CHICAGO!

by Ang

Well, we're back.  Our Chicago trip came and went and it was AMAZING!!  Here is a recap:

THURSDAY

We arrived on Thursday and my husband surprised the boys with a limo to take us to our hotel.

It was a fun way to kick off the vacation!  We headed downtown to check into our hotel and liked our view! (that's Trump Tower)

We went to a cute Italian place for dinner called Volare that was close to our hotel.  My youngest nephew ordered ham Alfredo with spinach noodles and he LOVED it!  Even the green noodles.  I was a little surprised.

We decided to walk off our dinner a little bit and headed to Navy Pier.

And found Lake Michigan:

We topped the evening off with swimming at our hotel and then went to bed.  We were zonked!

FRIDAY

Friday we walked (we walked almost everywhere) to a breakfast buffet called Houlihan’s.  The walk was nice….lots of stopping to take pictures along the way.

The breakfast was nice too!  Even though we sat right next to a disturbing floating head sax player.

After breakfast we began our walk to Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower).

The ride up to the Skydeck was pretty cool.  They had a TV in the elevator that told us what floor we were on.  It went really fast too!

We arrived!  

Of course you can't go to Willis Tower and not step out on 'The Ledge':

Ack!  You can barely see the tiny cars.

After Willis Tower, it was more walking, then stopping for refreshments at Starbucks (we went to Starbucks at least once every single day).

We topped off the night with some Chicago style deep-dish pizza.  Yum!  (I didn't get pics of the pizza with my Nikon and I'm too lazy to download it from my iPhone, so use your imagination).

SATURDAY

I think Saturday was our busiest day.  Maybe even a little too busy.  But still good.  We crammed a lot in! We started off walking along the river.

The boys, sporting their new Cubs hats they got the day before:

This picture reminds me of that line in 'The Fugitive' where one of the cops says something like "if they can dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day, why can't they dye it blue the other 364 days of the year?"  Seriously....it's really green. 

Next, we hopped on a double decker bus to hitch a ride to Millennium Park.  And saw some excellent architecture along the way!

 We arrived at Millennium Park and stopped at 'The Bean':

And then made our way to the Art Institute of Chicago.  It was awesome!  Here's just a handful of the paintings we saw:

Can you guess which one I bought an 8x10 print of? 

This one, of course, entitled:  Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877.

The building itself was a work of art in itself.  It's really pretty.  In fact, we seen two weddings going on there.

After the art museum, we hopped back on the bus to head to Navy Pier for the evening.

Here's what I looked like most of the trip....hair piled on top of my head, kinda sweaty.  I don't think it got above 90 the entire time we were there, but it was super humid.  And I've forgotten how sticky humidity can make a person!

When it got dark, we boarded a speedboat (yes, a speedboat) to take out onto Lake Michigan to watch the fireworks.  It was awesome.

SUNDAY

Sunday we made our way to the subway, because it was the first of two Cubs games we attended.  They were playing the St. Louis Cardinals, and they won!  

We got there early to take pictures and, of course, go to Starbucks.

Rizzo, running to his teammates after hitting the home run that won the game.

My younger nephew got to run the bases after the game too....unfortunately we couldn't get a clear picture of him, but we did get this one of him finishing up:

It was a fantastic day at the ball park!

MONDAY:

We started the day at the Museum of Science and Industry.  The place was HUGE.  We probably didn't even see 1/3 of it.  It was really cool though.

Here's a full-scale model of the Mars rover:

An actual submarine used in WWII:

A tornado and lightening:

We could have spent the entire day there.  There was just so much to see!  But we couldn't, because we had another baseball game to get to!

Our seats for this game were right behind 1st base.

This long-time Cub fan was really getting into the YMCA song:

And the Cubs won again!  Another great day (night, actually) at the ballpark.

And that's it!  We got up early the next morning to head to the airport.  It was SUCH a good trip.  It was so nice to spend time with my nephews and see the city together.  I'm already mentally planning a girl-trip when Little Miss A gets older.  :)  It's so fun to travel with family!