Christmas On Ice

Mike prepares to head downtown, bag full of ice skates slung over one shoulder.

Mike waits for the #147 Outer Drive Express which will take us to Millennium Park.


These next two pictures are of the view from the ice. Was there ever such a beautiful Christmas Day in the city of Chicago? It was so warm that we were out with only sweatshirts on.



Mike takes a moment out from skating to pose for me. I only skated a little bit - it was so crowded that I wasn't comfortable. I don't skate well and it seemed like you couldn't go two feet without having to maneuver around people. It was just too much of a struggle for me. So I only went around a little bit. Mike's a pro, so he skated for the whole two hours!


But here I am with my skates! It was actually too crowded for me to get my picture taken on the ice! There was no space at the rail for me to get in and take a picture. Mike thinks that my Hawkeye-loving family will disown me when they see my MSU sweatshirt. The rule is, though, that I'm allowed to wear Spartan gear so long as they're not playing Iowa. The truth is, Mike bought me an MSU hoodie...if anyone had purchased a Hawkeye hoodie for me (Dad), I would have worn it instead. ;)


Mike and I are extremely glad we own our own skates. :D The line actually extends quite a bit beyond this sign.


Mike coasts by. Our Spartan gear actually drew the attention of a guy who lived in Michigan for awhile. He stopped to talk to me as I stood by the rail taking Mike's picture. I must look like I have a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at myself, because he started out by telling me he saw me skating "looking like you were on the MSU hockey team." Yeah. Hardy har. Luckily I do have a sense of humor and I did laugh at the joke. And it was a joke. I stank on ice. At one point, after a guy stopped right in front of me (jerk!) - I turned to avoid him and ended up sliding towards the center of the ice - panicking because I'm unable to stop and am too far away to grab the rail. Mike had to put his arms around me and skate me in a circle to get me going in the right direction again.


Anyway, this guy is friendly enough and I talked to him for awhile. He asked if Mike and I went to MSU and whereabouts in Michigan we'd come from. He told me that his law school had been absorbed by MSU and so he is sort of a default alum...or something of that sort. He called Mike over and talked to him for a little bit, too. He dropped a lot of names. I probably would have been more impressed if I'd known who he was talking about. Other than Tom Izzo - even I know who he is. Anyway, this guy was totally somebody who would normally have annoyed the hell out of me, but for some reason I found him highly entertaining. He told a cute Michigan-MSU joke. After a bit, he took his leave and wished us a good holiday etc. I told Mike that he'd just come up and started talking to me. Mike laughed and said he thought with the familiarity the guy had assumed, that he must be somebody I knew from school or something. After Mike said that I could have kicked myself for not networking for a job when I found out he was a lawyer. Geez, I'm no good at the networking.

Just another cute Mikey picture.


Bike cops in the park. I'm trying to decide if I enjoy bike cops more than horse cops or not. My favorite, of course, are 4 wheeler cops. I love to see 4 wheeler cops.


I think this is just a picture of the rink and the bean in Millennium Park. I looked for Mike, but I don't see him.


We skated until they stopped to resurface the ice. The sun was starting to go down, so we decided to head home.


But first I took a couple of pictures of Mike in front of the fountain.



And I took a picture of the view down Michigan Ave. It just seemed too pretty not to take.


Artwork on the side of a building, which I saw while waiting for the bus home.


A random picture of how empty the bus was today! This is on the way home.


A smeared picture of the Christmas tree outside of the Hancock Tower as we drove by. I started to delete it, but then decided that it was still kinda cool.


Mike deflated pretty much as soon as he stopped skating. He wasn't tired while he was sliding around on the ice, but as soon as he stopped - it hit.


Los Gatos were extremely sympathetic to his plight, apparently.



While everybody else relaxed, I baked up a Christmas lasagna. A pepperoni lasagna...Mike forgot to get ground beef when he went to the store yesterday and with it being Baby Jesus' birthday and all, we couldn't buy any! Mike originally was going to just eat a meatless lasagna (which is what I have), but we started brainstorming about what we could substitute and we realized that we had pepperoni. (Mike almost always has pepperoni in the fridge - a little Mike trivia for you there. He's a pepperoni madman!) Actually the pepperoni lasagna was not as successful of an experiment as we had hoped. It was alright, but definitely not as good as usual. I also made some homemade garlic bread - the leftovers of which I will no doubt snack on for the rest of the night!


Mike was so tired that he went to bed at 9:00. And that was our day! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!