Chicago

Day 1

Went to Lou Malnati's Pizza, it was delicious!  We ordered the traditional deep dish Chicago pizza and loved it.  I thought the crust was fabulous but that's always my favorite part.

Then we headed to this festival going on called Taste of Chicago.  It just so happened to be right across from our hotel which was convenient.  We walked around there for a bit and then we walked around Millenium Park and visited the famous Bean.

We ended the night in our hotel room because apparently we're already an old married couple who likes to go to bed at 10:30 at night, wait, maybe that's just me.  All in all it was a fun day exploring the city.

Day 2- Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary!!

We started the day out by visiting Taste of Chicago again, this time we bought 12 tickets so that we could purchase food.  I got a mini pulled pork sandwich, it was alright.  P got a Loukaneko (a Greek sausage wrapped in a pita) and that's all the 12 tickets ($8) would buy us!

We walked along the waterfront to Navy Pier.

There we enjoyed some ice cream and live music.  Lucky for us it was an absolutely beautiful day, warm with a slight breeze, we especially enjoyed the lack of humidity (in comparison to AR) in Chicago! 

We (Kit and Laudi with us, they are now our BFF's) then walked to the John Hancock Building and found out that unfortunately it's not free (like I thought) to go up to the top and get a great view of the city.  We decided we didn't want to spend $30 to go up to the top (it was a easy decision since I could see H&M right across the street-yeah I'd much rather spend my $30 there)!

We decided to get the real city experience and take public transportation back to our hotel.  P and I took the bus to Union Station where we caught the train to Niles.  In Niles we met up with P's cousin Eric and his wife Minja.  P and Eric haven't seen each other in 8 or so years and I was happy to meet more of P's relatives!  Here we are on the train...

Eric and Minja were so nice and fun to be with, we really enjoyed having dinner with them.  They treated us to an all you can eat Korean BBQ-yum!  And they let us try a bunch of their yummy cupcakes!  They own a bakery in Niles called Le Sucre.  Minja is a baker/chef and makes all of the cakes and cupcakes from scratch.  Eric also works at the bakery doing whatever Minja tells him to do, ha ha.  Anyway, their cupcakes are delicious!!  We loooved the Red Velvet cupcake and of course the Carrot Cake cupcake was delightful as well (carrot cake was our wedding cake).

They made a special cupcake for our anniversary, it was so pretty with the handmade flowers on top.

If you're ever in Niles check out their bakery, it's to die for!  Seriously I wish I could eat their cupcakes everyday!! Eric was kind enough to drive us back to our hotel that night.  I was so glad to meet Eric and Minja, who were both so kind and fun to hang with.  We hope it's not another 8 years before we see them again!!

Overall this day was spent walking...and walking...eating tons of meat and cupcakes...and catching up with sweet family....all while celebrating 2 years together!!  Yay for us, we've made it 2 years with many more to come.

Day 3

We went hotel hopping today.  Well we just switched hotels and moved north down Michigan Ave.  We are now staying in the hotel that General Mills set up for the interns and it's definitely a step up from where we were, it's very nice.

I enjoyed lunch with the boys (P, Kit and Laudi) at some Burrito place and then parted ways with them.   

They headed off to meetings and fun activities that were planned for them.  I headed straight to the Magnificent Mile, which happened to be just outside our hotel, a blessing!  I hit up a lot of stores today and thoroughly enjoyed my time alone shopping.  Sometimes it's nice to shop alone because you can take your sweet time browsing the store and trying on clothes in the dressing room.  And you can buy whatever you want cause no one is there to stop you!  It was awesome. 

After P's meetings the company took them on a boat ride tour of the city just as the sun was setting-sounded so nice!  I stayed in the hotel room at night and watched T.V./blogged until P came home.   

Day 4

I was on my own again for this day because P had meetings and activities all day.  I did a little more shopping and walked a ton.  I made sure to visit Portillo's a place we fell in love with in California.  I walked there and it was suppose to be a 10 minute walk from our hotel but I ended up going the wrong way..twice..and it took me over an hour!  I guess it was good because I walked off my lunch before I even ate! 

 After meetings in the morning P went to his "Blissage" (a blissful massage) with the guys from work, they'd been looking forward to this for a while.  It was the activity that they chose to do (the company gave them a couple different activities to choose from and they chose that).  I got to spend about an hour with him after he was done with the massage.  I also met up with Brittany (another intern) and did a little shopping with her.  We stumbled upon Sprinkles Cupcakes and decided we must get one, I'd never had one before.  It was a pretty good cupcake, but I think Le Sucre is WAY better :)

That night P headed off to the Cubs Baseball game for work, they rented a private house above the stadium and they enjoyed lots of yummy food there.  I hit the streets again, found me some dinner and went back to the hotel to blog and watch "The Voice." 

We stayed in the same hotel room, for two nights, with Kit and Laudi, we were one big happy family. When we moved to the hotel that General Mills had set up for us, P and I had our own room. 

Day 5

P had meetings in the morning and then we had to leave to catch our flight.  We had a really great time in Chicago and I'm so happy that I got to tag along! 

A few more pics

These two pictures are from the photo booth outside the Chicago Tribune building.  You can take pictures of yourself and then they email it to you. 

This picture wasn't suppose to be blurry but I kind of like it that way. 

I think Chicago is a beautiful city, one of my favorites.