Bob & Lori's Anniversary Palooza

This is the story of Bob and Lori's most excellent wedding anniversary palooza.

Prior to the departure they invested in an I-Zoom to make the the whole toll process more efficient so they could reach their destination in a more timely manner.

....and they wanted to ZOOM!

They loaded up the Honda

...course it wasn't sunny like this ...the Michiana gray perma-cloud was present (this is an old picture).

They have two favorite restaurants in the Chicagoland area. One of them is the Cheesecake Factory. Being mindful that dessert is inevitable, c'mon...duh..Cheesecake Factory...they split an order of the most delicious Thai Chicken Pasta.

In response to the holiday season, the restaurant offered a special peppermint cheesecake so they ordered it. No it didn't look like this...it was white with red peppermint sprinkled througout it and topped with whip cream....but you get the idea....just picture it white.

After gorging themselves at the Cheesecake Factory...the hopped back into the Honda (remember...this car) and left for Gurnee (pronounced GUR-KNEE with the accent on "knee" by the locals, or so I'm told.)

They shopped at






for several hours before heading back to the Schaumberg area to spend the night at the Quality Inn (see pict. below)



Ok....let me fast forward to the next morning....

The "Oldly-Weds) rose early the next morning. Their goal was to find an Einstein's Bagle shop for breakfast. Bob got directions at the hotels front desk to the nearest Einsteins and they left. However, they got lost and ended up back at the hotel for further instructions. With the help from the front desk they succeeded and found the Einsteins!

Bob and Lori love Einstein's and were elated to find one. As they savored their delicious coffee and bagle they gazed into each other eyes and remembered the Quality Inn....aahhhh I mean, the remarked on how good the bagles and coffee were. Momentarily they contemplated opening a franchise but the remembered they didn't have that kind of money so they just went back to gazing into each others eyes.

Their goals for Saturday were to go to the IKEA down the road and then make their way from the Schaumberg area to downtown Chicago. But when they came out of IKEA the wind had picked up considerably it had began to rain.

Lori already was fighting a cold.....and neither Bob nor Lori are big fans of cold or rain and since Woodfield Mall was right across the street from IKEA they decided inside shopping was the best option.

besides....the mall had Christmas decorations and thats primarily why they were going downtown anyway.....

Lori tried on fur coats at MACY'Sbut just couldn't find one that she felt was right for her! She wanted chinchilla anyway and didn't have any.

After roaming the mall for a while they decided they wanted Mexican for lunch and made their way to the border (border of the mall parking lot, to be exact) and had lunch at

They finished up their Mexican Fiesta and hopped back in the Honda yes...its still this Honda....(Bob and Lori are Dave Ramsey groupies...they can't get a new car cuz they're doing the debt snowball...hmmm snowball, winter...how ironic) They headed back home.

This was the most excellent story of Bob and Lori's 26th wedding anniversary celebration.