 1/2 priced margarita day so we indulged a bit:

After our tummies were full, we suited up and headed over to Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park.  Wisconsin Dells is known for their water parks and it was hard trying to pick which one to go to because they all offered lots of stuff - however we were happy with our decision!  It pays to be a part of Bluegreen, especially when you're buying tickets to places because we got ours at a steal.  Anywho we weren't planning on doing roller coasters but Keith's eyes lit up when he saw them so of course we jumped on:

Mt. Olympus boasts about their 9 foot wave pool named Poseidon's Rage so we spent quite a bit of time relaxing there:

When the park closed, we headed to the resort and got cleaned up to head out to the Dells downtown area for dinner and tourist shopping.  We kept hearing people talk about the Riverwalk so we stopped there first and got a few good pictures:

then continued up and down the Dells parkway going in and out of the various shops.  Our dinner destination that night was B-Lux Grill which was delicious.  After dinner we headed back to our room and retired for the night as we slept peacefully after our long day 1st day in the Dells.