Mom and Dad came for a nice long visit last week. We had good time. Below is an outline of what we did.

Wednesday
They arrived late Wednesday morning, right before lunch.
Indian Harvest restaurant for lunch. They had never had real Indian food, so I was very excited to take them to one of our favorite restaurants. I think they really enjoyed it. I like being able to turn people on to something that I think is good. They were nervous about trying it, and expected not to like it.

Drove to Ikea in Schaumburg. Spent probably close to two hours walking around. Mom found a bunch of stuff she liked. We sat in the coffee shop afterwards and had a soda and split one of their famous cinnamon rolls.

We were still full from our Indian lunch buffet, but Sheri had no lunch, so we thought the best idea would be to go to our favorite Mexican cantina, el Loco Burrito, for dinner. The three of us could just have one taco or something, and Sheri could order as much as she wanted. This place was also one of the places that was on my list of places to take them so they could try our newly discovered favorite el Pastor tacos. Dad couldn't resist and also got one of their "baby" burritos. He later said he regretted it. Even their baby ones are large.

Thursday
Today was our Chicago touring day. We all went into the city early with Sheri on her normal express train. She had breakfast with us at the famous Lou Mitchell's. We walked her to the world famous, internationally renowned, colossal, wonderful place to work and visit, Sear's Tower after breakfast and dropped her off at work.

Dad wanted a real Chicago hot dog while he was in town, and one of the best and most famous are the dogs from the Weiner Circle. We got on the L and rode up to that neighborhood. When we got there at about 10:30 AM they had still not opened yet. Drats! We wandered around the neighborhood a little bit and then took the L back to the city to meet Sheri for lunch at Hi Ricky's. This is probably our favorite noodle shop so far. They had never been to, or heard of, a noodle shop. They were impressed. I think they also were a little unsure that they would get any kind of a substantial meal at something called a noodle shop.

It was very hot this day and we were worn out from the heat by now. The plan was to ride the train home with Sheri after work, and this was a few hours away. We decided to take shelter in the air conditioning at the big Marshall Field's store on State Street until it was time to go. We sat in their food court for a bit too sipping some iced teas. Mom found some shoes and Dad found a hat.

On the way to Union Station we passed one of our favorite middle eastern restaurants, and I wanted them to try falafel, so I ran in quickly and just got a side order of three falafels. They are best when they are fresh, and these were probably made before the lunch crowd, but they still got the idea of what they are, and again, I think they really liked them.

For dinner we went to Portillo's so Dad could get his Chicago hot dog. He also got an Italian beef with sweet peppers. Always a good choice.

Friday
Today was our fishing day. We caught no fish, but had a fabulous time. Dad didn't expect the pontoon boat to be as large and comfortable as it was. (I will post a few pictures from our day soon.) We got there before 7:00 AM, and had the boat until 3:00 PM. The weather was perfect. About 80º, low humidity, no clouds, and a nice steady breeze. About 1:00 PM we started getting tired and just put our rods down and talked while sitting under the shade of the boat's canopy. Then we decided just to motor around a little bit and do some site-seeing. Sheri and I while probably rent a pontoon boat up there in the middle of the week next year for a little mini-vacation day.

Plan "A" was to have a fish fry with whatever we caught. Plan "B" was Famous Dave's for barbeque. Very good.

That night be baked some muffins for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. Mom asked if she could bring anything, and the muffin batter is what I requested. You can make the batter and keep it in the fridge for up to six weeks. Sheri loved them. (I need the recipe Mom!)

Saturday
Sheri was on call this weekend and couldn't go with us because she had to stay home and work.

My classes started the Monday after this weekend, and I still had not purchased my books, so today we drove to the NIU campus to get my books, and find where on campus my buildings were.

My electric string trimmer finally broke last week after ten years, so I wanted to stop by Sears to get a new one and use Dad's employee discount. This time a got a gas powered one. Cool! I put it together and tried it out while Mom started getting dinner ready.

We took the scenic route on the way back from NIU, and came across a road-side corn stand. We got a dozen ears of corn, ripe tomatoes, and two pounds of wax beans. This was going to be for dinner. The wax beans are for an old family favorite: creamed wax beans on toast. It tasted even better than I remembered. We also used my pressure cooker to cook the corn. I don't know if it was just that the corn was so fresh, or if the pressure cooker maybe is the best way to cook corn, but either way it was the best I have had all season. (We normally cook it in the microwave.)

Sunday
Sheri got called into work at 6:00 AM, so the three of us had some muffins for breakfast and then went to downtown Naperville to walk around. We also walked along the river. Very pretty.

For lunch I took them to another noodle shop called Noodles. They liked that a lot too. When they got back to Toledo they liked it so much that they looked up a Thai restaurant.