Chicago

Bright and early last Friday morning (6:18 AM) we left for the Bloomington Amtrak Station. Thankfully Max and Nora quickly fell back to sleep! Elena slept intermittently until we reached the station.

When we arrived at the station the excitement level was very high among the 3 wee ones. Max was quite thrilled anticipating his first train ride on the "Thomas Train"! You can almost hear the "Choo choos"...coming from his lips in the picture below.

After the excitement had worn off a bit and after the third or fourth time Max and Elena got in the way of the train conductor we decided to turn over the IPOD and let the kids watch a few video clips. This is the good picture that shows the Max we like to see...sharing nicely. I believe there could possibly be a picture of him with his back turned to Elena...hunched over the IPOD and watching all by himself! Ahh...we continue to train...

Once we had de-trained...we took a taxi to the hotel and met up with Dad and Mom. Once the kids had napped and we had dined on some yummy McDonalds, we all headed over to Shedd Aquarium on the bus. Gotta love the city transportation! We caught the last 15 minutes of the dolphin/whale/sea lion show, and then headed to view the rest of the very interesting sea creatures. As usual...Max's favorite was the turtle. He also enjoyed dressing up as a penguin and sliding down the penguin chute. What a ham...

The Three Musketeers hitching a ride on the sea turtle!

After the Aquarium we started to search for food options...talk about a chore on Friday night in downtown Chicago! Most of the waits for a party of 13 were until about 9:30 at night! Finally most of us decided to get some Italian food ordered in. It was quite delicious and filled us all sufficiently!

Saturday morning Nate, Tim, Dad, and I took a lovely morning jog down to the lakefront in the snow! What a beautiful morning! Michigan Avenue was must nicer at 7:45 than it was only an hour later! Once we arrived back at the hotel we all ate breakfast together...picture 13 Beutels at a table meant for about 6 or 7! Poor waiter! After breakfast Dad offered to take Max and Nora swimming so that Mary and I could take a stroll down Michigan Avenue...how nice that was as even with 2 of us it was hard getting in and out of some of the stores! Thanks, Dad! After a few hours of shopping we all met up for an early dinner at a Chicago Style Pizza place!
After dinner I got a cheap haircut ($4.99 + tip) and then we all headed down to Millennium Park. Mary had never seen "The Bean"...and thus we accomplished this task. Max and I gazed at the Zamboni machine smoothing the ice skating rink down in the park for quite some time.

Of course Mary and I took a wonderfully romantic picture in front of "The Bean"...

After spending some time in the park we all walked in through the cold night to Macy's. We took the elevator to the 8th floor and view the lovely Macy's Christmas tree that Martha Stewart decorated or at least designed.

After departing Macy's we walked a few blocks to the small German Christmas Market. Mary and I quickly ordered a Sweet German Pancake with Nutella...yum! Then we purchased a small hand pained ornament for our small Christmas tree. We looked at many of the other small shops in the small village and then headed back to the hotel. The walk back was long and cold!

Sunday morning I had a small church service with Max and Nora in the room (Daniel in the Lion's Den). Needless to say...reading a whole chapter from the Bible with no pictures did try their patience...but...Max did remember all day what we read about! Dad left for his Japan/Singapore/India/Germany trip fairly early in the morning. Tim and Melissa & Steph and Nate also left about mid morning. We ran around town just a bit more and then headed to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. The food was horrific...but the children LOVED the atmosphere!

After lunch our family, Sheila, Katy, and Mom headed in the van and drove back home. A delightful weekend with my family!