Things are most certainly happening in my world. As I was walking to work this morning and reflecting on my sleepiness, I thought to myself "I wonder when I'll feel caught up." I don't think I'll be back in an actual normal routine until after the New Year.... A ton of things are in queue for the coming months and then we have the holidays. Which is sort of an awesome problem to have. I can't really complain about getting to see my friends and family multiple times over the next few months. Bring it on!
There are a ton of things that I could touch on in this blog, but I'm going to focus on recapping Christian's visit to the Windy City.
Christian hadn't been to Chicago since our family visited way back in the late '90s. It was due time. I wanted to make sure he got a good mix of tourist-y type stuff as well as a real Chicago experience. He and his friend, Adam, got in early Friday morning. We all went for a run on the Lake Shore path and then stopped at the Belmont Dog Beach to let Walter play in the water. Walter was pretty timid at first and afraid to get in all of the way. After a lot of coaxing, he got comfortable and soon he was swimming far out to get the ball. We took him back to the beach a couple of days later and he is officially a water dog - the farther we throw the ball out, the better. After we got cleaned up, we headed down to Millennium Park to see the Bean. The Bean is interesting because it does not sound as cool as it actually is. It's one of those things that you can appreciate much more when you see it in person. Of course, we had to take our photos in the Bean.
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| Christian in front of the Bean. You can see the skyline in the reflection - pretty cool. |
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Underneath the Bean
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After seeing the Bean, we found a shady spot and made camp for a few hours. We brought an array of delicious beers and snacks - smoked salmon and cream cheese on crackers. It was quite fancy and a great way to just enjoy the scenery.
That night, Andrew found out about an "all you can eat and drink from 6-11 p.m. for $20" deal up in our neighborhood, so we took advantage. It was awesome because we definitely got our money's worth AND we were home and asleep before midnight!
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| Ah siblings :) |
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| Adam and Christian |
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| Adam photobombing. Andrew being ridiculous. |
I had to take them to Wicker Park for brunch at the Southern. As always, it does not disappoint. We wandered around Wicker Park after brunch (we needed to walk off that huge meal!) and we stopped at a little place called
iCream. It's a pretty cool little ice cream/fro-yo/sorbet shop where you choose the flavors, add-ins, colors, and more. They use a rapid freezing process, so they are literally making exactly what you want right in front of you. Very interesting concept.
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| Here he is making our icream! |
While I was at work, Christian hung out at the Board of Trade and did some exploring of the city alone. We met for lunch each day, went shopping after work, and also went to North Avenue Beach to watch some sand volleyball one night. We ate at some pretty tasty places while he was here - a couple of sushi places,
Ann Sathers for breakfast,
Giordanos and
Pizano's pizza, just to name a few. He definitely got the "taste of Chicago."
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| Our feet in the water at North Avenue Beach. |
All in all, it was a great trip and I really enjoyed having him visit. I'm still trying to convince him to move here. Maybe eventually he'll realize that I always know what's best :)
I wanted to talk about my first Lollapalooza on this post, but it looks like this one is probably long enough already! Since I've missed a few weeks of posting, perhaps I'll write up another post for later this week. Two posts in one week?! Bananas!! Stay tuned!
Love, H&W
