Chicago Day 1

We got up early on Sunday morning. For me, it was slightly over 2 hours of sleep. Why? Someone was shooting off very loud fireworks all night. Also, some neighbors were having a party and were loud.

Anyway, either way I was fine and very happy to be on vacation! The train was a bit late, but that did not matter a whole lot because we made up time on the train. All of us snoozed a bit at some point on the ride. We arrived in Chicago 15 minutes early!!

As is typical, there was some large event going on in Union Station. It was Disney's Christmas Carol. It looked cool, but I'm not into Christmas in July--sorry.

We took a quick cab ride to our hotel (same one as last year). We were able to check in and get a great room view.

We decided to walk to PF Changs since it was still a bit early. We had plans of visiting the Pier and the beach. The walk only took like 10 minutes. Lunch was very yummy and much needed. Since we thought they had discontinued the free trolleys, we took a water taxi to Navy Pier. Turns out they hadn't discontinued the trolleys completely, just scaled them back A LOT! Aliyah was pretty animated on the ride. She was cheering about everything we saw. The captain told her to have fun on the Ferris Wheel.

Again, as is typical there was another event going on...the AB Clydesdales were all on display at Navy Pier along with their stagecoach and dalmation. I have seen them before (obviously a different group of them several years ago). Josh and the girls on the other hand, haven't seen them. They are MASSIVE, beautiful, muscular, and amazing. What do you know, I left my camera in the hotel room--duh! We enjoyed looking at Scott, Curly and others. It seems like it would only take about 1/4 of one Clydesdale to pull that Stagecoach =).

Navy Pier was busy and we only stayed a short time to look at one little shop. We took the short walk to the Ohio St. Beach to check out the water. It was a bit chilly, but we managed to enjoy it. We got to ride the trolley back =).

Following a quick nap, we were back out in the city again. We visited American Girl and picked up the items that were on Aliyah's birthday list as well as a few books that she wanted to read.

For dinner, we went with familiar and chose Chili's. It was tasty!

Since everyone was pretty tired and I was battling a cold, we headed back to our hotel. We chilled out for the rest of the evening and enjoyed the gorgeous view from our hotel room. Every night, we made sure to keep the curtains open every night to take in the gorgeous lights and sights of the city. We were on the 27th floor overlooking the river. In the picture, you will see NBC tower on the right, the Hancock building in the background (white line across the top), Tribune bldg. etc...

Stay tuned for the rest of the fun as well as many more pictures!

Chicago IV

I have decided that I have to finish my Chicago posts before September ends!
We didn't do much on the morning after Labor Day. Josh wasn't feeling well after he ate entirely too much the night before. That is the truth and he would tell you that also =). Anyway, we were meeting someone that I work with through work--does that make sense? She is from Chicago so she took us all to lunch at Lou Malnati's. Once we got ready, we walked to Lou Malnati's and had some yummy pizza. My children were a bit fidgety--maybe because it takes awhile to get the pizza. Anyway, it was good and it was hot outside. Once we left, we decided that we should squeeze in yet another day at the beach. After all, the weather was perfect for it.
The beach had people, however it was quite obvious that it was no longer a weekend or a holiday. We enjoyed some more swimming and relaxing. For some reason, water & sun de-stress me--majorly. It was refreshing. Since we didn't have watches or anything, we decided we would leave when the shadows of the buildings got long and took most of the sun from the beach. It worked great. We took a water taxi to the beach--very beautiful, BTW. We decided to try the Blue Trolley to go back to the hotel. The Red Trolley that stopped at our hotel finished running for the summer after Labor Day. Anyway, the blue trolley worked out, we just had to walk a bit further than we did with the red one.
We decided that we would have a shopping night. Upon request (by Aliyah) after she had seen it on our tour, we went to dinner at Rainforest Cafe--late. We went to all of our favorite shops on Michigan and vicinity. We made our stop at the American Girl store and WOW did we pick a perfect time to go! It was like a private shopping experience. Our children were the ONLY ones in the whole store. We spent about an hour in there while they decided what they wanted. This trip, they pretty much wanted the whole Bitty Baby deal. Aliyah also got Kit's dog & scooter. Bags in hand, we headed over to Hershey's. Once again, we did dessert before dinner. Keirah had some chocolate wonder and Aliyah had a "chocolate muffin" as she calls it.

I couldn't do more than 2 bites as it was very rich!

We proceeded to Water Tower Mall. We visited Coach =). I had the privilege of a private shopping experience there as well. I resisted the temptation to get a beautiful full-sized purse even though my beloved husband was cool with me getting one. Instead, I got some Coach perfume--which is my new fave and a Coach Zoe Mosaic Clutch wristlet. I love the deep chocolate brown. My reasoning behind the clutch wristlet is that after lugging my normal Coach purse with all of the stuff in it gets heavy--particularly with two kids in tow and lots of bags. I now switch--if I don't need to carry everything, I carry the clutch. I absolutely love it.

We visited a few other stores before heading back out onto Michigan. Michigan was absolutely delightful because the more talented musicians come out at night--probably a side gig to earn extra $$ after the day job. We listened to a violinist and a saxophonist as we waited to cross various streets. It just gives it a wonderful flavor. We walked down to the more "night-life" district (River North) and went into Rainforest Cafe. The hostess said she had the perfect seats for us right by this...

Yes, the elephants. They make noise and come to life quite often. Neither of the girls were very sure of it, particularly Keirah. She jumped into my arms as soon as it started. We explored a few other things while waiting for our meal. The food was great! Aliyah declared it to be her favorite.

As you can see, Keirah has her eyes on the elephant in the picture. We headed back out and to our hotel. Everyone was pretty tired as it was about 10:30. When we arrived back at our hotel, we turned on the TV to catch a blurb about Olympic athletes arriving in Chicago for the Oprah show to be taped in Millennium Park. Since our hotel was only 2 blocks from MP, we decided to go. I knew that Oprah taped in the morning, however we were unsure of the time, but decided to leave between 8:30 & 9:00 to head over there. The rest of the Oprah post is to follow.

the Square

We had plans of going to the pool today, however the weather was indecisive. It was definitely humid, but cloudy & rainy off and on. Instead, we opted to go to the square. The square is just plain cool if you ask me. It has that wonderful nostalgic feel to it. It has some pretty cool shops on it. These aren't just everyday find it anywhere types, they have all kinds of stuff from yesteryear. While browsing, I saw things from my own childhood, items my mom had, and even items grandma had. It's definitely where I go to find that special item that I can't even find on eBay. I think many of those antiqued items come from the plethora of historic homes that are in the area.

Today, I saw fence posts, old but really nice patio furniture, a very antique tricycle, an old wagon, jewelry and about any old item you can think of. Some of the shops have new stuff too, it's just the kind of things that you don't find just anywhere. I was happy to be able to find a birthday gift at a store called "trinkets & treasures". At another store were these adorable cookies--so adorable that I can't bear to think of eating them. They look so cute and summery in my kitchen.

Other than that, my sweetie worked on that new master bath tile project--grout is done!! We now have a floor =). It is exciting as we move closer to being finished.

I took a few more pics of my garden. If you look, you will see the ultra-tall Marigolds that my daughter planted from seed--they keep getting bigger. Also, are a few pics of my little girls in these adorable outfits (at least I think so) from Gymboree's line called "Tropical Garden".

Something that warmed my heart tonight was when my neighbor was outside. She came out the other night when the girls were playing and took several pics of them with her new camera. My daughter was getting crabby and disobedient. Tonight, she came out and told the neighbor on her own that she was sorry that she wasn't nice the other night. It was really sweet the way she told her.

Eventually, I will be able to post pictures throughout my blog rather than all at the beginning...yeah when I get time to do some more tinkering with it.