Key Learnings, family visits, cupcakes and cold!

Whenever family comes to town, it feels like the longest day(s) ever. There is a lot of prep work in coming up with things to do and back up ideas in case the plan has be changed, mapping out where to eat, what to see, etc. That said, it's still great to have visitors :)

So while I put my apartment back into normal shape now that my brother and SIL are gone, let's check out my key learnings.

Key Learnings:

• Ice skating is a fun idea until you strap the skates on and realize you have zero idea what you're doing

• Zamboni's are still entertaining to watch as an adult

• $3 mimosa's are a great Saturday night companion

• You really love your family when you spend an entire -11 degree day outside showing them the city

• Entertaining guests all weekend is exhausting!

• It takes a lot of tolerance to watch people unknowingly dirty up your apartment and not immediately clean up after them

• Long underwear is never a fashion faux pas, especially when it's cold

• You know you're just like your brother when you both eat an entire mini-cupcake in one bite and don't judge the other person

• Dancing in restaurants near closing time is publicly acceptable

• It's okay to leave barely a 10 percent tip when your dinner in a non-busy restaurant takes 1.5 hours due to poor service

As I mentioned on Friday, my brother and sister-in-law were in town this weekend and it was fabulous. Now that he's married, I don't get to see him as much as I want to, so getting nearly two days with him was a real treat. And because he doesn't spend a lot of time in Chicago, we covered a lot of ground Saturday, full of food, drinks, sight seeing and trying to win lottery tickets to Wicked (which closed this weekend.) It's fun to be a tourist again. 

We didn't get lucky on tickets, but my brother and I did throw caution to the wind and went ice skating at Millennium Park, which did not turn out as expected. We're more "summer sports" people and both of us looked ridiculous baby stepping around the rink (while holding the bars for support) so that we wouldn't fall. After two slips and an hour in the freezing cold, we called it a day, but had plenty of laughs and one great picture.

Forgive the picture. At this point, it hurt to smile because of the wind

Andy and I also checked out a new cupcake place, Sugar Bliss Cupcakes, which is located across from Macy's downtown. What I love the most about this place is that they have full-size and mini-cupcakes, which is perfect if you want to try several kinds at once. Below is a picture of our bounty. I definitely want to go back for the full size Texas Red Velvet cupcake (yee haw!) and frosting shots. Those just sound awesome.

Clockwise: Chocolate peppermint, chocolate/vanilla, chocolate/milk chocolate

Finally, the best part of having my brother in town is that we sat and talked about anything, from movies to politics to news. We have a lot of the same interests so we never run out of things to talk about, which is probably why we were up until 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Oops. And he's the only guy I would let yell "keep dancing woman" at me at dinner Saturday night, when I couldn't control my dancing groove to Rihanna's "Disturbia."

How was everyone else's weekend? Tonight is the SAG Awards so check back tomorrow for my fashion recap. The response was so great from the Golden Globes, that I'll keep it going!