Chicago getaway

 Last weekend my sweetheart & I slipped away for an overnight trip with just the two of us--no kiddos! Such a treat. We are always terrible about remembering to celebrate our anniversary (it's the day after Christmas) and we keep saying we're going to celebrate it in June but we always forget. But this year we remembered. :-)

We left early on Friday morning and went straight to the Chicago temple. We had the opportunity to attend a wonderful endowment session and I was so grateful for the peaceful time to contemplate and pray in a place where I felt so close to the Lord.

After we left the temple, we headed to downtown Chicago. I had booked both our hotel & parking (highly recommend booking your parking online because it can be crazy hard/expensive to park, especially overnight!) in the River North district. We checked in to our lovely hotel and then walked over to Michigan Avenue. Okay, actually we walked way past Michigan Avenue because we were so giddy walking along and talking and laughing together that we went on Lower Michigan and didn't even notice until we were almost at the lake. Boy, time flies when the kids aren't complaining about their feet hurting, right? This is the third time we've done an adults-only trip to Chicago and much as I love our little darlings, I love love love these trips with the two of us! (We did have a houseful of sulky kids who were convinced that we were going museum-hopping without them...they were slightly mollified when we said we were planning to walk a lot and eat spicy food.)

We wandered around Crate & Barrel for awhile...okay, I wandered while Neil intently studied the interior mechanism of the escalators (he was so fascinated!!!). 

 Then we went over to Water Tower Place and hit Wow Bao! so that we had some delicious bao to sustain us for another hour or two (I think my favorite is a toss-up between the Thai curry and the chocolate but the coconut is dang good too).

 John Hancock Tower--we always seem to wind up here no matter what our actual plans are...just staring up at the sky. Didn't go up this time although we thought about eating dinner there, but we decided to go to Grand Lux instead (I had to get my favorite salad!).

We wandered around the LEGO store for awhile and did some shopping for Isaac's birthday (he was very very very specific about needing  Star Wars LEGOs).

I always love checking out the new LEGO models--Neil is 6'5" for perspective.

After we ate dinner we went back to Water Tower Place to catch the double-decker bus. Yes, I totally love those things! Normally I try to look as non-touristy as possible but sometimes you just gotta break down and learn about the architecture, you know? Anyway, it was SO cold and foggy and clammy that my teeth were chattering like crazy--I was wearing a skirt and sandals and I was miserable! So we hit Forever 21 to try to find something cheap + warm.

I did eventually find a long-sleeved shirt but I think that hour we spent looking around was one of the golden hours of our marriage. I can't remember the last time when I laughed so much. There is no one on this planet who is as much fun to be snarky with as my dear husband (one of the longest evenings of my life was watching a terrible movie with some lady friends and having to keep my mouth shut rather than mocking it nonstop with Neil). Anyway, this particular Forever 21 provided two giant floors full of amazing-to-snark-about clothes.

Two of our favorites:

and this:

Then we went back outside and stared at the Hancock building some more while we waited for the bus. See? Super foggy.

So apparently there is a battle royale going on right now between Donald Trump and pretty much everyone else in Chicago who feels that the giant letters on Trump Tower (which were just finished a couple of weeks ago) are tasteless.  Like...everyone is talking (complaining) about it and supposedly Trump is scheduled to come to Chicago in another week to deal with the hubbub.

My favorite part of the hop-on hop-off double-decker bus tours is that they do this City Lights tour late at night. I've been to Chicago a million times but there is just something awesome about being able to fully tilt your head back and stare at all the lights with no car ceiling/windows in your view, or having to worry about not running into other pedestrians/cars/whatnot. Seriously, it's awesome.

So we rode around a bit and then we got off at Millennium Park and wandered around there and then wended our way over to Buckingham Fountain, as per tradition, and then we wended our way back and caught the bus again and then hiked over to our hotel (we walked about five miles that night, which is good because I was thoroughly enjoying delicious Chicago food).

The next day we ate an awesome breakfast at the hotel and then it was time for our favorite Chicago thing: running along the lakeshore! This time we also ran along the Riverwalk, which was gorgeous and breezy and beautiful. Everything was still really foggy out on the lake and you could only see the first few rows of boats at their moorings. But it was so delightful--seagulls calling and the buoys ringing and bobbing and the water lapping against the breakwater. I love this run more and more every time we do it! We ran for about an hour and then we went back to check out of our hotel.

Lots more walking--we visited another one of our "always" stops, the Chicago Cultural Center and its breathtaking Tiffany ceiling...

 ...and Chinatown...

 ...and Greektown (oh so so so so good!).

 Then more riding around...

 So there's always something interesting to see in Chicago. Usually it's a street festival or parade, but this time the parade happened to have a little twist: zombies! There were a couple of hundred of them and it was um, pretty exciting (one poor little girl near me burst into tears and tried to hide behind a cafe table).

We did see one very interesting thing that I've never seen before--some of the street performers got in this HUGE fight on the steps of the Art Institute and were throwing each other out into the street. We were across the street on the bus, but everyone near them just took out their phones and starting filming it. They were the guys who drum on buckets so they were also whacking each other with drumsticks and buckets. Definitely not something you see every day.

 Later on in the evening we noticed that the sky was getting reaaally dark. Beautiful, but definitely threatening.

And as we went along the heavens opened and the rain poured down!!! Classic crazy Midwestern cloudburst, but it went on and on and on! Fortunately the bus company passed out some free ponchos, so we were able to REALLY look like tourists, but dry tourists! We waded back to our car through ankle-deep water and empty streets and drove back home to our five sleepy little kiddos. A totally perfect weekend (but keep reading--there's more!).


 Last but not least, I will leave you with one of the truly wonderful things I saw in Chicago--monks on a tour bus! (I sat behind them on purpose so I could take this photo slightly less obtrusively.)  Sadly, I did not get a picture of the very best part--their smartphone cases matched their robes PERFECTLY.  

today...

• was a perfect example of Midwest weather. Blisteringly hot and horrendously muggy in the morning. Giant thunderstorm in the evening (our power went out for an hour). Clear and breezy and so beautiful in the late evening. The only thing we needed to make it really Midwestern was a tornado, but thankfully that did not happen (although my poor kids are so used to it that they said, "Thunderstorm on a hot day...we're dumping all of our lovies in your closet and bringing in the bike helmets").
• we went on an evening walk (post-rainstorm) and we heard Pomegranate crow six times before we even got to the corner. Oh man.
• we ate sandwiches by candlelight for dinner. It was crazy dark (no power + thunderstorm) and we literally needed candles to see! Fun way to shake things up and make it a more exciting meal than it would have been otherwise (always fun trying to make dinner when there is no electricity).
• Neil didn't come home for dinner since he was running experiments. Around 7 pm I let the kids watch a movie before bed (I needed to put Nathan down and I'd promised a trip to the library that evening before the power went out and everyone was super bummed when we couldn't go) and they were so excited (hurray! a movie! such a rare treat!) that Luke literally wet his pants while he was sitting on the couch. Yay.
• I spent a solid hour just picking up little things. Our house is usually pretty tidy but somehow there is always about an hour's worth of little things stashed on bookcase shelves or wedged against the molding or hidden behind doors...you know, Legos, K'nex, hair elastics, action figure accessories, scraps of paper, etc. Those are the kinds of things that drive me crazy because I am the only one who bothers to pick them up, but I always notice them and they make everything feel so cluttered even if everything else is put away. So right now my house looks lovely to me!
• Luke and I took a nap together today. He was soooo sleepy and grumpy when I was reading to him (lots of yawns and pouty faces) but I knew if I put him down he would go crazy, so I asked him if we could snuggle on my bed for awhile. He cuddled right up to me and wrapped his arms around my neck and every so often he would give me these super loud sticky kisses on my cheek and giggle as he snuggled back down again. I watched his long lashes drift up and down and finally he fell asleep and we stayed like that for a good hour or two (poor Tottles woke up during this and I heard him on the monitor and wasn't awake enough to actually go get him for probably another 45 minutes...naps always make me so groggy).
• I washed Nathan's high chair today. Sad that it's blog-worthy, but it is. Maybe "scrubbed" is a better word because he likes to make a glorious sticky mess of Greek yogurt and banana and then rub it everywhere he can reach and that stuff is like glue once it dries.
• I've been pulling together a Chicago getaway with Neil--just the two of us. I booked our hotel earlier today and I'm so excited! We're staying in the River North district, which will be a fun change, since we usually tend to stay near Grant Park or the Loop. Good times and I can't wait!

lately...

Oh, but we've been busy lately!

Last week Neil was presenting at the MSEC conference in Detroit. We missed him like crazy but we were so proud of his work & the recognition he received for his research! While he was gone we worked hard to keep ourselves busy (as Abigail said, we had to do lots of things so we could forget how much we missed him!).

We had a pizza party picnic at a playground one night, went to an origami class another night, spent a lot of time at the library, and the three oldest kids had an AMAZING time every morning attending vacation Bible school at a local church near our home. 

VBS is a really big thing here in the Midwest and we must have gotten mailers from six or seven different churches. The kids had a total blast and I was so impressed with all of the teachers & lessons. The kids focused all week on learning about Christ (their theme was "discover, decide, defend") and they read up on scriptural evidence of Christ's divine ministry. They had a secret agent theme and so the whole week was focused around searching for scriptural clues, etc. Very cute and so fun. On the last morning they had a cute program where they sang the songs they'd been learning that week and then dumped green slime over their teachers (the promised reward if the kids raised a certain amount of money for digging wells in Honduras). One of my very very favorite things about where we live is the opportunity that my children have to get to know so many good people of different faiths who have different beliefs than we do but are still trying their very hardest to be the best people they can be. 

A few other things we did while Neil was gone:

I painted our bathroom walls (I did the cabinets last summer but it took me an entire year to find time for the walls & trim!)

I made this map that I am SO in love with--it combines some of our very favorite imaginary lands like Narnia, Middle-Earth, Prydain, Neverland, etc., along with smaller locales like Treasure Island, the Enchanted Forest, the Hundred-Acre Wood, Miss Rumphius's house, the Little Brute family's cottage, Mr. McGregor's garden, etc. 

And...I continued to work on the laundry room. It's getting closer to being done! Mostly just painting left to do. 


After Neil got home, we did fun things this weekend like pick 18 lbs of strawberries (we made some delightful peach/plum/strawberry jam!)

At some point during the weekend we ate ice cream for lunch.

And on Saturday night we went to a local wolf preserve to listen to a string quartet play along with the wolves (it was called "Howling Mozart"). We meandered around and visited the wolves, checked out the bison, and wondered what the foxes would say if they woke up (ring ding ding!). And then we roasted some marshmallows because hurray, they had a fire going for just that purpose! Our family ended up on the park's Facebook page later that night with all of our roasting sticks in hand.

 Nathan was having sooo much fun yanking Neil's hat/hair/head around.

 Can you spot the bison? There was the cutest little calf bouncing all over the place.

And back at home with our own wildlife...Lukie and his beloved Yoda chicken. Pants optional, chicken required.

 Did I mention that Tottles is walking around everywhere? Because he is. And he is the most darling thing. Last night we were out looking at the chickens together and they were all clucking happily and I heard him whisper, "Bok bok bok...bok bok bok." So sweet and dear. He has been running a fever the last couple of days and so he wants to spend all his time cuddling his mama.

 More chickens--Abigail and our chicken-falcon Gloria. This bird is awesome.

 And Pomegranate--whom we heard crow four times yesterday! Oh boy...literally. The kids have been debating whether we should give Pomegranate to the zoo, give him to some friends to eat, or eat him ourselves. Neil and I would like to keep him around for a bit and sort of see how things go, but if he's noisy, then...he will be moving on to greener pastures of some sort or another. He's such a beautiful bird that I'm so sad he turned out to be a rooster! He has these gorgeous glossy black feathers that shade to deepest green in the sun. This is what he will look like when fully grown. Gorgeous, right?

A few more random images from our summer thus far...

 

 Jules sticking up our scaled solar system--it stretches all the way down one hallway. Luke solemnly told Neil at dinner that "I made dee ast-er-oids." So cute!

 This is how the kids spend literally half of their free time--digging up weeds in the garden to feed to
the chickens. Um, hello, why did we not get chickens before?! I haven't had to weed at all lately!

 No, we hadn't been biking--that's just how Isaac rolls.Abigail, as always, has turned out some really amazing stuff on her Rainbow Loom. Yesterday she started making some characters from Frozen (pictured are Anna and Elsa; she followed a video tutorial for Elsa but made Anna on her own) and then today she decided that they needed some companions, so now we also have Christophe and Hans. Plans for Olaf are in the works.



Canning apricot/strawberry jam, apricot jam, and apricots...yum yum! The kids are such good helpers--seriously! They work like crazy and make things go so much faster.