We went to Chicago

Like I said before, we did go to Chicago...oh about three weeks ago! But it was SO much fun, and I'm so excited to re-live our trip a little bit. We drove in on a Friday afternoon--it took about 6 hours to get there. Luckily for us (well, I take most of the credit, really :-), my awesome friend and old roomie lives right downtown. And her awesome boyfriend got us a pass to park in a parking deck near their apartments. So we left our car for the weekend, and walked everywhere!

We did all we could to see Chicago in a day, and I think we did a great job of it (in spite of the rain!! haha).

The view from Katherine's apartment...gorgeous!

I just have to mention my jealousy here....her apartment was gorgeous, in a huge, tall building (on the 32nd floor!), with windows EVERYWHERE, and she could walk to SO many things. It's a completely different lifestyle from the one we're living here, and this was the first time I've ever even wanted to live that way. I couldn't do it forever, of course. And I do love our little homey apartment here in the suburbs. Still, I did love every second of our visit!

One of the first things we did was visit Millennium Park, and see the big bean! Ben loved it.

All of us, reflected in the bean (see Katherine and me in the background?)

The bean itself!

We walked all around for a while in the nicer weather on Saturday morning. We saw the AWESOME library....huge huge huge with a new teen center. And a children's section as big as some library buildings. That was fun, but I didn't get any pictures!

We also saw the Chicago Tribune building which has pieces of famous places/buildings from around the world. That was another favorite of Ben's!

Katherine and I (most pictures of me this whole trip are this bad or worse--hence why you aren't seeing anymore...but I had to show one of me and my sweet friend who hosted us :-)

What else did we do?? It seems like hundreds of things! We rode the subway out to Wrigley Field right when a game was about to start.

Ben's favorite place ever

We rode a bus out to Navy Pier, right as it started to rain like crazy.

The rain had finally stopped here!

We walked the Magnificent Mile and saw all kinds of shops (including a huge American Girl store--the kind that has a restaurant, salon, etc. inside--I made everyone go in!). We ate the best stuffed pizza EVER. It just may still be my favorite part of our whole trip. We ate some yummy Thai food, too. We saw Lee Ann Womack perform at Chicago's country music festival--again in the rain. :-) And went up in the Hancock Tower at night--the views weren't great cause of the weather, and I may or may not have accidentally ordered $7 tea. Haha.

It was just a fun, whirlwind trip, and I am so glad that we went. We left pretty early on Sunday morning, but we sure made the most of our day in Chicago.

My favorite picture of the trip! :-)