Chicago!

I needed this trip to Chicago so bad. I needed to see my brother, sister, mom and a bunch of my nieces and nephews.  I needed Richard to take a break and be with us and I needed to get out of the house!  I wish I could say I really needed to see Chicago, but for some reason that was never on my list of cities I was dying to see.  However, I loved it so much that I wouldn't need much convincing to go back!!

My brother scored us a SWEET apartment in downtown Chicago and I am kicking myself that I didn't get any pictures of the inside. It was gorgeous to say the least. Staying in crappy hotels is going to be much harder now that we've been spoiled by our places in Cincinnati and Chicago :) But if you can't picture the inside, you can at least appreciate our view:

Don't think I could ever get sick of the skyline! 

It was magical and I think I could spend hours just staring out the window watching the bustle of the city below. The night we arrived, we just walked down to Millennium Park to take some pictures, stopping to play hide and seek in a swarm of leg statues just outside our complex (don't ask!).    

The bean was pretty cool and it was fun to see it at night, since I usually see pictures of people there in the day. It was so reflective that up close, in the dark it was hard to see where the bean started and the sidewalk ended; it was hilarious to watch people walk right into it!  Not so hilarious when I smacked my own daughter's head on it however....

 

These big towers are in the same area as the bean and we had fun watching them change colors (ignoring the huge creepy faces on the other side) and watching people ice skate. 

Sunday we went to church at the local ward, which met in an elementary school. And then that night we went to check out the zoo lights.  All it took was a walk down to the Subway station, a train ride and a couple of bus stops and we were there! It wasn't a huge zoo (although we are spoiled with the one in Columbus) but the lights were fabulous!  The girls even met Santa there, which is good because that was the only time they saw him the whole holiday season. 

Monday we went to the Field Museum and spent most of the day there.

The guys had a boy's night and went to try some disgusting Chicago dogs and other famous Chicago food.    

Tuesday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was huge and so much fun! We probably only saw half of it and definitely could have spent more time in each place.    

Wednesday morning we went to the Planetarium.  There wasn't a ton for kids to do there so we only stayed for a little bit. 

We did stop at the Bean again and this time we saw it in the rain, which wasn't quite as cool because it made the surface cloudy but couldn't resist taking more goofy pictures.

We wanted to walk down to the other side of the Magnificent Mile and go to Ghiradelli and the Christkindlmarket.  However, the kids were exhausted and we seriously stopped every other minute for one thing or another so it took us FOREVER to get there! It was gorgeous so we really didn't mind the walking but with whiny kids and hours of walking we were all tired and grumpy. Luckily our stop at Ghiradelli rejuvenated us all :)

Holly and I only had a few minutes to walk around the Christkindlmarket and then we headed to the Chinese Theater for Wicked.  BY FAR the best part of the trip.  That was the best present from Mom and it was a blast to be alone with Holly for a while.  I can’t go on enough about how much we loved it! I'll just leave it as, it was the best night ever!!!!

 

Thursday was our last full day and we went back to the Museum of Science and Industry and had even more fun because we discovered the anatomy section which had TONS of fun stuff for the adults to do.  Not sure if the kids had as much fun but they had their turn on Tuesday :) 

We found this machine that showed you what you will look like when you get old.  I just look like I have crap on my face and apparently Richard is going to gain a lot of weight. Don't worry, we will still take good care of each other!

 

Friday morning we pretty much got up and left.  It was so hard to say goodbye after such a fun trip. The trip home took TWO hours longer than it should have because we ran into bad weather but the girls were angels and we were happy to get home safe.  SO VERY happy we got to Chicago and more importantly that I got to see so much of the family all together. Can't we go back to that week and just stay like that forever??