Thursday night I picked Mark up at the airport and we went to the hotel. They gave us warm cookies at check-in but we didn't end up eating them until they were quite cold.

Friday we got up and met one of my closest friends, Y, for lunch - Chicago style pizza. Mark thought it was pretty good, even if it is weird to have the sauce on top of the pizza. After that, we drove downtown and Mark finally saw Chicago proper. We went to the Sears Tower and Mark got to pretend to be Ferris Bueller. He also took many pictures with his new cam, so perhaps he will post some of them. Then we drove up to the north side to get to where I work, which sadly took forever because there was a lot of traffic on Lake Shore Drive. Mark also has a picture of a van we were practically chasing down the road - you'll have to see it to understand why. :)) I also took him through the campus of my undergrad university by car - since it's very small it took all of 5 minutes to drive through. We then went to the restaurant and had dinner with my coworkers - we also had some rather interesting martinis, and one of my coworkers decided to order a large bottle of beer which we all tasted. We got back to the hotel just as the rain began to pour down.

Saturday we went to meet my family for lunch. My sister and niece were there first, and we got to watch Lauren wander around and look at all the flowers until my parents and brother arrived. We had excellent Italian food and it was very nice except for my brother being in a pissy mood for who-knows-what reason. Having Lauren there to distract everyone made things much easier. She was of course adorable - she kept telling me I was very funny and she periodically said "Hi Mark!" across the table. I gave her a baby PDA which is just the cutest toy EVER - geekbaby, yay! Saturday night we met picklepuss and his fiancee, Kari, for tropical drinks. It turned into more of an adventure than any of us had anticipated. We were having a good time, going through the list of tropical drinks they had and watching the people doing kareoke when the bar owner came running up to the mike, interrupts a song and tells everyone not to panic, but a tornado had been sighted nearby. The bar was a large, round room with floor-to-ceiling windows around most of it, so we had to all crowd towards the center for about 20 minutes or so. Obviously, everything was fine but it was a bit strange for a while. We then drank more, had some snacks, and Kari sang twice - she is cute and sweet and can actually sing! Our Norman is a lucky man - he also gives really good hugs and is incredibly sweet and fun.

Sunday was our alone time, mostly. We got up and got packed and ate leftover pizza and chocolate thingies for brunch, then left and went to do a special thing that was very wonderful. Then we had dinner and we still had more time before Mark had to be at the airport, so we went back to my house and snogged for a while. Finally it was time for Mark to go. :(

Today I have both a tummyache and the back of my head hurts like I banged it against a wall (insert whatever joke here you'd like - I didn't, to my knowlege). I feel blah, so if I sound less than enthusiastic about the weekend, that's why. It was really wonderful. I also am still at about skip=300 so if anything important's happened, comment here or email me.