Ten Years. Always an Adventure.

Ten years ago today, I had run off to Vegas (with sixty close friends and family members, of course) to marry Brendon Moore. During the ceremony, our officiant mistook my tear-choked "Yes" for a conflicted "I guess." :)

Ten years later, I don't guess--I know--that marrying him was the best decision I ever made. I am the luckiest.

Rather than re-posting pictures of our wedding, I thought I would mark the occasion by posting pictures of what we did to celebrate this milestone anniversary. Two weekends ago, thanks to some super cheap airfare and some super wonderful family members who took in the kids, we headed off to Chicago for a couple of days. Why Chicago? See above: super cheap airfare, plus the fact that we had never been before and thought it would be a fun adventure.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel, the Park Hyatt. Then we promptly (and very maturely) freaked out over our good luck in scoring this amazing hotel for free through our credit card.

The view from our room of the historic Water Tower and Lake Michigan

Umm, seriously, you always try to tell yourself that the way "the other half" lives can't really be all that different from your own way of life...but I'm here to tell you that, I'm sorry, it is very different. And it. is. fabulous.

I mean, normal people just don't have access to things like a bath butler, bikes for riding at your leisure, automatic black-out curtains, a BMW car service that will take you anywhere within a two-mile radius so you don't have to mess up your designer shoes, or someone who will fetch you neosporin and bandaids for your heels when you do go out in your designer shoes, but can't be bothered with stopping at the Walgreens across the street for the blisters they create. Yup.

(I'm not saying we took advantage of all of those things...some of them we did, and some we just watched others and their miniature dogs do. Equally fun.)

Anyway, for the next two days, I'd say we experienced a pretty quintessential Chicago touristy weekend. We...

went on a Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour.

ate deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's.

ate divine breakfasts at The Feast and The Bongo Room.

rode the "L" up to Wrigley Field and attended a Cubs' game,

where they came thisclose to beating the Astros. (See? Quintessential!)

Note the score. I snapped this picture just before they reviewed and called back the homerun that would have won the game for the Cubs.

made ourselves sick on Chicago hot dogs at the ballpark and chocolate cake shakes at Portillos after the game.

walked through the park and took pictures at Buckingham Fountain and the Bean.

visited the Art Institute.

and shopped the Magnificent Mile.

My first-ever visit to the Mecca of the blogosphere: Anthropologie ;)

We honestly loved every single minute. It was short, but the reality of our ten years together is that we have created a busy life--that we love--and that we needed to get back to. It was enough.

I love us.

P.S. Many thanks to Mandy, Jenny, and others who gave us such great recs for our visit!