My Trip to the Windy City

This is me standing on a plate of glass that juts out from the 103rd floor of the tallest building in the western hemisphere. There's just a piece of glass between me and falling 103 stories to the street below. My hands were so sweaty...it took me about 15 minutes to get brave enough to walk out there.

2 Weeks ago, I went to Chicago for some Banking Training for work. The streets were crazy. Ther were fairly narrow streets (not as bad as Seattle or NY), but the buildings came right to the edge of the streets, it was crazy. There were tall buildings on every street. I felt trapped.

Our offices are at the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower). It is the tallest building in the western hemisphere (used to be the tallest in the world). So Steve Plowman, Brad Schultz and I went up to the top floor where they have the Skydeck.

This is a replica of the tower.

This is a map of where the tower is in Chicago. It is right on lake Michigan, and as you can see, you are suposed to be able to see up to 50 miles into 4 different states.

This is a shot from the top floor. The city of Chicago is HUGE. It goes on and on forever. It looks like this out of every window.

So, they SkyDeck is this little glass room that has been built off of the top floor. You can step out onto it and there is nothing but glass between you and 103 stories. Those little dots below are cars.

The river runs right through the city and there are bridges every few blocks to connect the streets.

More Bridges

So, the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) has the LAMEST lobby ever. You would think it would be cool since it's such an iconic landmark...but it's not. Those weird shapes on the wall spin around.

See...I was really there.

Cupcake Class

I tought a cupcake class for Relief Socitey a few weekends ago. I showed a couple of ideas that could be done with only 2 icing tips (the 2 I think are essential to have).

I loved this pink frosting. Good tip is to buy frosting from a local bakery. That way it's already colored and you don't have to make it! I got pink and red frosting from Smith's Bakery for $2 each. It's a little more frosting than what comes in a regular frosting container on the baking aisle at the store. (Don't try to make red or black frosting. It's the most frustrating thing you'll do. Just buy it!)

Flowers in 'dirt' and 'grass'

I found these cute terracotta dish things on clearance at Walmart for like 20 cents.

Hunting in Mount Pleasant

Branden, his brother Kevin, and I got up at 3:30am and drove to Mount Pleasant to hunt Elk last weekend with my Whitaker Family. Everyone kept saying how much Kevin looks like his dad.

Nikki, my dad's girlfriend, made breakfast burritos, so the boys loaded up on food before they headed out.

L to R: My dad, Kevin, Branden, and Nikki's son Alex

My Super cute grandpa, Russ, went out too, but he drove in my dad's truck.

They came back at about 10am and my grandma made milk gravy. (It's a family favorite where gravy is made out of bacon grease and then is poured over little pieces of broken bread and then bacon is sprinkeld on top...I personally am not a fan of Milk Gravy. It's almost un-Whitaker to not like it...sorry). Grandpa immediately fell asleep after his breakfast.

Night-night

Kevin, Branden and Alex ate their milk gravy, bueberry muffins and of course....Coke.

My uncle Scott and my cousin Max were there too. Scott was showing us a play that he and some friends wrote for Park City Municipal somthing-or-other. It was a 5 act play. Each act was one of the 5 "R"s: reduce, recycle, reuse, restore, rethink. The had a waterbottle monster in the recycle scene, and in another act they had a chocolate chip cookie bake off with the Solar Sheriff with his solar oven and "The Man" with his machine. It was pretty cool.

Nikki has a ton more pictures, so hopefully she's send some with me in it to prove I was there ;)

I peed my pants!

(luckily there are no pictures to accompany this post)

So, I had to fly to Chicago last week and I was running to my car from work so I could go to the airport. I was really worried I wasn't going to make it to the airport in time before I peed my pants. So I drove through the ghetto (Rosepark by the State Fair Grounds) on my way to the airport and contemplated going in to a Taco Bell to pee, but I didn't for 3 reasons: 1) it was the ghetto, 2) YUCK! and 3)Branden's Germophobia would cause him to be so disappointed in me!

So...I figured I should make it to the airport and I continued on my journey. When I got to the airport fear set in as I realized that I had to park in long-term parking and ride the shuttle to the airport before I would be able to pee. I found a parking spot after about 5 minutes of driving around the parking lot. I saw a shuttle coming so I hurried and got my bags out of the trunk. I took 2 or 3 steps toward the shuttle when I just couldn't hold it any more...and I peed in my pants right there in the parking lot! Luckily I had a skirt on....so I jsut ran behind my car and dropped my drawers for the remainder of the tweedle.

I figured that if I had to pee my pants, this was the ideal situation....it was in a remote location with no people around, I had a skirt on, and I had clean unders in my luggage. And to be honest...peeing your pants isn't as bad as I expected it to be!