Happy Birthday to Us...just a little late.

Greg and I went to Chicago without the kids as our late birthday presents. (Thanks to Dad, Mom, and Katy for keeping the kids!) Our original plan was to ride the train up and then use the 'L' to get around. Well, it turns out the train was cancelled because of work on the high speed rail line, so Amtrak took us to Chicago on a bus instead. It was still nice for Greg to not have to drive!

After the bus, we headed to the nearest 'L' station and took our first of MANY looks at a station map to figure out which branch/what stop to take to our hotel.

We stayed at Hotel Monaco and loved our room! There was plenty of color and design all around. 

Plus, there were two gorgeous window seats (which we weren't hardly in the room enough to use, unfortunately).

Once settled into our room, we headed out to Wrigley Field for some lunch before our tour started. 

We ate at Wrigleyville's Sports Corner, where we could see the back of the field.

Front of the building, while we waited to get in

The poor lady we asked to take our picture had such a hard time trying to figure out our camera...this was one of several pictures she took, and honestly I was just glad to see one that looked decent! :)

Wrigley Field...from the seats down below, the field didn't look very big.  The ivy covered walls looked beautiful, though!

Smile!

View from the bleachers...the field was a gorgeous green, and we learned that it was brand new sod.  There hadn't even been one game played on it.  No wonder it looked so good!

The scoreboard...each of those letters/numbers weighs something like 10 pounds.  Inside the scoreboard there is no heating or air conditioning, either.  I hope the scoreboard workers get paid well!  It looks like a job I would not like to do!

The buildings around Wrigley Field started having 'parties' that just happened to coincide with game days and people would watch from the roofs of the buildings.  Wrigley Field decided to put up a big wall to 'shield its patrons from wind,' and the building owners put up a big stink.  The result:  Wrigley now gets 17% of the ticket sales from all of the surrounding rooftops.  I'd say they played that one pretty well for themselves!

Inside the visitors' locker room (more specifically, inside a locker!)

Greg doesn't fit in it quite so well. :)

An official chair!

When Michael Jordan played baseball, this was his locker during the one game he played at Wrigley.  It's locker #1, and they give it to whichever player is likely to receive the most press attention, basically.

This made us smile (and me gag) as we left the locker room.  Look at all of that Dubble Bubble!

Our next stop was the Press Box.  On the way, there is this beautiful patio with a great city view.

View from above

A photo of each current Cubs team member lines the stairway up to the press box.  I didn't recognize a single name.  Greg knew a couple of them; this guy must have been one of them. :)

The press box!  It might have been my favorite place, just for the view of everything.

This is the organ that is played every game.  The guy who plays it has been doing it for 20 or 25 years...I don't remember the actual number.

Winding down our tour, we visited the Cubs locker room.  Framed jersey numbers of some famous past cubbies were along this wall.  I did recognize these names, though I can't remember right now who they all were!

Greg and the Cubbies' jerseys

Such a nice, neat, clean locker room...wonder what it looks like on a game day? :)

Our last stop on the tour was the field itself.  Here I am in the dugout...I think I would be picked as last to bat. :)

Best looking guy to ever sit there, I'm sure! :)

I'm so glad we did the tour.  I'm not really into baseball, but our tour guide was great and it was super interesting and fun!

Afterwards, we walked around trying to find a toy store we'd seen online. 

As we walked, we came across Bittersweet Bakery. The cakes in their front window were phenomenal! We only ordered drinks, but wished we could have sampled the whole store.

This one is my favorite!

Just...wow.

Inside, things looked just as beautiful.

All of those delicious tarts!  Yum!

After the toy store, which was a bit of a disappointment, we decided to use our CityPasses and go to the Field Museum.

This, right here, is pretty much why I wanted to go.  We couldn't go to Chicago and not see Sue (and get some pictures for Max!)

Pretty impressive.

Max thought this picture was cool, but it's hard to compete with his books that have pictures that look like 'actual' dinosaurs.  Just the bones don't make quite the same impression. :)

That's more like it for Max!

The head on the whole body skeleton is actually just a replica.  Here is Sue's real head, which weighs 600 pounds!  It was impressive to stand right up next to it...it is just enormous!

We went through the Genghis Khan exhibit and then the Grainger Hall of Gems.

Neat fossil

This display was about a meteorite that fell in Benld, IL, in 1938.  It went through the roof of a carriage shed (the wood on the top left), through the canvas roof of an automobile (cloth on top right), through the seat, and dented the muffler.  Good thing it didn't hit anyone!

By the time we were finished at the museum it was about 4:00 and we were getting tired from walking, so we headed back to our hotel. We remembered reading on the hotel's website that you could ask for a complimentary 'companion goldfish' for your room. We asked at the desk, and they had one left! I made Greg ask at the desk, and he told them that his wife would cry if she didn't get the goldfish since we were there celebrating her birthday....we got the fish!

We both agreed that our feet hurt after so much walking...it felt good to just relax in our room for a bit!

Our room had a very cool couch in it, so we tried to get a good self-timer shot on it.

For supper we ate at Ruth's Chris Steak House, a place Greg has been wanting to eat for a very long time. Our meal was sooooo delicious and relaxing! (It better be delicious for the prices they charge!) Our salads were especially good and my filet and Greg's ribeye were so great that we declared them 'as good as making them at home!' The side dishes were mediocre, but the salads and steaks made up for them, I think. We got a key lime pie to go since we were so stuffed.

View from walking back from Ruth's Chris...there's our hotel, the short black building in the middle.  I like how it has the name going down the side.

One of the streets has these cool lights along it.  I think it's State Street, maybe?

On Saturday morning, we got up around 7:15 to go on a run. I'm still doing the couch to 5K program (on week 4!), so Greg graciously ran very sloooowly with me. We ran down Navy Pier, just to see what it's all about. I never did get a chance to ride on that ferris wheel, so we'll just have to take the kids there someday and do it.

Here are some more pictures of the cool fabrics in our hotel room:

Sweet couch

Neat curtains

Beautiful window seat

Once we came back and cleaned up, we ate breakfast at the South Water Kitchen, the restaurant in our hotel. We packed up our bags in the room and just left them with the hotel staff and headed out into the city. Our first stop was Macy's to find me some new shoes. The only ones I had at home that matched my outfit were old Old Navy flip flops. I know they aren't good for your feet anyway, but I really don't recommend a day in Chicago with them! New sandals on my feet, we walked to Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) to go up on the Skydeck. As we waited in line for the first elevator to take us to the tickets floor, the lady told us to expect an hour and a half wait. Oh, no! I don't like high buildings anyway, and I KNEW that if I had to wait that long to go up, I would psyche myself out and not be able to do it. Heart sinking, I got on the elevator anyway and we went to the tickets room. The lines were crazy long. Thankfully, we had bought a Chicago CityPass and therefore already had our tickets. Much to my delight, there were separate EMPTY AREAS for lines for CityPass holders! Greg and I walked right past the huge mass of people and were in an elevator going to the Skydeck in less than 10 min. I'm not sure I can tell you how thankful I was! As we ascended in the elevator, I noticed another woman burying her head in her husband's chest. Oh, how I sympathized. In the elevator there was a TV screen telling us how many floors and feet we had gone up and compared it to other buildings around the world. I'm sure it was interesting and I wish I had watched it. At the time, though, I just couldn't watch it. At the top, I was clutching Greg pretty tightly and staying back from the windows. I'm positive I could feel the building sway every once in a while, and even though I know it's built to do that....it didn't help.

Beautiful picture Greg took while I was cowering by the gift shop

I'm so glad Greg isn't afraid of heights!  I love these pictures!

It was perfect for viewing; the skies were blue and cloudless.

The Skydeck has four glass boxes on the side of the tower and as we waited in line to go on it, I was trying really hard to calm my breathing and not cry. I wish I weren't such a wimp about heights!!! Thankfully I never threw up or anything. A lady right in front of us heard me whispering to Greg, "You are NOT letting go of me!  I'm not sure I can do this...I'm not sure I can even take a picture of you on it!" and told me that her trick is to just turn around and back onto the skydeck, so you never have to actually look down.  I know...isn't the view the point?  But for me, just standing on glass was going to be a big deal.

When it was our turn, I turned around and started walking backwards.  I could tell when my foot hit the glass, even though I wasn't looking, and felt the panic start to rise a bit.  I froze and said, "Greg, come back here...I can't back up any more!"  He coaxed me back a little bit so we could actually get a picture, and here it is:

I scolded Greg for laughing when I looked at the picture later...he noticed that even though I'm smiling, my eyes still have a little bit of crazy "GET ME OUT OF HERE" look in them.

The lady who took our pictures (the one who told me to back onto it) couldn't get our whole bodies in the picture, and I'm wishing now that I'd asked her to just take one of our feet.  But, when you're freaking out about standing on glass 103 stories up in the air and there is a long line of people watching you, you just don't think of things like that.  At least I didn't.  As soon as this picture was taken I just about jumped back into the building.  It was then that I noticed a couple of families behind us in line who were watching me and smiling...I'm sure it was entertaining!

I did have to buck up enough to take some pictures of Greg...we had to have at least one that showed the whole glass box!

My brave, brave man! :)

All in all, I'm glad I did it, and I would do it again...not that I would have any less nerves, etc. about it, but I would do it again anyway.  Who knows, maybe next time I would calm down more quickly and be able to relax a little more.

Part of the reason Greg wanted to go to Chicago for my birthday is that there is a restaurant called Frontera Grill that I've been wanting to visit.  It's authentic Mexican, and our food was DELICIOUS!  This was our yummy dessert: a strawberry shortcake with an orange and black pepper cake.

We shared it, but I could have eaten the whole thing!

I would definitely go there again!

As we were sitting at Frontera waiting for our food, we were both so hot and tired and our feet ached from all of the walking that we just kind of sat and looked at each other.  We had other options of things to do on our CityPass, which we could probably fit one in before our 6:30 bus home.  Nothing sounded good to either of us, though, and Greg finally said, "How about you call Amtrak and see if there is an earlier bus?  We're both just tired out and that way we'll get home earlier and we can put the kids to bed."  I called and learned that there was a 4:05 train from Chicago to Champaign and there would be a bus to take us from Champaign to Bloomington, arriving there at 8:00.  Getting to Bloomington at 8:00 instead of 9:40?  Sign us up!  It worked out perfectly for us to get our stuff from the hotel, get to the station, and easily catch the train.  I'm pretty sure I slept most of the way from Chicago to Champaign!

A few parting pictures in Chicago...here is the Trump Tower.

Our familiar hotel awning!

We picked up our bags and were on our way.

We had to pass the Willis Tower to get to Union Station...those four tiny boxes in the top left are the Skydeck boxes.  I can't really believe I actually stood in one of those!  (Even if it was only for a few minutes!)

We had a great day and a half in Chicago, but as always, it was good to get home. :)  Thanks so much for my birthday gift, sweetie!  It was fabulous!!!