My trip to Chicago - Part One!

I guess it is finally time for me to share about my fabulous trip to Chicago. It's been almost exactly one month, but gee it feels like so much longer! I planned to blog as soon as I returned from my trip, but having a week away from my courseroom, my classes were in major need of some hard core dedication. Well, and being back I had to catch up on sleep, school work, house work (although Charlie had cleaned my whole house for me), my pups, Charlie, the Js... yeah, you get the point. I have been busy, but now I have 3 weeks until my next quarter starts so who knows, I may just post all kinds of fun blogs :)

Where to begin... I was so super anxious about traveling by myself for the first time and I played all of the "what if" scenarios through my head and then just prayed I would be safe and return safe.

But guess who lost her boarding pass at the Atlanta airport --- ME! Of all things, and I had been there for like thirty minutes!! I called mom in a panic and she told me to find a TSA agent (duh! why didn't I think of that?). So I go up to a nice gentleman -- picture this, a 25 year old woman almost in tears, trying to explain that she had misplaced her boarding pass. I swear he must have thought I was 16 because he said "oh sweetie, it's okay they can print you out another one at your gate". Luckily, I knew my gate number and got that taken care of quickly.
That was pretty much the only bad thing that happened all week! Haha!

Once I landed, I see the thing I've been anticipating most about my Chicago trip --- SNOW! I was sad that it wasn't a ton like I had always imagined, but I had no idea what was to come later that evening :)

The Chicago airport was so fancy! They had the coolest toilets I had ever seen (yes, I took a picture).

After riding the hotel shuttle, I arrive at my hotel - my goodness it was so nice!! 

I walk in and see this:

I just thought it was so neat that we had our own banner, I mean we would be there for a week, but still :) Being in an online program, you often loose sight that you are actually in school with other human beings and this week helped to bring that to more of a reality... starting with the cool banner :)

Next I go to my room and tour the hotel:

This was on the TV screen!!

I had planned to do some sight-seeing when I arrived, but I was so tired and it was starting to snow, so instead I decided to take a nice nap! 

I love naps after traveling! :)

2 hours later.... I woke up....

To all of this:

And stood on my balcony to take some pictures ;) 

I was so excited so I went outside to look at all of the snow, the doorman asked if I was waiting for a cab and when I replied, "no, just came to see the snow" he laughed and said, "everyone else is rushing to get out of the snow and you're the only person I've seen rush to go out in it!" 

Well... I love snow! :)

So while traveling to Chicago, I didn't know anyone. However, I did have my roommate that I had connected with several weeks before the trip, so once she arrived on Friday, we immediately bonded and ventured into the city together for a day of sight-seeing. Walking from the hotel to the train station was probably the creepiest part of the day - except for the people on the train. LOL

                                      It was so cold!!!

Having never been to Chicago, I was unfamiliar with the train system & my roommate was as well, but we figured it out. There was a blue line, a green, red, pink, purple, orange (okay, I'm probably making up those last colors but it was very confusing) I just knew we would end up lost at some point during the day. But guess what? We discovered that we were pretty sweet navigators and we never got lost!! 

 The three things I wanted to do while in Chicago was visit the famous Bean Statue, eat Chicago deep-dish pizza, and visit the Willis Tower... and thankfully, I accomplished all three :)

Me and My Roommate, Cordtney

The pizza place that we visited was called Giordano's and it was amazing!!!

The rest of the photos are random shots from the city :) Enjoy!

 I loved my time in the city - I love traveling :)

Wow!! I sure had a lot to share and this was just from two days of being in Chicago! 

Stay tuned... I will post about my Residency and the awesome people I met while being there and that experience next! :)

Drive-In Movie Theater -- Indoors!

A few days ago Jackson, Julia, and I were quite bored. It was such a yucky, rainy day outside and we usually go outside in the afternoon but this wasn't even a "stomp in the puddles" kind of day. I had pulled my car into their garage and as we were going inside I noticed two really big pieces of a cardboard box and immediately thought of an idea that my friend Stacie had sent me several months ago from Pinterest. You can see the original idea here. The idea is to make a drive-in movie theater in the living room and the cardboard boxes were perfect. The Js even know about Pinterest - Julia tells me often to look on my phone for a craft - I have a special board on Pinterest called Nanny Fun that I pin things that I think the kids would enjoy :)

Jackson and Julia LOVE to paint! So we gathered their paints and brushes and made our own little painters pallet. Next, they had me to draw circles for the "headlights" on their cars. 

Next, I told them to have fun designing and decorating their "cars" and they loved it!

After the cars were all finished and the paint was dry, we taped them together so that they would stand up. 

The Js loved their finished product :)

We sat them up in front of the TV and this is where they had their downtime for the day :)

The drive-in theater was such a fun, easy, & free idea to do with the kids - they very much enjoyed it! 

Do you have any fun rainy day activity ideas to do with children?

A Perfect Day

On Saturday, Charlie and I decided to spend the entire day doing things we either haven't done before or things that we usually do not do. Our schedules have been so jam-packed lately, it seemed like we haven't gotten to spend very much time together. Also, because I am leaving for Chicago on Thursday and he is away on a recruiting trip for the beginning of this week, it just seemed like Saturday was a perfect day to take a break from everything.

We began our day by going to the Georgia Winery. I had only been to the winery at the Biltmore House and Charlie had never been to one before. It was so unique and cute and such a perfect thing to begin our date day on the snowy/icy afternoon that we were having. The theme for this month at the winery is Wine & Chocolate. If you live nearby and you like wine &/or chocolate, you should definitely check them out one Saturday this month! The chocolate literally melts in your mouth! Best part about this -- ITS FREE! :)

Next, we grabbed some frozen yogurt and used my groupon that I had been saving. I love Groupon and finding a good deal makes my day! I purchased the groupon for Cool Swirl frozen yogurt for $5 and we had $10 to spend there & our total came to $10.05! I love all of the fruity flavors and then piling my fro-yo cup with fresh fruit toppings! We had never been to Cool Swirl, but Sweet Frog is still my favorite place to get fro-yo in Chattanooga - they just seem to have a larger & better selection. 

To finish up our day, we went to see a Murder Mystery Dinner Show at the Vaudeville Cafe. We had only been here once, for my birthday last year, and we loved it! We chose to see the Mystery of Flight 138 show - which so happened to be a flight to Chicago. How fitting! :) It was a great dinner and a great evening spent laughing at the funny actors. I definitely recommend going here as well!

Saturday was such a perfect, fun-filled day spent with Charlie. I'm so thankful for him.

My life... in a suitcase

It has been over a year since I first wanted to start a blog.  However, with procrastination and grad school and everything else - I just haven't made the time to begin my first blog. It also took me forever to come up with a name for my blog! I racked my brain for weeks trying to think of one and finally it came to me.

*Life in a Suitcase* I love this name for many reasons. One, it completely describes how I would love to live my life; traveling all of the time. Also, I lost two very special people to me this year - my grandparents - and I would like for my life to be a reflection of how they lived their simple but abundant lives, with such humility and love for each other and everyone around them. I hope my marriage one day is half as great as their marriage and faithfulness to one another.

Another reason for my blog name is during my senior year of high school, my senior project was to come up with something that describes my life. Immediately I thought to put all of the things that make my life -my life- decoratively into a suitcase. This idea came from the movie White Oleander. It is a very strange movie, but my love for psychology quickly made it one of my favorites. I loved doing that project and even now, eight years later, I am still thinking about it.
Below is a picture of the suitcases at the end of the movie and one of my favorite quotes from the movie as well.

My blog will include a variety of topics and I'll give some examples below:

I love to try new recipes, create my own recipes, and simply to just cook! So my blog will occasionally have a fun recipe that I've tried that I would like to share. I'm still in the learning stages on how to make my food look pretty in pictures! I don't see how some people do it!

I am a full-time nanny for two adorable children - Julia (3) and Jackson (almost 5). I will be sharing about the fun adventures we have together and about the oh so fun things that they say to make me laugh & keep me on my toes!

I love Pinterest and being crafty! I would much rather make something than to buy it already made. I love going into stores and seeing things online and thinking "I can totally make that". Although, my things never turn out as well as the original, I still get the feeling of joy to know that I made it myself.

The Lord is constantly working in my life and showing me how to become the person that He wants me to be. I'm still a big work in progress but I love sharing about what He is teaching me.

Although I don't travel near as much as I would like, I'm hoping that I can get a couple of good trips in this year - one of which will be my trip to Chicago next week so I will share about my first experience traveling all by myself.

I also have two dogs, Molly - the Boxer & Zoe - the Chihuahua. They are my 'unlikely pair' and they are very inseparable. They are pretty much like my children, since I don't have any human children at the moment.

Lastly, I just really love talking about life and more-so, I love hearing about other people's lives. I guess there is a reason I'm becoming a mental health counselor :) Therefore, I want to hear from you and the things that you are creating, cooking, or learning as well!

I hope that through my blog I am able to encourage and inspire you!

Thanks for reading!