shawnw

My wife and I try to get away once a year to Chicago for at least a couple days. It’s like our home away from home. We spend as much time as we can downtown, taking in the sights and sounds, hoping it’ll hold us over until our next visit.

It rarely does.

If someone offered me a job in Chicago, I’d take it in a heartbeat. There’s just something about that city!

Anyway, we’ll be staying at Aloft and visiting Gordon Biersch Brewery, IKEA (of course), Giordano’s, The Bongo Room and more. We also plan on doing the Chicago Championship Gowalla trip on Saturday.

A quick note about Giordano’s… we’d love for you to join us! Brad and Scott will be there so feel free to stop by. We’ll be eating at 6pm CDT at the Giordano’s on W. Jackson Blvd.

So, how can you keep up or connect with Wendy and I?

• Follow her or I on Twitter
• Watch my Posterous and Twitpic for pics
• Friend her or I on Facebook

Have a great holiday weekend!

Those of you who like lists (I love lists, btw) will get a kick out of this post. Here’s our tentative itinerary for 1/21-1/25.

Thursday, 1/21

• 6:00am DELTA 5960 Indianapolis to Atlanta (track us for free at FlightAware), arrive at 7:38am local time
• 9:50am DELTA 693 Atlanta to Guatemala City (FlightAware), arrive at 12:20pm local time (gaining an hour)
• Afternoon – Up in the air at the moment. We have to do some grocery shopping for our Friday morning Compassion visit (which we may have time to do Friday morning). I believe we’re also going to try and visit the Buckner baby’s home.
• Evening – dinner at Casa Chapina, Cafe Sayul or NAIS Aquarium.

Friday, 1/22

• 7:30am-11:30am Wendy and I get to meet with Sammy, one of our sponsored Compassion children at his home, then Jody gets to meet with Miguel, one of her sponsored Compassion children in his home.
• Afternoon – Spend time with the boys at Eliza Martinez, starting day one of our three day life skills courses. We developed these in response to the regular needs boys learning some skills they’ll need to operate as productive citizens once they come of age and leave the orphanage.
• Evening – dinner at Casa Chapina, Cafe Sayul or NAIS Aquarium.

Saturday, 1/23

• Morning – possibly more time at the Buckner baby’s home
• Afternoon – more time at Eliza Martinez with our continuing life skills courses.
• Evening – dinner at Casa Chapina, Cafe Sayul or NAIS Aquarium.

Sunday, 1/24

• Morning – unplanned at the moment. This may end up being some much-needed downtime
• Afternoon – Our final day with the Eliza Martinez boys. We’ll be wrapping up our life skills courses and cooking lunch with the boys (spaghetti, garlic bread and salad). This will be a hoot!
• Evening – our final dinner in Guatemala for this trip. Undecided where we’ll go at this point.

Monday, 1/25

• Morning – packing and travel to the airport
• 1:50pm DELTA 692 Guatemala City to Atlanta (FlightAware), arrive at 6:25pm local time (losing an hour)
• 8:30pm DELTA 5949 Atlanta to Indianapolis (FlightAware), arrive at 10:07pm local time