Perfect Birthday Weekend

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I had this great post composed and then something went wonky, and I lost it. Since my hand now hurts due to the surgery, I’m just going to sum it up –

The Art Institute of Chicago is incredible. I love Toulouse-Loutrec and some of his work is there. Among others, we also saw many other incredible paintings by Matisse, Degas, and others.
We shopped in the museum store and Kevin purchased for me (part of the birthday) a small replica of Degas’ The Little Dancer. I used to have a replica of the sculpture, and then it shattered, and hadn’t ever been replaced. Now it has been and lives in our living room. He picked up a pretty cool Toulouse-Lautrec tie for himself and we even bought some Christmas cards for next year.
We checked in at the Palmer House Hilton where they gave us a gorgeous corner room on the Hhonors floor (plus double points and miles!) and sent up a mocchachino, chocolates, and champagne for my birthday. (Always join those hotel membership programs …).
We had dinner at Bin 36, at the House of Blues Hotel. We had three flights (yep, flights) of wine, 1 flight of cheese, 1/2 a gourmet pizza each, chocolate fondue for 2 (with homemade marshmallows) and Merryvale Antigua for our dessert wine. Dinner was amazing. We joined the Bin 36 club, which gives us a discount whenever we return. We ate in the Tavern (not the uber-fancy Cellar, although we had access to the menu) and had a leisurely 3-hour dinner with no rush. I highly recommend the place for both the wine & cheese selection and for the fun attitude (Live well. Drink wine. Have fun.). We purchased some wine and some Wine Knowledge flash cards in their shop.
Sunday we spent all day exploring the sales at Marshall-Field’s. (My birthday falls on the best weekend of the year for sales!) We finally got back home at 10:30 last night, where I found a package from Kara containing the Fraggle Rock DVDs. YAY!!!
It really was a perfect birthday weekend!