chicago get-away

just back from our very quick chicago weekend.  we fit a lot in in a short amount of time.  we stopped off at the great wolf lodge waterpark in the dells our first night (thursday).  it was just as we remembered it and the kids still love it. h&g actually went down one of the bigger slides and loved it.  mike somehow wobbled along on one foot and didn't fall once on the very slippery cement floors. due to his injury i was designated at abby's water slide buddy, so i got to experience it all this time! we swam some more friday morning before taking off for chicago.  we made it fairly quickly, but then hit the famous chicago traffic. kinda forgot about that. took over an hour to get into the city. so our 3 hour drive actually ended up being over 4. but it was nice to gaze at the city and take pictures as we moved along at 5 miles an hour :-)  we finally made it to our hotel and met trish there for some shopping.....american girl and the lego store! everyone was able to spend some birthday money (thanks mom!) and they were very happy. off to dinner at a great restaurant (best desserts ever. yes, plural desserts. so yum!) and then back to the hotel for some rest.

you can't see the miles of break lights. miles. miles.

pretty buildings to look at, though :-)

view from our hotel. beautiful lake michigan out there

old water tower station

pretty house by michigan ave

darth vadar at the lego store. it took griff 2 seconds to find the legos he wanted. we were out of there in record time!

american girl store. we were here a bit longer, ahem. took awhile to find the perfect outfit.

sat we got up early to go to the shedd aquarium. we got there around 9am and saw an awesome whale/dolphin/sea lion/penguin/hawk show.  we then saw the 4d movie planet earth. after that we walked around a bit and spent a lot of time staring at the sharks.  we left around 12 and were STUNNED at the line to get into the place. it wrapped around and around and around....almost all the way back to the parking garage and soldier stadium. those people were probably going to stand in line for 3 hours to see some fish. crazy.

view of city from shedd

view of city from moving car on the expressway.  see that tall white building? mike's old work building. sniff. sniff.

anyway, off to uncle tim's to see g&g newman and order some chicago style pizza. YUM!  we hung out saturday afternoon with everyone and then left before sunrise for MN.  Got back in time for lunch at home :-)

a great visit....made both mike and me miss chicago and all the hub-bub of the city. we got a little nostalgic. and then we reminded ourselves of the traffic. ugh. the traffic. and then i remembered the outstanding dinner and desserts. and that cancelled out the traffic issue :-) seriously, best food i've had in a long time.

did not get many pictures. sorry.