Christmas at the Stringer's 2013

Christmas brought a whole lot of excitement for us! From spending Christmas eve with his family at the grandparents too seeing my brother come home after being gone for 10 months on Christmas morning! It really was  a Christmas to remember :)


From our Christmas eve party! 





Our breakfast Christmas morning was AMAZING! It's crazy how tasty healthy things are!





My BEAUTIFUL Mom!


Our little family is the best! Nova looks so big in this picture!

Ready for gifts! 




And LOOKED you showed up! That's right, LANDON! What a great surprise it was to have him home for Christmas! This is his first time seeing and holding Emma Grace!



I have the cutest sister around :)



This was one heck of a Christmas! Everyone was together and we all enjoyed the time catching up. I love my family, we are truly blessed. 






Bulls Birthday


Before I get into our Christmas I wanted to post Cain's birthday! Chicago was amazing! Very cold and wet from the rain but it was so much fun! The morning drive there wasn't bad at all, Cain is mister speedy in the car and can get us anywhere in record time lol on the way we snacked on our favorite fruits pineapple and red grapes! yum!


And you can see the weather was not at it's best.



But we made it to the train station with no problem! We had out tickets and were ready to get there!




Once on the train Cain got all his wonderful birthday wishes from the family! Nice to see him so happy! 




We had made it! I love walking up those steps from the train station and seeing the tall buildings and everyone walking about. But boy was it COLD! We wanted to eat first so we started walking to Ed Debrevic's. I had been there a few other times but really wanted Cain to check it out. I knew he would get a kick out of it :)












Cain's sloppy joes and fries...


My veggie soup and steamed veggies! The waitress referred to my food as "rabbit" food. And Cain's food "real" food. Haha




I told Pinky our waitress it was Cain's birthday. Here is his birthday song lol




And birthday treat!


   
Now from there we decided to walk down Michigan ave to window shop. I really wanted to go into Crate and barrel, it's my ALL TIME favorite shop to go to while in Chicago. 


Next we hit the Apple store and Nike!





And you can NOT, forget to go into the Hershey's store! Even though we don't eat the chocolate anymore it's still so fun to see all the different ways to make chocolate!


This guy is awesome! 


 So I was really excited about trying this restaurant. I wanted something Cain would love, but something I could enjoy with him. I know that Cain is willing to always try something new, and that his health is important to him so if I tell him "Hey, found this healthy place to go to" He is totally on board and excited to try it. This place had grass fed beef, with no antibiotics. They also had vegan options as well, which I LOVED! We were cold and wet from the long walk and seeing the sign was a great feeling... "let's eat!" we cried out! LOL


Before even ordering the food I saw the pecan pie, it was a best!


Cain got the beef burger with mushrooms and cheese. I had the spinach and chickpea burger with bacon!

15 minutes later, GONE!


Our pecan pie (I didn't eat the whip on top)


3 minutes later... GONE!


With our bellies full and happy it was game time! Well not really, it was 5:00 when we got to the doors but the doors didn't open until 5:30, not such a bad wait... but it was ice cold and my boots had gotten wet from all the rain so my poor feet were having a nightmare of a time lol let's just say I was VERY thankful to be inside once the doors opened ;)



The United Center was awesome! We found our seats and relaxed a while :) I was happy to see Cain so happy about the game and finally getting to see a Bulls game in person.









The Bull's won! It was a great game. I would do it again in a heart beat! But we needed a lot of rest before jumping into another late night again. Cain and I both passed out once we were on the train! We didn't get back until 4:30am that night! Haha and were up by 8:00am and off to church! We are crazy and young but I love doing these things with Cain. I hope to make many more fun trips like this one. We will take every chance we get to take these adventures. We love to travel and see great things! But we needed to catch up on our sleep first ;)


Cain said he had awesome birthday, and I was happy to be apart of it. We got to spend Sunday with at Matt and Toni's and the rest of the family were there to celebrate with us! I know Cain loves to see his family all together, and so do I. He has a endless support group that I am thankful for. He deserves so much love!

Happy 20th Birthday Cain Grogg, next year we'll be a married man.... ;)

Lanette