Chicago, Chicago

As much as I enjoy traveling, eating out, having someone else make my bed and clean my bathroom everyday, hanging out with my Pampered Chef girlfriends . . . I'm always glad to be back home.  As you can tell I didn't have a lot of time to blog while in Chicago.  We had very limited Internet access and limited time.  Why is it that at expensive hotels you have to pay for Internet and at less expensive hotels they have free WiFi?  That always baffles me.  But Corner Bakery got a little more business from me than usual because of their free WiFi.

We had a great time in Chicago.  I think this was the seventh time I've been to Chicago for our Pampered Chef National Conference.  It is always in July and it is always around my birthday.  Works out nice to have some birthday cash to spend while I'm there.  I always travel with my other wonderful Pampered Chef friends and we squeeze 4 or 5 of us into 1 hotel room.  Makes for great bonding time and a huge lack of sleep.

We flew out Sunday on my birthday.  We took the train or the "El" for Elevated Train into the city from the airport.  After getting settled in our room we headed over to meet up with some others that were already there and have dinner at Cheesecake Factory for my birthday.  There ended up being 14 in our group and they had to split us between 3 tables.  After an incredible meal the waitress brought me this cute little ice cream sundae and they all sang to me.  It sounded like half the restuarant was singing with our big group!  We all took cheesecake to go because we were so full.  We were sure glad we had it a few hours later when we started to get hungry again!

Our conference started bright and early Monday morning.  They go all out and make us feel special at these events.  I think the highlight of the conference for me was that first training.  They had Dr. Tony Alessandra

come speak on The Platinum Rule.  It was fascinating learning about behavioral styles and recongizing the traits of each style in people that I know.  It definitely helped me understand why some people act the way they do.

I won't bore you with all the conference details.  But the next 2 and a half days were crammed full of great trainings and incredible meals.  One of the special events is our upline Executive Banquet.  At our banquet our group was the biggest.  Here is a picture of almost all of the 24 gals that were there from Utah.  I'm hiding in the center on the back row.  I was excited when I was recognized for being the number 3 recruiter in the Shilling Cluster.  Robin's cluster consists of several hundred consultants.

Conference ended early afternoon on Wednesday, and then we had a little time for playing.  My friend and I realized after all the times we had been to Chicago neither one of us had experienced a Chicago Dog.  So another gal in our group led us to a great hole in the wall place just around the corner from the hotel.  There were about 10 of us and we pretty much filled the place.  For $3.99 we got a Dog, Fries & a drink.  It was the cheapest meal of the whole trip.  The hot dog itself isn't that different, it is all the toppings on the hot dog.  The hot dog is topped with mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish (usually neon green), a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt; but never ketchup.  I did skip on the onion and pickle spear.  As you can see from the picture of Cynthia and myself you have to open your mouth really big to fit that puppy in.  We had to go back to a hotel room to eat them because there weren't enough seats in the place for us to sit!  I will definitely have one next time I go again!

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping and trying to fit all the shopping into the suitcases.  Then we headed home on Thursday.  I was very happy when my suitcase was only 47 pounds.  I was all prepared to shift things if I needed to.  But I can't believe I hauled that puppy up and down several flights of stairs in the subway.

Here is the slideshow of all the pictures if you want to see all the crazy fun.