Way back in April Daddy and I went to Chicago with Papa and Grandma H and a few other people from Dad's work. There was a conference they were attending. The kiddos stayed home with Grandma G. We missed them terribly but at the same time it was so nice to be able to just take care of ourselves.
With Daddy's Irish heritage we HAD to eat at Kitty O'Sheas
And Daddy HAD to order corned beef!
This was just a scaffolding for some work that was being done but I think it is beautiful!
The bean! It's really some cloud thing but all of Chicago calls it the bean!
My companions! Polly and Grandma H!
We went on a boat tour of the city. It was fascinating to hear about some of the buildings.
This whole end of the building is held up from the TOP! The railroad runs underneath it.
This is where one of the batman movies was filmed.
Willis (aka Sears) tower, the tallest building in the USA.
I just liked the look of this building. It was actually really disappointing because for the most part Chicago was a really clean, safe feeling city. But at the turn around point for the tour there are all kinds of tents and garbage, random clothes etc from a homeless camp all along the river.
One of the buildings has a map all the way up its side!
You can see where the railroad runs beneath the street above. The buildings are sold the "air" rights. \
The Billy Goat Tavern was made fun of in a skit on Saturday Night Live. It should be called the Billy Goat GRUFF tavern. They do not smile at you, they do not want you to look at the menu, they do not want you to order anything but a cheeseburger, and they bark everything at you! It was actually very disconcerting. The story is that the tavern's owner brought his goat to the cubs world series game, he bought a ticket for the goat and everything. But they wouldn't let the goat in. So he "cursed" the cubs that they would never win another game.
We went out to an EXTRA fancy restaurant one night with the whole crew. Grandma and Papa H, Greg, Polly, and Erik. The food was delicious!
These were bacon on a stick. Basically pork cooked and glazed in syrup, they literally melted in your mouth..... SO good!
Afterwards Erik, Daddy and I decided to go experience the Redhead Piano Bar. It was really a neat place! They had someone there playing the piano and singing. The entire atmosphere was really laid back, if there hadn't been a large party there that day we would have stayed longer, as it was it got too loud to be able to hear the person next to you.
On the way home Daddy and Erik got conned into paying way to much to have"The shoe king" shine their shoes. To be fair the guy did a really nice job.
We road the El to get to the WIllis tower. Worked so well we decided to cancel our shuttle and ride it to the airport.
The only thing Daddy was really interested in was going to the top of the Willis tower. It had an amazing view.
And we got to walk out on the glass!
We visited Harry Carey as well. The restaurant had a pretty cool collection of sports memorabilia to look through.
On the last day we decided to check out the Field Museum. It has SO much stuff in it. We got worn out pretty quickly and were anxious to get to the airport so we didn't spend a lot of time there. But we got plenty of dinosaur pictures for the kids!
I just thought this door was gorgeous. I know, I'm a little strange.
And when we got home we were greeted with this beautiful sign made by our three little loves! Unfortunately Grandma G had to head straight back to SD so I didn't get to spend much time with her but the kids LOVED having her.
