Spring Break(s)

Since my last post, I've had several adventures. The last weekend in February, I took advantage of my flight benefits and visited Andy and Lacy Lundgren in Glen Ellyn, IL. For dinner on the night of my arrival, we stopped at a Portillos for chili dogs. Lacy made me some peanut butter bars which were delicious. We hung out playing video games and watching movies. I ended up staying and extra day because one of the flights from O'Hare had canceled causing the seats on my flight to fill up.
The next 12 days were filled by working at the airport, something I hope to not do again in the near future. Last weekend Mom, Dad and the fam visited to kick off spring break week. We visited the Mall of America on Sunday afternoon. Amanda got some jeans and Kyle and I walked a complete circuit on each of the three levels around the mall.
Monday, we visited both zoos in the area. The Minnesota zoo is closer but the admission fee was too exorbitant for our time frame. We then made the drive up to the free Como Zoo in St. Paul. Afterward we took a scenic drive around St. Paul to get to Target Field. No tours were available so we just poked our heads in the gates where we could. I'm looking forward to getting to several games this year, but I hope to keep up with the Cubbies as well. Dad wanted to see the Guthrie Theater and it's "endless bridge" so we stopped by that before dinning at El Loro, a local favorite
Mexican restaurant.
This past weekend I decided to drive down to Dubuque and visit my high school friends Trent and Jacob. Iowa received a small winter blast on Friday and snow covered roads resulted in my sliding into the median on I35. A wrecker had already responded to another car in the median about 1000 ft from where I slid in and after pulling him out, they came to check on me. No damage was suffered, but I was stuck too far down in the sogginess to get out under my own power. The rest of the weekend was enjoyable. We watched the NCAA tournament games, including UNI's victory over Kansas. On Sunday, I stopped to see some former coworkers from the airport before heading out of town. I also stopped in Cedar Falls to see Amanda for a few minutes on my way back to the Twin Cities.
My vacation continues tomorrow as I have taken the day off to use up some of my paid time off from 2009 before it expires. I've got a list of chores though, so it will be a mixture of relaxing and catching up.