i had a really great day today. i was off work and decided to pamper myself a bit. i went to a spa for a couple of treatments, and then to the art institute to see the seurat exhibit. it felt really good to feed that part of my brain, and i took some time to go through parts of the museum that i hadn't spent time in, like decorative arts, and saw a really beautiful exhibition of newly acquired quilts and then wandered through a display of japanese art that was on loan from a private collection. i really like finding the less-traveled little corners of the museum, where it's quiet and you can just sit and absorb the art...

this weekend should be very mellow. we don't have ANYTHING planned. there is the air and water show here this weekend (the largest in the country) and so we'll probably see that and hopefully meet up with our new friends anne and danny for dinner.

last weekend was crazy busy. we were fortunate to have two sets of friends visiting; john and tasha, and barbara and bill with sophie and benjamin. tasha and john had other family obligations, so we met up with them on saturday night for a chi-chi dinner at japonais, one of the hottest restaurants in town at the moment (which also has a really nice website). i'd been there once for work, and the food was even more amazing this time. really good sushi, amazing kobe beef (they have an appetizer where they cook small pieces of it over hot rocks on your table that is TO DIE FOR) and fancy schmancy drinks including one with an edible orchid in it. so yeah, dinner was fun. i had won a gift certificate in a work raffle, which made it even more enjoyable since it's quite an expensive night out.

after dinner, john and tasha came back to our place, where we watched the weekly saturday night navy pier fireworks from our windows. while hanging out, we noticed that there was a sizable group of people on the street below, watching the nearby columbus ave. bridge, which was closed to traffic. it turns out that they were filming a chase scene for the upcoming batman movie, and we got to see them do several takes of the batmobile being chased by squad cars -- right below our apartment! we kept thinking that if we went downstairs we would miss it, or we could have seen it a bit closer. still, it was very cool to witness it -- and to figure out what the heck was going on 20 floors below!

the rest of our weekend was more kid-friendly since we took advantage the nowaks' visit to town to join them in a bunch of activities that were right up sophie and benjamin's alleys. on saturday we went to the acquarium (sharks!) and on sunday we went to the field museum (dinosaurs!). we split up for awhile, and i joined barb and sophie for some girly time at American Girl Place. i didn't go to brunch with them, but i got to witness the chaos just the same. that place is NUTS! steve and bill took ben to Millennium Park, where ben played in the new crown fountain and apparently was provoked enough by steve and bill's question "i wonder if the 'bean' sculpture tastes like a bean" to actually lick the sculpture. ewwwww!

so yeah, that was our weekend last weekend. full of excitement and old friends, which was great. and this weekend will hopefully be just the opposite, which is just great too.

g'night!