CHICAGO!!!!!

That's right my sister, Shyla, and I went on a trip to Chicago this last weekend. We went for 5 days and it was fabulous!! We took the El, their subway system, most everywhere we went since our hotel wasn't right where all the action is. We spent 2 full days at The Art Institute and Field's Museum of Natural History.
We went and saw the broadway show Jersey Boys and we liked that. We went to the Chicago History Museum and I had a caricature done of me that looked nothing like me. They did have a Dior Gown exhibit that we saw and the artist drew me in one of the gowns. The gown I picked was because it was modest and I still ended up showing quite a bit more cleavage than I was comfortable with.
We walked EVERYWHERE and were a little sore to tell you the truth. I ate a Swedish pancake and tried some swedish sausage. We tried not to look like tourists and we did a pretty good job except for the very last day we were quietly looking at our map because we went in a store one way and came out on the other side and needed to get our bearings and he asked us if we needed help. We could have easily figured it out. We had all the other times before.
I didn't take all the pictures I wanted because Shyla isn't one for pictures. She had a good attitude about the ones we did take, but I didn't push it. Some of the things we really wanted to do we couldn't because of weather or they weren't running them while we were there, like Buckingham Fountain usually does a light/water show. And we couldn't' do our boat tour or the Frank Lloyd Wright house that we wanted. Even though Shyla wasn't thrilled about sharing a queen size bed with me, we still had a wonderful time. And we even missed each other the next day.

This was the Tribune Tower. Here reporters travel all over and they bring back pieces of stone where they have been. They had some pretty cool pieces. Many Shyla saw when she was in Europe. Shyla really liked this building.




Below are pictures of us at the Hancock Observatory or 'Big Ben'. It was the first thing we did. It gave us a great view of the city and a free audio tour guide was pretty cool. It was David Schwimmer on our tour guide if any thinks that is cool. Shyla didn't know I was taking these pictures, which is funny to me. This was probably one of my favorite things.



We also saw some pretty cool statues. They are EVERYWHERE around the downtown part. We tried to do a self tour form one of Shyla's books, but all they told us the name fo the statue and the year it was built or something. It was dissappointing.
This first one we saw on our way to the Field's Musuem. They had these legs going on for 1/4 mile I swear. It was pretty cool. Shyla choreographed this photo. I was resistant to wrap my arms around the leg, but Shyla insisted.




Come on, tell me you wouldn't have snapped some photos underneath this awesome statue!!

They had some REALLY cool buildings. But like I said, I resisted taking pictures of every cool building I saw to not try to look like a total tourist, but they did have some unique buildings I thought. One of my favorite things about the trip.


This was a huge statue they call "The Bean". It was a huge silver statue shaped like a bean. I had no problems taking pictures because EVERYONE else was too. I know the one me and Shyla with the huge glare isn't the best, but at least we are together. Me and/or Shyla are in all the pictures, you may have to find us though. On this first one we are kinda towards the middle left. I am wearing green and Shyla blue.





The last one was of Buckingham Fountain. We waited like 15 min. for the show of the lights and water spurting 100 ft. in the air, to see nothing!!


One evening after walking around all day we went to Cosi cafe where we got Smores. I had to help Shyla toast her mallows because she burned hers in like 2 seconds holding it over the fire. Mine were perfect!!! Good idea Shy.



Another bonus to the trip was vising Shyla's dear friend from her mission. Jenn fed us dinner on Sunday night and let me tell you it was DELICIOUS!! And not just because we had been eating PB&J for lunch.


The best part of this outing was making a new friend Joseph who is almost 4 just like my little Joe. He was fun. We played with trains, threw around Winnie the Pooh, put 40 stickers on his 'poster', he invited me to play in his room and he let me take these snuggly pictures with him. I kinda miss him.