We had such a wonderful time on our trip to Chicago, even though I think it will take me a week to recooperate. ;0)
We had to be @ the airport @ 7:30 on Monday, so Steve, Memaw, Emma and I got up and left the house by 7am. We got in and got through security with about 45 minutes before time to board. Emma sat and watched the other planes come in and out and kept asking if each one was "our plane"? When they called us to board, we said our goodbyes, of course with me holding back tears! lol! We boarded the plane, found our seats and got settled for our flight. Our flight to Chicago was smooth, not much turbulence at all and rather uneventful. We landed @ Ohare and walked what seemed like forever to get our bags from baggage claim and then took a shuttle to our hotel. When we arrived @ our hotel and stepped off the shuttle, the wind almost knocked us down. They are really NOT kidding when they call it the Windy city. ;)
We get into the hotel and leave our bags with the bellman and go on up and check out our room on the 16th floor. For those of you that know me and know I am a CITY girl, I was in my element or at least at the time. :) We waited around a few min to have our bags brought up and once we got our bags, we headed out to see the city. We decided to just start walking and try to remember the way we came so we did not get lost on the 1st day! ;) We found a wonderful hot dog place called the American Dog http://americasdog.com/ and right next door was a little mexican resturaunt called Taco Fresco. I got my burrito and then we headed next door so Steve could get a famous Chicago dog. :) The food was wonderful at both places and we felt lucky to have gotten it right without any help from the locals. :)
After that, we decided to walk to theMagnificent Mile http://www.themagnificentmile.com/ and do some shopping. Little did we know, that we were about 8 blocks from the start of the mile and then you have to travel down the mile to see the shops along the way. We walked and saw all of the upscale stores like Nieman Marcus http://www.neimanmarcus.com/ and Nordstrom http://shop.nordstrom.com/ and also other fun stores like Coach, Louis Vuitton, and Burberry. I did not buy anything in these stores, but they were OH SO fun to look around in. :) They also had a Tiffany &Co which always reminds me of the Sweet Home Alabama movie.
After LOTS of walking, we decided to go back to the room for a little while until we decided what we wanted to do next. We got back to the room and took a small nap, or at least I did. :) then we headed out to Giordani's http://www.giordanos.com/? for some Chicago style pizza and if you ever go to chicago, and you want good pizza, then this is the place for you! :) We had so much left over it was unreal so we had the waiter split up the leftovers in 2 different bags so that if we came across a homeless person we could leave a bag with them.
When we got done eating, we walked through the Millineum Park and looked at all of the different art exhibits. Then we decided to start making the walk back to our hotel and of course we passed a homeless man and we left our leftovers with him. Who knows if he was really wanting leftovers or not, but thats what he got. We got back to our room and watched some TV before we were both fast asleep.
The next morning, we decided that we wanted to go to Navy Pier http://www.navypier.com/ and walk around. I had my heart set on riding the ferris wheel so off we went. :) We decided to take a cab, even though I was a little skeptical, just because of the horror stories I had heard. We got to Navy Pier and walked down Dock st and out on the water. It was a gorgous view of Lake Michagan and the city skyline from the pier. The ferris wheel was closed :( so we decided to walk through some of the musuems & eat lunch @ Bubba Gumps http://www.bubbagump.com/ The food there was DELICOUS and even better was the atmosphere especially if you are a fan of the Forrest Gump movie. :)
After lunch we decided to walk to the mile again and visit the American Girl store. The American girl store is AMAZING in Chicago. http://www.americangirl.com/ They only have 3 stores like this, one in NY, one in LA and the other in Chicago. It had a Hair Salon, Doll hospital and all the American Girl stuff you could imagine. :) It had 3 stories to browse through and of course we came home with a doll for Emma Grace. :)
After shopping some more on the Mile, we decided to come back to the hotel and get ready to go to a Chicago White Sox game. We got back to the room and called the Concierge to find out about the tickets to the game. We got ready to go to the game and came downstairs to catch a cab. Thats another one of the nice things about staying in a nicer hotel, the bellmen stand outside and hail the cabs for you so you don't have to look like a tourist and not know what you are doing. ;) We took a cab to US Cellular field and watched the White Sox play the Cleveland Indians. We had a WONDERFUL time there and I am so glad we decided to go, even though I was a little unsure at first. After the game, it was late so we came home and sacked out again! lol!
The next morning, we got up and we had planned to go to Chinatown but decided to just stick close around the hotel. I had already shopped so much i had no idea how I was going to get all of our stuff home. ;) We hit a few stores around the hotel and did alot of our souviner shopping and then I spotted a TJ Maxx where I picked up another piece of luggage to use on the way back since I had LOTS more to take home than I had brought! ;) Steve also found me the Vera Bradley large duffel in Cambridge which matches my purse and makeup bag while we were in Chicago, but I was not going to let my new bag to go through all that baggage claim and conveyor belts so I just decided to save it to use when we go on our next trip in June, which will be by car so I won' t have to worry. :)
After shopping, we went to a WONDERUL mexican resturaunt for lunch called Chipotle. http://www.chipotle.com/# and all I can say is WOW WOW WOW!! I was so excited to see that they also have these resturaunts in Bham which of course as most of you know will be home to us soon!! I am sure that will be a place I visit often. :)
After lunch, it was back to the room for a quick nap and by then it was time for Steve to get ready to go to his convention down in the hotel lobby. I got him out the door by 6:20 and then I layed in the hotel bed and watched Grey's Anatomy on my Ipod. :) It was nice to be able to just lay around and after 3 days of walking, my legs were sore. Steve got back to the room around 11 and he was so excited! They had a promotion while they were here, where they get to play in a Casino type thing for being the Top dealers in Kia. There were so many people here from Kia and they even had the new SUV that Kia will be debuting late 2008, for everyone to see.
After getting winded down from all the excitement, we finally got to sleep around midnight, but only to be awakened by our 3:45am wake up call, since our shuttle back to Ohare airport was @ 4:30 am. So we jumped up, got dressed and headed downstairs with our luggage. We got on the shuttle @ 4:35 am and headed to Ohare, where we got through check in and security only to have to wait for another almost 2 hours to board. We looked around the airport gift shops and settled by our gate waiting area. After some time, we get our boarding call and we are on board our plane to Huntsville, Alabama. :) Steve slept almost the whole way back and I slept the last 45 min of the flight. We land in Huntsville, and my ears are KILLING me! I have the hardest time flying. My ears pop almost the whole time and I always have the worst ear and headache you can imagine. :( We get off the plane and get almost to Baggage claim and I realize I do not have my ipod. :( We go to the American Airlines counter and they call the plane and of course no one can find it. I am sick to my stomach at this point, I looked through my purse again and checked my carry on, no Ipod. :( So, once we got home and I looked through all the bags AGAIN, and still no Ipod, i have come to the conclusion that someone is enjoying a Ipod touch all to themselves. What can you do? Sure can't dwell on it, Steve says we are buying a new one, even though the sound of it,makes me cringe.
So that was our trip and the only bad thing that happened was the ipod moment, I think we did ok. :) We had lots of fun, just me and Steve and thats what mattered the most. :)
