City Lights

This past weekend was quite an adventure.
I have needed a mini-vacation for quite some time now.
I've needed to just get away from everything.

And last weekend, I got that.

My parents, Ry, and I went up to Milwaukee on Saturday morning.
Actually, we first went to Cedarburg, which is a small town just outside of Milwaukee that houses tons of quirky little shops and my parents' favorite winery.
We explored the shops, ate some wonderful popcorn that we get every time we go there, and took a picture with a really cute panda:)

Cute, right?:)

 After our time in Cedarburg, we made our way to our hotel in Milwaukee, the Hilton Garden Inn. I have to say this is one of the nicest hotels I've stayed in, and Ry was absolutely amazed with how nice it was. Our curtains were controlled with buttons on the opposite side of the room. Pretty nifty I would say.

Ry was hiding behind the curtains:)

We ate dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery, as we always do in Milwaukee, and then Ry and I headed to the mall.
I have never been more disappointed by a mall in my life. The only store worth visiting was the huge TJ Maxx.
We did, however, stop by the Culver's in the food court and downed a pint of chocolate custard with Reese's mixed in. Definitely wonderful.

There was an absolutely beautiful view as we were walking back to the hotel. It felt really nice to walk hand-in-hand through the city lights. 

Later that night, we ventured to a bookstore that was across the street, and it was so fun. The bookstore had shelves that went all the up to the ceiling, filled to the brim with books. There were two cats wandering around that lived in the bookstore, and I think I would just live there and read all day every day if I could.

When we got back to the room, we ordered take-out, which was delicious, and then we all passed out before 10 p.m.
It was the first good night of sleep I have gotten in about 2 weeks.

met a new beau at the musem! he's irish;)

The next morning, we went to the wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to the Milwaukee Public Museum. We had such fun there, and it was pretty educational too.

Here are the rest of the pictures I took:

Our walk back to the hotel.

View from the hotel

Another view.

They had lots of gross bugs and spiders.

Aargh matey!

My favorite animal:)

The butterfly exhibit was beautiful.

One landed on my daddy:)

Live, Love, and Let it Sparkle,

Stephanie<3