The fourth day of our weekend getaway would have started with church at St. John Wheaton. It’s weird to think that this Sunday, not only are we not going to be there, but nobody is.
I had planned to stop at the Popcorn Store after church, so the children could each pick a selection of candy. I’m happy to hear that store is currently able to do curbside popcorn orders, but it’s not the same without looking at all the candy displays in the shop!
I always wear Pinup Girl Clothing to Combo Breaker on Sunday. I had a really good outfit planned this year, too…my purple plaid Long Jun skirt paired with an Animal Crossing t-shirt. I even had new Animal Crossing pins for my lanyard!
The finals on Sunday are always so exciting to watch, and other than some pool time, I think we would have dedicated most of the day to Combo Breaker. I really loved seeing Tekken 7 last year, and I was really looking forward to experiencing some “Good Ass Tekken” with a hype crowd again this year!
Day two of our winter getaway began with a look at the calm before the storm at Frosty Faustings. We were able to go in with Ryan and take a look around before it officially got underway…it was definitely the quietest the Clarion Inn was for the next two days! We especially liked Ryan’s streaming location, marked by the St. Louis city flag:
After that, the Fab Five and I headed to Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. We had stopped there briefly last January, and the children were impressed both with the size of the mall and the fact that it was actually busy. So we decided to go back this year, and walk around the entire mall. It took us three hours, but we went around every level and stopped in many of the stores. We also ate while we were there…we shared a pretzel at Auntie Anne’s and a cinnamon roll at Cinnabon (classic mall foods), and we had lunch at A&W, including root beer floats for everyone. It was a really fun way to spend the morning!
After our mall trip, I wanted to do something educational, so we went to the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art in Elmhurst. This was a really unique experience, and I think we all learned a lot (including what the word “lapidary” means!). There was a lot of beautiful stuff on display, but Castle Lizzadro was probably the most beautiful of all:
We then stopped briefly at Frosty Faustings to see what was going on. We didn’t have much time, but we did get to take a look at all the vendors, a little bit of the game play, and we saw Ryan at work on the stream:
Then we went to The Popcorn Store in Wheaton. Originally, I had planned to do this Saturday, but thanks to the impending winter storm, I wasn’t sure that we would make it then. It was definitely too important of a stop to miss, so we squeezed it in to our already busy Friday.
Then on to dinner at Alfie’s Inn in Glen Ellyn, where I enjoyed an amazing patty melt.
We stopped at the Jewel on the way back to the hotel. I continue to be amazed at how little it has changed over the last 20 years…sure, some things are new, but for the most part, it looks like it did when I used to shop there!
Back at the hotel, we divided up our spoils from The Popcorn Store and watched more Food Network while we waited for the snow to start. It was another very relaxing evening!
Have you ever wondered where you might find what is possibly the narrowest store in the Chicagoland area?
It’s at 111 1/4 (that’s how small it is…it has 1/4 in its address!) Front Street in downtown Wheaton. The Little Popcorn Store has been at that location since 1935 when E. Claire Brown put a roof over an alleyway of his new store location, which, at 256 square feet, was over 150 square feet larger than the original store location a few doors down!
It is no joke to say that this store is narrow…and always busy! You have to go into it with the mindset that you’re going to get real cozy with the other customers, and that’s part of the charm!
Be sure to look up, and get a nice view of the ceiling, which I’m assuming dates back to the 60s based on the color scheme:
And then put your mind to choosing some candy…if you can. There are so many different varieties that it can be hard to make a choice, but it’s not really practical to buy one of everything. For the most part, each piece is 10 cents, so either way, you’re not going to break the bank!
The Fab Five and I tried to have some discretion when we went two weeks ago…I think we did ok! (I personally had to get Pop Rocks…the Little Popcorn Store is the first place I ever tried them many moons ago!)
I have fond memories of walking to the Little Popcorn Store after school, before volleyball or basketball games when I was in grade school, and I’m so glad it’s still there, because I really want the Fab Five to have the experience, too!
Did I mention why we were in Chicagoland in the first place? Ryan was working at/playing in the Frosty Faustings fighting game tournament. We couldn’t get free spectator passes like we have in the past at Combo Breaker, so we didn’t get to see much of the event, but we did peek in on Saturday morning:
We had more plans for Saturday, starting with a visit to Wheaton College’s campus to see the Perry mastodon and the Billy Graham Center Museum, which included a walk through “heaven:”
We also enjoyed a lunch featuring some of Chicago’s best foods at Flip’s in Glen Ellyn:
It occurred to me last year that I had been remiss in not taking the Fab Five to the Popcorn Store in downtown Wheaton, so we visited what is probably Chicagoland’s narrowest store, and picked out about $10 worth of candy to share:
Then we went back to the hotel for a little more cable TV, and a nice picture of the Fab Five:
We went to church at St. John Wheaton for the third time, but this was the first time we were there in the evening:
After church, we enjoyed a German dinner at Schnitzel Platz:
Once we were back at the hotel, we stayed awake watching Worst Cooks in America for as long as we could since it was our last night in the hotel!
