ACE Convention

On March 30, (yes, we flew out on my bday! I think this is the first time I've gotten to travel somewhere for my birthday..even if it was for 'work') we flew to Chicago for the 2011 Spring ACE Hardware convention.  It was nice to get away for a few days, but it was still work and busy getting everything done we needed to before we left.  We had some Chicago style pizza at Gino's East and ate with my uncle and his wife a couple times too.  At the show we found a couple of new products we are going to carry at the store, (check out York Ace Hardware on Facebook for updates) and overall had a good time.  My parents came along to help watch Brooks for me, which was nice!  Here are a few pics from the trip!

  

 Milwaukee tools trying to sell more stuff to Blake

 Brooks absolutely loved the "Step 2" booth.  The reps let him borrow the little push car for a while, and he just grinned from ear to ear when we put him in it!

  It was difficult sometimes to get Brooks to drink his bottle, but between mom and I, we usually got it worked out somehow!

We also got a chance to go up the Hancock tower.  Brooks slept through the first part of it, but that was good...he was so worn out!

Unfortunately it was also pretty cold and windy, but did we expect anything less?  We did our best to bundle Brooks in the stroller and keep him out of the wind!

It was a good weekend, but we were also just glad to get home.  Our flight back to Omaha was the roughest I'd ever experienced with turbulence.  It was really windy out and we were bouncing around pretty good.  The lady behind us was freaking out and spilled her drink, Brooks was fussing because his ears were hurting, and I was just holding on to him tight enough that he wouldn't fall off my lap!  Needless to say, everyone was pretty happy when we were on the ground! (It didn't help that we were flying Southwest the same weekend one of its aircrafts had a roof blown off in the middle of a flight and we were already delayed an hour!)