Chicago, Day 7: Saturday, July 16

On Saturday morning, we packed up all of our things and checked out of the hotel. Then, we decided to walk down by the Chicago River for awhile. It wasn't too hot and it was still fairly early, so it was a nice walk. We went to Big Bowl for lunch and ordered Chinese and Thai. Eric and I went to a Thai buffet in London several years ago, but we're not entirely sure what we actually ate that night. Other than that experience, this was the first time we'd ever had Thai, and it was pretty good. Lately, Anya has been wanting whatever we're eating and we typically try to give her what we're having unless she either won't eat it or it's not good for her to have. We decided to let her try the Kung Pao Chicken. It wasn't that hot - at first. Anya ate the first couple of pieces with no problem, but after a few minutes, she just started screaming. She refused to take a drink or to eat anything else on the plate. Instead, she started licking the plastic mat we use at restaurants to put her food on. I know it's not really funny, but we couldn't help but laugh. Finally, Eric pulled out some applesauce and Eric got her to eat some of that and she got better.

After lunch, we got our car and headed back to Evansville. On the way, we stopped by a daylily farm to feed Eric's addiction. In fact, it was the same farm we stopped at on the way back from Michigan last summer. Eric bought several daylilies and we got back in the car to head back. We stopped at Arby's in Terre Haute for a quick dinner and then got back around 9:15 pm. Anya was up late that night because she had slept in the car so much, but she eventually went to bed.

We had a great time in Chicago. Even though we spent 6 nights there, there is still so much to see. We would highly recommend our hotel (Comfort Suites). It was right in the middle of the city and the staff was excellent. It was also nice to have an actual bedroom, kitchen, and living room. It made it a lot easier for Eric and I to stay up and watch TV after Anya went to bed. We would also recommend the CityPass. It got us into most of the museums and attractions and the whole packet of tickets was half the price of what it would have cost to go to each of them separately. For the metro, it was nice to have a pass as well. The best choice we made was to park the car and just take public transportation. The traffic is stressful and I hated driving in it to and from the hotel when arriving and leaving. It is much, much easier to just hop on the bus or the metro to get to where you are going. We just took the umbrella stroller with us and carried a large backpack as our diaper bag. This made travel around the city fairly easy.

Now that our family vacation is over, Eric and I are counting down to Jamaica!

Chicago, Day 6, July 15

On Friday, we planned to be indoors a majority of the day because it was supposed to be really hot. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry for a good portion of the day. It was fun, but I think it will be more fun in a few years when Anya is old enough to enjoy more of the museum. However, she got to see baby chicks hatching from eggs, which was kind of neat. There were a lot of interesting exhibits at the museum, but we noticed that there were so many school groups there that it was hard to enjoy much of it. The kids didn't seem to be very well behaved. When I went on field trips as a child, I remember having to walk quietly in a line, but this wasn't the case with these groups. You could barely get through some of the hallways because the kids were running up and down the hallways.

After the Museum of Science and Industry, we had planned to visit the Oriental Institute, but we were exhausted so we just headed back to the hotel instead. After a bit of a rest, we went to Buca di Beppo for dinner and then stopped by Fannie Mae's to grab some ice cream to take back to the hotel. The three of us split the ice cream and if we weren't feeding Anya fast enough, she would just help herself with her little spoon. After Anya went to bed, Eric and I relaxed with yet another glass of wine. it was a fun day but I feel like the last full day of vacation is always the worst just because the fact that you are leaving the next day is always in the back of your mind...

Chicago, Day 5: Thursday, July 14

Thursday we decided to do a little walking and shopping on the Magnificent Mile. We still had a few gifts we wanted to get. We had heard about this store in one of the nice malls on the Mag Mile called Vosges Haut Chocolat (don't ask me to pronounce it!. They had gourmet chocolate, meaning that the chocolate bar normally had unusual things in it. For example, one of them had hickory smoked almond, one had some kind of chili peppers in it, and one had plantains. We got some gifts for our families and then hurried to catch the metro to the Bucktown/Wicker Park area for a food tour.

The food tour was amazing and we would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Chicago. It was $45 a person but included lunch and it was a very good lunch. The tour lasted over 3 hours and also included history and information about the neighborhood. These are all the places we visited:

George's Hot Dogs - Here we had a true Chicago-style hot dog, which does not include ketchup. Instead, it had things like relish, onions, tomatoes, celery salt, peppers, and a couple of other ingredients. I don't typically like hot dogs but this one was actually pretty good.

Hot Chocolate - The chef at this location is world-famous and we got to try an iced hot chocolate with a homemade marshmallow. I have never had a homemade marshmallow, but it was really amazing. It made me want to learn how to make them.

The Goddess and Grocer - This place was owned by someone who used to travel with rock stars and cater the band's meals, so we knew it had to be good. We tried a grilled vegetable salad that had veggies (of course) with goat cheese and a vinagerette-type dressing.

Piece - Here we got to sample one of their beers (it was also a microbrewery) and a slice of New Haven-style pizza. Though Chicago is known for the deep dish, the deep dish pizza takes a good 45 minutes to prepare, so apparently a lot of Chicagoans still eat the thin crust pizza.

Sultan's Market - We got a chance to sample our first Falafel Sandwich, as we were each given a half of a sandwich which was still pretty good. Falafel is made of garbanzo beans and a few other ingredients. It was actually really good, so we've looked up all the places to get Falafel in Evansville.

iCream - This was our final stop. AT this ice cream shop, you could be creative and put together your own ice cream and they make the ice cream right in front of you, with liquid nitrogen and everything. First, you choose whether you want ice cream, milkshake, yogurt, etc. and then you choose the base (yogurt, soy milk, whole milk, fat free milk, organic milk, etc.) and then the flavor and the toppings. We sampled a small scoop of white chocolate ice cream made with regular milk. The mix-ins were cream soda and Nutella. It sounded kind of wierd but was actually pretty amazing.

We absolutely loved this tour. We met a lot of great people, including an Indian family from South Africa. They were touring parts of the US and their next stop was in Cancun for a week-long family reunion. We exhanged information with one of the guys and now we are facebook friends with him. Maybe he can help us plan our future trips to Africa and India! Even though the tour was over 3 hours, Anya did really well. She actually liked it because we got to stop and eat a lot, and she ended up sleeping in her stroller through the neighborhood tour part, so it worked out perfectly.

After the tour, we went back to a couple of the places and got some snacks for later because we had tour-exclusive coupons. Then, we went back to the hotel for showers. After that, we went to the Art Institute of Chicago since it is open later on Thursday nights and we weren't very hungry for dinner because of all the food we ate at lunch. We just did a short tour of the building and looked for only the must-see pieces of art, stopping at the interesting ones on the way. Even though we don't know much about art, we still enjoyed it.

After finishing up at the Art Institute, we went to The Billy Goat Tavern, which has apparently been made famous by a Saturday Night Live skit with John Belushi. We just had cheeseburgers and chips as a late dinner and then went back to the hotel to have our goodies. Unfortunately, my stomach was bothering me that night, so no wine for me!

I also forgot to mention that on Tuesday after the beach, we got a chance to walk around Millineum Park, which was fun. There are several sculptures, including the famous "bean" that you can see your reflection in, which is pretty cool. There is also a sprinkler-type sculpture that I can't remember the name of, but it has pictures of Chicagoans on either side whose facial expressions change and in the middle are sprinklers. It was really hot the day we were there, so lots of people were playing in the fountain. There is also the Lurie Garden which was meant to mimic a field of wildflowers. In addition, there is a huge outdoor auditorium that offered concerts. They had a lot of free summertime concerts and events going on in the park but we didn't get a chance to see any of these...maybe next time!

Addendum to Chicago Trip, Tuesday

I forgot to add that on Tuesday of our vacation, we went to Willis Tower and took the elevator to the top, which is 103 stories. When you get to the top, there is a skydeck that is clear glass. You can literally step out over the street 103 floors up. Anya absolutely loved it. She kept wanting to stand at the window and look out over the city. Even though I knew it was safe, it was still kind of creepy to let her crawl around on it. If anyone visits Chicago, this is definitely a must-see!

Definitely too old for this...

This weekend was crazy, just like any other weekend. Friday after work we had planned to eat at the Manna Grill (it's in the old Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken on Lincoln Ave.) and then go to Target to pick up a few things. I ended up inviting a couple of friends from work to eat with us. The food was pretty good. I had Chicken Schwarma and Eric had a Falafel sandwich, and we split an order of the hummus and pita bread. We had Falafel in Chicago and wanted to try it here and that is one of the few places in Evansville to get it. I'm sure we will be going back.

The five of us (plus Anya) sat and talked through dinner for almost 2 hours and everyone was interested in getting margaritas somewhere, so we suggested that people come to our house and we could make margaritas and get in the pool. So we went home and Anya went straight to bed because she was so tired. We made margaritas using Hacienda's recipe and went swimming until after midnight. At about 12:30, we got the munchies and ended up ordering pizza and breadsticks that arrived around 1:15. At 2 in the morning, we were sitting in our living room playing the game Things, drinking, and eating pizza and breadsticks. Everyone left around 2:30 and we got to bed at 3. We were totally dragging all day Saturday but we had a great time Friday night. It has been a LONG time since we have stayed up hanging out with friends and drinking.

Saturday morning we got some things done around the house and I had to play for a wedding in the afternoon while Eric and Anya went to get more daylillies for the backyard and then the grocery. After the wedding, we went to 5 pm Mass and then came home because we were having more company. My friend Beth (from high school), her husband Michael, and her 19 month old daughter Lucy came over. They had picked up Turoni's pizza and garlic cheese toast and we had salad ready for dinner. It was fun to see the girls try to play together. After dinner, we went swimming. Even though it was dark, it was still hot so the water felt good.

This morning, I had to play at church and I'm hoping to get some things done with my comprehensive exam and thesis this afternoon. Though it was a busy weekend, it was still nice to finally have some time to hang out with friends.

Chicago, Day 4: Wednesday, July 13

Wednesday was the coolest day of the week and the high was only in the upper 70's. We thought this might be the best day to tackle the Lincoln Park Zoo, since it was so cool. We were hoping the animals would also be more active. The zoo didn't open until 10, but we hopped on the bus and went to Lincoln Park a little early to visit the Green City Farmers' Market, which was pretty awesome. We ended up buying some cheeses from this booth from Wisconsin. They had this cheese that you grill and it doesn't get really oozy like most cheeses. We bought some of that, as well as some raw white cheddar and garlic cheese spread, which was amazing. Anya liked tasting the different kinds of cheese and so did I! We also bought some pretzel bread and another kind of bread to eat with the cheese bread along with lunch. There was a booth from Michigan that had sweet cherries, so we decided to get some cherries as well. Then it was off to the zoo!

The zoo was very small but they had a lot of good exhibits. Even though it was small, it was a good size for a small child. We went to a sea otter show and then saw some big cats (lion, tiger, and jaguar), giraffes, monkeys, and gorillas. What we liked about the zoo is that usually it was glass that separated you from the animals so Anya could get right up to the glass and peer into the exhibit. The lions were actually sleeping right up at the glass so Anya was able to get super close to them, which she loved! We visited the gorillas after eating our picnic lunch. They had several of them, including one silverback gorilla who was huge! We happened to walk into the exhibit when they were doing a presentation about testing they do with the gorillas. Testers had computers rolled up to the gate and the gorillas were supposed to put things in sequential order and when they got it right, they got a treat. It was kind of neat to see. Unfortunately, Anya slept through most of this exhibit.

At that point, we headed back to the hotel to refresh ourselves. We decided to try a second pizza place, Lou Malnati's, which is way better than Giordano's. I had signed up for their online membership so we had a coupon for a free appetizer if we spent $20. We got calamari as an appetizer and treated ourselves to beer with our deep dish pizza. If anyone goes to Chicago, we would highly recommend this place!

After dinner, we went back to Navy Pier for a sunset cruise on the water, though we had some time to do a little souvenir shopping beforehand. Anya did not do so well on the cruise. For one thing, it was really cold and we hadn't expect it to be as cold as it was. But that didn't seem to bother her. She wanted to be down and crawling around but we weren't supposed to be up and moving while the boat was moving. We finally took her below the deck and let her walk around the benches and then she was happy. She would tap Eric on the knee and the scurry off, looking back to make sure he was watching her. She kept doing that, trying to get Eric to chase her. The actual cruise itself was alright but nothing special. We thought there would be at least a little narration (like there was in the sunset cruise we took in Saugatuck last summer), but there was nothing. The sunset was beautiful and it was neat to see the skyline from the water but the rest of the cruise was mediocre at best. Besides the lack of narration, they played really bad country music during the cruise. I'm not saying anything negative about country music, but I thought for a cruise like this, it should have been something bluesy, jazzy, or big band to reflect the bustle of a big city. There are tons of songs they could have used that are about "the city" or "night and day" or "sunset." I just thought their music could have complemented the tour with a little more planning.

After the tour, we headed back downtown to find a snack, but unfortunately, nothing was open that late except for Starbucks. We ended up getting a snack and a frappachino from there and headed back to the hotel. Anya was asleep in the stroller at this point, so we were able to get her to bed pretty quickly.

Chicago, Day 3: Tuesday, July 12

Because of the weather, we decided to change around our original plans for Tuesday. Also, since we had such a long day on Monday, it was nice to do something more informal. After breakfast, we went to North Avenue Beach. It is crazy to think that Chicago has beaches because we never really thought about it, but it is actually pretty nice. The water was really cold so we didn't get in much. Instead, we spent the time playing in the sand. Anya hated the sand at first but eventually played in it, though she wouldn't sit in the sand. We also had a little tent set up for her to sit in if it got too hot or sunny. She liked sitting in there eating her puffs. We brought a picnic lunch so we ate lunch on the beach and then headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up.

After spending some time resting in the hotel, we set out to take the brown line on the metro. It weaves in between office buildings and you are close enough to peer into the windows. While it was neat, it wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be and didn't seem any different from anything else we've seen while travelling in Europe.

Once we left the metro, we decided to look for somewhere to eat. We were really hungry and ended up settling for a place called Burrito Beach, though it wasn't quite what we were looking for. One nice thing about it, though, is that it was cheap. After dinner, we walked around the Magnificent Mile a little and ended up stopping at the Hershey store to get some treats. We got them to-go and then headed back to the hotel. Anya fell asleep in her crib so we got her right in bed when we got back and were able to enjoy our treats with a nice glass of wine:)

Chicago, Day 2: Monday, July 11

We got up early Monday morning so we could get to Shedd's Aquarium as close to 8:30 as possible. While we were in Chicago, we used public transportation or walked 100% of the time, so we took the bus to the aquarium because it was the easiest and straightest shot to it. Of course, while we were on the bus, Chicago was hit by a really nasty storm. When the bus arrived, we ran to the covering by the bus stop to regroup and then ran in the rain to the entrance. We had a great time at Shedd's and I think Anya enjoyed it, too. We went to a dolphin show and there was a special Jellies exhibition that was really interesting. I've never seen that many kinds of jellyfish all in one place. I didn't even know there were that many kinds, either. We brought our own lunch and ate near the dolphin pool. There was a ledge that Anya could stand up on and stand right at the glass. She loved the dolphins and kept pointing at them when they swam past her. She also liked the beluga whales. After lunch, we took Anya to the play area where she put on a penguin suit, went down the slide, and crawled through tunnels. We didn't stay long because a lot of bigger kids eventually showed up and we didn't want her to get trampled.

After Shedd's Aquarium, we headed toward The Field Museum. While this was a good museum, it just wasn't as interesting as Shedd's. I don't know if it was because we were tired and Anya was a little fussy or if it just really wasn't as good. We went through several exhibits, including the Eqyptian tomb, the African animals (to see the Lions of Tsavo), and Sue (the T-Rex). What's kind of interesting is that Eric and I were both on family vacations in the western part of the US when Sue was being discovered and they were trying to figure out where she was going to go.

After going back to the hotel, we opted to go down to Navy Pier for dinner. We ended up eating at Bubba Gump's, which was a little expensive, but good. Then, we rode the bus back to the Mag Mile and walked to the Ghirardelli store for an ice cream brownie sundae. It was amazing!

Back at the hotel, Anya didn't take quite as long to get to sleep but she was definitely fighting it. It was like she knew we were on vacation and she was too excited to sleep. After she finally went to bed, Eric and stayed up a little later and had a glass of wine before bed.

Chicago, Day 1: Sunday, July 10

We got up before 6 am so that we could leave by 8 am. Eric and I were both able to get showers and get ready before Anya woke up. After loading the rest of the stuff into the car and eating some breakfast, we were off. Unfortunately, our GPS did not know about the construction and closures right outside of Chicago so we drove around in circles for awhile until we figured out exactly how to get into the city. We finally pulled in around 3 pm. We got the car sent to the valet for parking and checked into our hotel. The nice part about our hotel room was that we had a 1-bedroom suite, meaning that we could put Anya to bed in her pack and play in the bedroom and then we could hang out in the living room until we were ready for bed. We also had free breakfast and free internet. We were on the 11th floor and had wall to wall windows in parts of the room so that we had a great view of other buildings. While we were there, Anya loved standing up at the window and looking out at the city below.

Once we got settled in, we ventured out to explore the Magnificent Mile, even though it was pretty hot out. We stopped to see some street performers who were dancing in the street, which was pretty neat to see. We were also lucky enough to meet up with Tricia, a friend of mine from grad school who lives in Chicago. She, her husband, and her son met us downtown and walked with us for awhile. Tricia was 9 months pregnant and her due date was the following day. (She actually ended up having her daughter the day after meeting us.) When we got hungry, we headed for Giordano’s for some Chicago-style deep dish pizza. We had decided that we were going to try 2 different pizza places during the week we were there and we kept hearing about Giordano’s and Lou Malnati’s. We had stuffed mushrooms, garlic bread, and deep dish pizza. The pizza was pretty good but not quite as good as I had hoped, though overall it was a good meal.

After dinner, we walked around a bit longer but then went back to the hotel. Anya was up really late because she didn’t want to go to sleep. I think she knew we were on vacation and wanted to stay up with us so she wouldn’t miss anything. We ended up walking her up and down the street at like 10:30 in the evening to try to make her sleepy. We walked around for about 15 minutes before the people started to look kind of shady and then came back to the room. Anya wasn’t completely asleep, but she had at least calmed down a little and was able to fall asleep. It was a pretty good day, other than getting Anya to sleep, and we were excited for an entire week to spend in such a beautiful city.

More to come about our week as time allows…

It's Been Awhile...

I realize it has been a long time since I have updated this blog. I'm hoping to jump back into updating this more often, though I must admit it will be hard to find the time. With working full time hours (one part time job and several part time contracts) and trying to market my business, finishing up my thesis so I can be finished with my Masters degree, taking care of Anya, keeping up with the house, cars, etc., and dealing with all the little extras that come up, time is short most days, as it is for most people!

Anyway, there has been lots going on, including our recent family vacation to Chicago, our upcoming anniversary trip to Jamaica, getting ready to order new carpet for a good portion of the house, and working on finishing up my Masters degree. In addition, I've been trying to lose weight. I've been doing Weight Watchers since the end of January/beginning of February and have lost 31 pounds. I met my first long-term goal over a month ago, but decided to try to lose 7 more pounds. I am getting close to hitting that goal but I'm trying to decide whether or not to stop there or go on...As it stands right now, I am 22 pounds lighter than I was at my 8 week OB appointment, so I'm lighter than I was before I got pregnant. In fact, I think I weigh less now than I did when I met Eric. Regardless, I am just happy to be within the healthy BMI range, instead of the overweight range I was in before.