On Thursday we drove to Glenview (north of Chicago) and stayed. It was literally 2 blocks from the temple. So on Friday morning I went to the temple and Jeremy stayed with the kids and went swimming. Price is getting so good. He can swim all by himself now, he refused to be in lessons this summer so I guess he decided to teach himself.
Then we drove to downtown Chi-town to another hotel where we stayed for two nights.
The kids love staying in hotels since we can lay in bed and watch TV. Bryn thought she was pretty funny putting my sunglasses on.
I would like to apologize to the city of Chicago. I severly underestimated the greatness of this city. I really wasn't expecting much, but this trip by far surpassed any expectations I had for it. I guess I wasn't expecting much and Chicago did its best to win me over. And boy did it ever. Our main reason for going this weekend was so that we could go to 'Taste of Chicago'. It's a huge street fair (free admission and then you buy tickets for food). Restaurants from all over the city are there and you can go around and try all different kinds of food. We tried some tacos (yum), fried ravioli (double yum) and some pork stuffed banana fried thingy (not so yum). It was fun to be able to try different stuff and to be around so many people, it was crazy. I was standing in line to get ice cream for Price (I get mom of the year for how long this line was) when Chicago pulled out all the stops in winning my affection. I heard the announcement and nearly keeled over. A free concert was about to begin (just next to where I was standing too) and who do you think was performing?.....None other than Rob Thomas himself. Some of you may be saying "Who?" and others "yeah, big deal". But if you know me, this was a HUGE deal. I've been a fan for a long time and to be able to see him for free was even better. So I got the ice cream and then we went over to the concert. We weren't able to get that close, but we could hear it. The sun was in my eyes too so we didn't stay there too long, but we could still hear it as we were walking around. So despite what Jeremy says, I do like Rob Thomas and the concert was great. That's when I decided Chicago was pretty great and not as bad as I previously thought.
They had a few kiddie rides at Taste and Brynlee was loving the carousel. Apparently she got over her previous phobia. She was all smiles this time.
This is Buckinham fountain. Taste was all around by here. It was a great fountain. Because of the great Chicago fire (of 1871, aren't I such the Chicago historian?) the city is really well laid out with tons of parks.
We of course went to the top of the Sears Tower (now called the Willis tower, but whatever). The elevator ride was a little scary. You could feel your ears pop as you went up.
This was the view:
They also have these plexiglass boxes that allow you to step out of the building and only have the clear plastic to stand on. So it's like your out 1451 feet above the ground. Really scary, but neat to see. I only did it for like 2 seconds.
As you're waiting in line to go up they show how many Michael Jordans it would take to be as tall as the tower. They also have Oprah and Barak Obama.
It was quite the involved process. I thought you'd just go up an elevator and be there, but they have you watch a movie about the tower and you have a couple of lines you wait in. So I guess time wise you don't feel like you're wasting as much money. But it is a must see so I guess it was worth it.
Other highlights from Friday include eating at this restaurant that had this guy sitting up near the ceiling in a little loft playing the guitar and singing. Trying an authentic Chicago dog (poppysee bun, mustard, pickle, relish, hot pepper). But my favorite would have to be in the hall of our hotel was a dispenser for "Chilled, Filtered water". They even had cute little plastic bottles to put it in. This was the best after a long hot day of walking around the city.
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