Chicago Story - Part 3

We left the store & walked out to the attractions. . .there is a HUGEMONGOUS farris wheel where you can get an awesome view of the city - so, of course we rode it. It was beautiful - the farris wheel moves slow & steady - it doesn't ever stop, so you have to hop on while its moving & hop off while its still moving. The entire trip around takes 7 minutes - while you're riding, good ole Frank sings "Chic-ago. . .my kinda of town." We took this picture of the three of us riding:



After the farris wheel, we rode this swing ride - it was fun - however, very cold. My hands were kinda frozen to the chains. We had one more ticket apiece to ride something - so we chose to go back to the farris wheel. While we were standing in line, the guy announced, "the guy in car 25 just asked his girlfriend to marry him. . .and she said YES - so everyone yell when they come down." They were an adorible couple - and it was such a romantic place to do it! By the time Ada & I finished our 2nd ride, we were cold & I had to go to the restroom. . .Ada says, "I know just the place." We hoped on a bus, rode to the middle of the "magnificent mile" then got off and walked for 20 minutes down the busy streets. It was sooo cool! I've been to NYC, but I actually think that I like Chicago better because it was a little cleaner - and not as jam packed. Finally Ada announced, "we're here."

We walked into the lobby of the Hancock building (the 3rd tallest building in Chicago) and proceeded to stand in a very long line. I gave Ada a look - and she said, "just trust me." After about 20 minutes we finally made it to the elevator which flew us up 96 floors. We stepped out into the lobby of a very fancy resturant. The hostess asked us if we were there for drinks & pointed us towards a line. We stood in the line for about 3 minutes, and then Ada said - ok, lets go. We jolted out of line and walked to the ladies' bathroom. . .as soon as I opened the door I understood. . .there were floor to ceiling windows in there - a perfect view of the city. . .it was so beautiful - and we were in the bathroom. . .I kinda just stood there - until Ada said, "um, I thought you needed to go to the bathroom." (Oh yeah, I kinda forgot.)

We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with a friend of Ada's. I only ate 1/3 of my dinner. . .mostly because I wanted to save room for dessert...it was totally worth it. . .I have never seen such a big piece of cake - and it was absolutley delightful. The funniest thing though - is right in the middle of eating dinner, Ada grabbed her phone & called in both of us an order for a personal Chicago style pizza for us to pick up on the way out of the city. . .I just laughed - I felt like all we had done all day was eat!

We found our car and it was all in one piece (thank you Jesus!). Ada was the perfect navigator - we made it to the pizza place & out of town without incident. I got back home around 1am. . .thankfully it was daylight savings time - so my extra hour was much needed.

Thank you Ms. Ada for the absolute best birthday gift of all time! I'm so glad that you're up here in Illinois with me!

Chicago Story - Part 2

Hmmm. . .where was I - oh yeah, the boat. The wind off of Lake Michigan was kinda cold - I wished that I had brought my adorible hat & some gloves, oh, and maybe a real jacket. I did direct us to sit right in front of 3 young single guys. (I have no idea if they were single, but its my story, so I'll embelish where I want to thank you very much!) After we got off the boat, we were freezing, so we walked back into the main court & began looking at shops.

We were both intregued by the "Build-A-Bear" store - so we went in. This is a place where you basically build your own bear. First you choose what kind of a bear you want, then you go over & help stuff him (you get to choose if he's soft/firm or inbetween.) Then you get to "fluff" him, then you get to dress him. Ada turned to me and said "if you want, I will get you one for your birthday". . .oh my word - it was awesome. Here we were, two 26 year olds, making a bear - and we were having more fun with it than the 5 and 10 year olds. The employees were having fun with us too. I picked out a cute bear, stuffed him until he was very firm, spent forever figuring out what clothes he was gonna have, then had to name him. . .sooo many decisions! I ended up naming him Francis - after our teacher up here (Dr. Francis). Here are some pictures from the start to the finish.

Chicago Story - Part 1

My 27th birthday is fast approaching . . . Ada decided that we needed to go to Chicago for my birthday – she’s an intelligent woman, so I agreed with her. We left Champaign around 10am and set off – her as the navigator, me as the story teller. We felt like old grandmothers all the way up there, I’d be in the middle of one of my rambling stories – and stop mid sentence to say “Awe – look at that tree!. . .Look at the beautiful colors!. . .This looks like one of those 1000 piece puzzles that I curse because of all the stupid shades of color in the trees – but here in real life its beautiful.” (yeah – thats a direct quote from me – oh, and without even taking a breath, I finished my previous sentence.)

We arrived to Lakeshore Drive – and once again I stopped midsentance because the skyline of Chicago across Lake Michigan was amazing. There was a park right there, so we stopped, got out, and took pictures.



We navigated our way to meet up with our good friend, Oprah. (I wrote a research paper over her back in my sophomore year of high school, so I know tons about her past) Anyways, we stopped by her studio to say hi. . .she wasn’t in.



We then had to figure out some place to park my massive car so we could set out on foot. We found some dude named “Charile” who said he’d watch it for us (he was the parking lot attendant. . .but his name really was Charlie) – thankfully I’m an excellent “backer” cause the only space left was one that I had to back into. Regardless, we sat out on foot – walked down to the Navy Pier where we had lunch, and hopped a boat for a tour of the Chicago skyline.