Friday-Evening

We knew that we would have to be up early Saturday morning to get to South Bend for the Notre Dame game, so Friday night we ate at Rosebud, explored Trader Joes then spent some time at this beer garten before turning in relatively early.

Rosebud Restaurant.  Stuffed mushrooms, veal and chocolate cake. (and a waitress who put her finger over the flash)

Why doesn’t Dallas have a Trader Joe’s?  I would DEFINITELY shop at Trader Joe’s.  Dear Trader Joe’s… 

Oh.  and I forgot to mention how we stopped at a 7-11 for a cool refresher during our earlier stroll around town.  We had to grab a Slurpee and a Big Gulp. Made us feel right at home.

“Big Gulps, huh? All right! Well, see ya later.”

Pretty much a perfect vacation day!

Except for when I missed my girls…a few times.

Friday-Culture

Following the stroll in the park we ventured into the Art Institute of Chicago.

In between seriously viewing some great works of art we played a fun game where we tried to guess the name of the painting before we read the description.

This was mine…

I guessed “fancy boy rides a ram.” I was close.  It was in fact…Bryan didn’t do nearly as well. This was his painting…He guessed, “woman with soldier.” Obviously he didn’t notice the olive branch the woman was holding or he would have guessed…We also enjoy affecting the same type of pose as the people in the paintings.  Here is Bryan’s take on one of my favorite pieces, Breton’s The Song of the Lark. He is good.  Very good.

We also enjoyed these…and many more.

Old Man with a Gold Chain - Rembrandt Yellow Dancers (In the Wings) - Degas Two Sisters (On the Terrace) - Renoir Apples and Grapes - MonetHaying Time - Pissarro A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - Seurat

We had a great time being together…and I definitely felt smarter when we left.

Friday-Fun

We SLEPT IN until 9:00am.

  The hotel room and the view from it…23rd floor.  Nice.

Then we had a fabulous breakfast…at 10:30.  (We’ve been eating breakfast at 7:30 am since Hayden started solids.) Vacation is a time to mix things up people! The Dutch Apple baked pancake was pretty great. Bryan also tried the corned beef hash with eggs. Breakfast may really be the most important meal of the day.

Then we strolled downtown and explored Millennium Park.

The Cloud Gate at Millennium Park was pretty great. We recommend stopping by. Quite the fun photo op.

More to come from Friday.  (Aren’t you glad this trip was just a few days long…)

Thursday

We walked around Chicago’s Miracle Mile Thursday afternoon.  Did a little shopping and a little people watching.

We had drinks at the Signature Lounge at the top of the John Hancock building that evening.  The views were amazing! We also had dessert before we had dinner.  We are wild and crazy!

Then we had a wonderful dinner at Joe's Seafood. If you are ever in Chicago and want to have really good crab and/or steak…go to Joe’s.  Yummy.

Day one of vacation—success.

Childless Travel

We highly recommend taking a trip without your children.  Or at least traveling as just a couple.  I found sitting on the airplane for 4 hours reading a book to be very relaxing.  The perfect way to begin and end a trip.We were crazy city folks and rode the subway instead of renting a car while in the city.  I must admit that I felt very urban. And green.

I must also say that we were so very blessed with the logistics of the trip.  Every plane was on time, every line was short and quick, every leg of the trip went scarily smooth. It was wonderful.

Thank you Lord for an answered prayer—smooth travel!

Chi-Town

Bryan and I left our two year old “spirited” toddler and our solely breastfed baby with my mother and went on vacation to Chicago/South Bend—for FOUR days! 

It was wonderful.  Despite missing our babies we suffered through meals where we only fed ourselves, walks without pushing 50+ pounds in a stroller, reading books without pictures (for multiple hours uninterrupted), carrying a purse instead of a diaper bag and conversations that didn’t consist of answering the same question 265 times. 

Fan-tab-u-lous.

I think I’ll break down the trip in several posts. Bet you can’t wait…

Fire Station

We’ve joked in the past about dropping the kids off at the fire station—since the fire station is considered a “safe haven” location.  A few weekends ago we did go to the fire station but ended up leaving with both the kids we brought. 

Our friend Jacob turned two and had us to the fire station and to the park for a birthday party! Happy Birthday Jake! We loved visiting the firemen and playing on the playground.  Thanks for having us.