Chitown

Okay, this is take two of this post, because after I had spent like 3 days writing and posting pics, I lost it all!

So here it goes. Vacation this year was a trip to Chicago! It was a vacation from our every day lives, but it wasn't that restful. We had a blast though, and boy did we fit a lot in.



We arrived in Chicago on Wednesday June 9th. We stepped off the plane and onto the train into downtown. We stepped off the train onto a platform that only had stairs. So Joel with 3 bags of luggage, and me with a stroller and a baby, we made it down the stairs....I don't know how really, but we did...Oh, I carried the stroller down WITH Izzy in it, and somehow Joel made it down with 2 roller bags and a duffle. Joel didn't know which way to go exactly, so we headed out one way, then thought we should turn around. So we did, then he dicided that we were going the right way the first time, so we turned around again, and finally made it to our hotel. That afternoon we loaded up the stroller and hit Michigan ave in awe of the tall buildings and nice fancy shops! We saw the old water tower, stopped by the Hershey's store ate some chocolate, walked some more, went in and out of stores, oohing and ahhing over the very high priced items, and of course, visited the Drake hotel.

We were taking pictures and then a bell man came up to us and in all seriousness said "we have a policy...that when we see a pretty family, we have to take a picture." The policy part scared us. We thought that we were in trouble.

After the Drake, we headed to the lake. It was a warm day, so Izzy and I waded in the water while Joel took pictures. It was gorgeous. It is a lake that looks like an ocean.We at at Uno's that night after waiting an hour for our pizza to cook, and Izzy didn't have enough patience, so he fell asleep.


Thursday we hit the road runny pretty early and headed to the train station. But not without stopping by one of the many Starbucks. We took an hour train ride into Lake Bluff where my mom grew up. It is a very quaint little town that you could walk through in 2 hours. We saw both houses that she grew up in, saw the lake again, and took lots of pictures. We had a great time!

Lake Forest was another stop, where we walked around the cute little square and had lunch in a quaint sandwich cafe. By this time the weather was moving in, so it was getting a little cool. Then we missed our train. We were actually there at the station, but on the wrong side of the tracks! So we killed another hour before we took the hour long train ride back to the city!

Once back in the city we hit the library, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography that left us completely depressed, but we were quickly cheered up by Degas, and Monet at the Art Institute. Dinner was at the Italian Village where Frank Sinatra supposedly ate. It was good, but we were all tired, and Israel wouldn't stop moving. We dropped dead that night.

Friday we woke to the whole city in front of our hotel. There was a parade for the hockey team who had just won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 49 years. We had to walk a little farther to catch a bus to the zoo because of it! We missed our Starbucks that morning, so we were a little sluggish at the zoo, but it was still a good time. The next stop was Wrigley Field, and to get there we had to walk a little was, and then wait for a bus that wasn't already full. We found out that the Cubs and White Socks were doing an exhibition game and it was the first one. Wrigley field was alive and hoppin'. It was so much fun. We took the El back to the city to visit the man eating lions at the Field Museum. On the way back to the hotel we walked through Grant Park and then saw the Bean. We then took a sheet from the hotel, stopped and picked up some Chicago hot dogs and headed back to Grant park to enjoy some Blues with thousands of other Chicago poeple. It was so much fun!

Saturday it was raining, so in between the rain we finished up seeing the sights, and taking pictures and eating yummy burgers at the world famous Billy Goat's Tavern. Then we started the long trek home which ended at 10:00 that night!

We had a blast...came home tired, but we miss it already!