I MET MY BLOGLAND FAMILY-FRIEND, CHARLOTTE!!! AND A BLOG AWARD!

Hello, everyone!!!  I hope you're all doing well and having a wonderful week!

I'm so very excited!  Yesterday (Thursday) it was my pleasure to meet and spend the afternoon with my friend Charlotte from A Little Bit of Detail.  Charlotte came to Chicago to attend a National Education Association conference.  When she emailed me she'd be here in Chicago several weeks ago, we planned to meet.  It's always nice to meet friends face-to-face but Charlotte and I clicked immediately, like we've always known each other -- what a beautiful soul she is!!!  And, OMG, we had such a wonderful time!  We had lunch at a little but well-known cajun restuarant called Heaven on Seven; later we went up to the observatory in the John Hancock building (which once used to be the tallest building in the U.S. but is now the 3rd) where Charlotte got to view the city and our beautiful lakefront from the 100th floor.   We browsed one of the stores in the Water Tower and walked along North Michigan Avenue a bit.  Before our visit was over I introduced Charlotte to Garrett's popcorn which is known to be the best anywhere!!!  I have a feeling I may be mailing popcorn to Alabama now -- lol!!!

Before this post I'd dropped over to Charlotte's blog to leave her a message letting her know how much I enjoyed our visit.  However, I totally forgot to post the comment/message intended because I got so excited to see she'd already posted pictures on her blog that I forgot were even taken.  I have a picture myself  that we took at the observatory but I love these pictures too Charlotte posted and wanted to include them to share with you.  Charlotte asked an employee at the restuarant to take these pictures:

Charlotte had a friend who joined us for lunch, Genie,  another wonderful person!!!  If you'd seen the 3 of us, you would have thought us old acquaintances; unfortunately Genie had to leave us after lunch. Here we are:

Isn't Genie a shortie?!!!  LOL!!!

Here's the picture I was to have posted yesterday when I got home but once I came in I was needed to take a friend on an errand, when I got back home I shut computer and everything down because we were having a pretty nasty storm ( you guys should already know how I feel about storms); earlier today I had a hair appointment, so I'm much later getting this posted than expected.  This picture of Charlotte and myself was taken at the John Hancock Observatory:

I am so hoping to meet with Charlotte again before she leaves because I've just fell in love with her!!!  Meeting her will be an event I'll never forget, and hope to have happen again and again!!!  And how wonderful it feels thinking we really didn't have to get to know each other -- we did already -- we realllly just clicked!!!

If anyone is interested, Charlotte has more pictures on her blog.  You can click her name for a a direct link.

I wish and hope to someday meet all my family-friends here in our community!  As or right now, I would love nothing better!!!

Before I forget I need to say thanks to  my very dear friends Jill and Bobby, Cricut Couple for passing on to me earlier this week this beautiful award:

Thank you so much, Jill and Bobby!!!  You are beautiful friends!!!

Having received this award several times, I'd like to pass it on to everyone who'd like to grab it and post to their blog from me; and I'll acknowledge receipt and gratitute to Jill and Bobby on the award posted on my sidebar.

Well, I'm off now to start preparing potato salad for our family 4th of July picture tomorrow.  I'll probably get to visit with some of you late this evening but, just in case, I don't get to you all -- have a wonderful 4th weekend!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!