Chicago

My mom, Marni and I took a girls trip to Chicago this past weekend. Marni was running the Chicago marathon and really wanted us to go with her so of course we went. We had a great time, I was very uneasy about leaving the boys. Dave and my dad already had their annual chuckar hunting trip planned so Dave's mom offered to watch the boys for part of the time I was gone until Dave got back and watched them the last 2 days. We left Friday afternoon and didn't get home until 2am Wednesday morning due to some issues with our flight. Besides the plane issues the trip was wonderful and so much fun to go to a city I had never been. Chicago is beautiful, clean and so much fun to walk around.

Welcome to Chicago!

 

 We made it! After 2 flights we met up with Marni at the airport Saturday morning at 1am.

After sleeping for a few hours we went to a Caribou coffee shop (Carbiou coffee is my new favorite...oh so good!) had breakfast, worked out at the hotel gym and then headed to the Chicago Marathon race EXPO.

Marni picked up her bib and her swag bag and we walked around the EXPO for a couple hours.

We stayed at the Hyatt and all of the elevator doors had Chicago marathon signs on them. In fact the entire city had marathon signs everywhere we went.

The EXPO was very cool, it had a ton of different vendors and considering there were 45,000 people running the marathon it was really well organized and did not seem too crowded at all. We headed back to the hotel around 4 and then had dinner reservations at 5:30 at RPM which is an Italian restaurant owned by Bill Rancic and his wife Guiliana DePandi. The food was so good, easily the best Italian food I have ever had. We turned in early that night since we all had an early wake up call to get Marni to the marathon start.

Sunday was all about the marathon. Marni rocked this race, I hopped in with her for a bit at mile 13 and snapped some pictures of her running (I had my phone with me). The course was incredible and the crowd support was unbelievable. I don't think there was ever a moment in the entire race when people were not screaming and cheering for you.

 Showing off her marathon medal. She finished in 3:34!

After the race we showered and walked to Lou Malnati's Pizzeria for some Chicago deep dish pizza. We all agreed it was just alright, it was the perfect thing to try after a long run because we were so hungry but the deep crust and all the cheese was not my favorite.

 We finished eating and then hit the town on foot walking to Millennium Park so we could see "the Bean". The bean is basically a bean shape mirror with no seams. If you look into it as just the right angle you can see yourself and the entire skyline of Chicago in the reflection.

 There were so many people there and we also saw a lot of people wearing their marathon medals and hobbling around. Marni was not hobbling and she forgot to wear her medal (much to my mom's dismay), in fact she acted like she had not run at all that day and we walked for two hours around the city before heading back to the hotel for dinner.

That night we went to dinner at La Tavernita which was a Spanish style restaurant with a Latin influence. Also very good and different from anything we had ever had before.

Monday we stayed in bed a little longer and then went to breakfast and had some of Chicago's famous bagels. After breakfast we showered and got our walking shoes on. We were all leaving Tuesday morning so Monday was the only day where we could really explore the city and do some fun things.

We started by walking over to Soldier Field and `checking out the Bears stadium and the official Chicago Bears store.

Then we went over to Navy Pier and walked around.

Navy Pier was right on the water and was gorgeous. It reminded me of a carnival on a boardwalk. There was a ferris wheel and lots of little vendors selling cotton candy, kettlecorn, candied nuts, etc.

Next stop was Wiener Circle which is apparently famous for their hotdogs. We got  2 hotdogs and shared them between the three of us. They were good, the place was just a shack but the food was tasty.

After indulging in some not so healthy food we walked down to Wrigley Field.

After spending the entire day walking and going as fast as we could from place to place so we could see as much as possible we finally made it back to our hotel just in time to change and head to dinner.

We had our last dinner in Chicago at the 95th floor Signature Room, it was a very nice restaurant and the view was completely worth it.

We also celebrated my mom 55th birthday and Marni's 30th birthday.

What a fabulous trip! I loved getting to spend some time with just my mom and sister. It was definitely a trip I will never forget. Thank you Marni for an amazing time, I love you little sister!