Chicago

As most of you know the past 5 months have been a roller coaster of emotions waiting for the 26th of May, the day we would leave for Chicago. There have been moments of excitement, frustration, saddness, hopelessness, and again excitement. So Friday the 25th Seth, Aiden and I left for an overnighter in Bismarck before we left Aiden behind with Seth's parents and we left for a 14 hour drive to Chicago for a life changing surgery. I had figured out that in the 13 years that Seth and I have been together we had never been on a vacation or alone for longer then a weekend. I got a little nervous, because I was like crap what if we drive eachother nuts on this trip! We have gone on vacations but it was always with other people or we had Aiden with us! Plus, I am not built for the rode I am a person that needs to stop and make frequent bathroom breaks, dang coffee! Not on this trip, I was a rode warrior, if I do say so myself! In the about 13 hours we drove on Saturday we only stopped 2 times, Seth was pretty impressed with this! The drive was fun, no matter what the circumstances we always manage to have fun and laugh! We made it to Elgin, IL on Saturday night which is a suberb outside of Chicago and we stayed there at a hotel. The next morning we drove into Chicago and thankfully it was a smooth ride in! We drove Seth's big Raptor (a bigger then usual pick up) so that was interesting driving down Michigan Ave. surrounded by Prius's and Honda Accords in this massive pick up that could squash anyone of those cars! We made it to our hotel without running anyone or anything over, thank you GPS! Our hotel was really nice, highly recommend the Omni Chicago, they had valet parking so we just grabbed our stuff and said good bye to the Raptor for a couple days!

Having a drink along the river!

Extreme SeaDog Ride!

Cubs game!

At the top of the Ferris Wheel, and my new hat!

We didn't waste anytime when we got there, we dropped our stuff in our room and we were gone. First on the agenda, FOOD! So we went to Giodano's Pizza for the Chicago staple deep dish pizza! It was awesome and the wine and beer didn't suck either! After that we went to the John Hancock Observatory, shopped on Michigan Avenue, took a walk on the Riverwalk, ended up at a cute bar along the river that had amazing wine, took an architectual boat tour on the river, and we ate our very first $44 steaks! Yep that was just the steak, no sides included! They were amazing though, so worth it! We also experienced the best banana cream pie we have ever eaten, the waiter said it would be life changing, I am not sure if it did that, but I will for sure be making my future pies differently! That pretty much wrapped up day 1, which after all that I was exhausted and unsure if I would make it another day in the big city! Day 2 was much more relaxing, we went to Wrigley Field and watched a Cubs game. We are not Cubs fans, but felt that we needed to see Wrigley Field. It was awesome and we had pretty good seats too! Thankfully they were in the shade since the temp hit about 95 degrees that day too. That night we drove out to see some family that lives in a suberb, we had dinner and drank wine with them and then again headed back into the city. When we got back to the hotel we decided we needed to check out the hotel bar and had some drinks there, the bar overlooked Michigan Ave. so we got to do some people watching too, always fun! Day 3, our last day of fun in Chicago, again did not disappoint! We went to Navy Pier, and the first thing we do when we get there is take an Extreme Seadog boat ride. As we are buying tickets it says due to the wind you will get wet on the ride. I am like oh yeah a little spray no biggy! Crap we got soaked! I had of course straightened my hair and for anyone that knows my hair, the second water hits it when its straight it instantly goes curly. So I started the day with cute hair and one 30 minute boat ride on Lake Michigan that went out the window! It was a lot of fun and would totally do it again, but maybe just later in the day! Needless to say after that I was on a mission to find a hat! Luckily I found a cute one that wasn't insanely expensive and I felt much better! We did the Ferris Wheel and walked the Pier, and then we were off to the Willis Tower. We got there and went right up and before I knew it I was standing on a plexi glass ledge the sticks out of the tower some 100 stories above the city. I kinda wanted to pee, it was high! After that I was ready to be on the ground so we went to the Shedd Aquarium and saw some Buluga Whales! We ended the night with a great Italian meal, that included a pasta with mussels, clams, calamari, shrimp, and sea bass. I was a little nervous, but I thought why not it's my last meal for a couple days lets go big! It was very good, not sure if it's something I would order again, but I can at least say I have tried it! After that it was off to the hotel to pack and shower up, tomorrow was the big day!! It wasn't until that point that I finally started to feel nervous. I couldn't believe that the day was finally almost here. Something that seemed so far away had now arrived, just felt crazy! Luckily I was able to sleep that night!