Chicago 2014

A couple of months ago I was in St. Louis with my aunts, cousins, and my sister and they tossed out an invite to join them in Chicago in January. I came home, got the green light from John and made plans to spend a few days with them in the windy city.

I hadn't been to Chicago in years and years. It's a beautiful and fun place and we had a FABULOUS time.

I flew out of Denver on the Thursday before the Super Bowl. This signage at DIA cracked me up.

This was one view of downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan from our hotel suite.

 And this was the view from the other side looking towards Navy Pier. It was cold while we were there but it had been colder the week before and the water surrounding the pier was completely frozen.

 On Friday morning, we all got up and went to the hotel spa for various "beauty treatments" and then had a late lunch at Deca, the restaurant in our hotel. 

 Our hotel connected to Water Tower Place and I sent this picture of the flagship American Girl store to Abbey. She was dying. I didn't check out the entire store, but I did go in and walk around--it's about twenty times bigger than our AG store in Denver. I've got to take her there sometime!

Friday night, we took the train to the Cadillac Palace Theater.

We had tickets for Phantom of the Opera.

It was spectacular. I absolutely LOVED it.

 We woke up Saturday to lots of snow. I think it snowed all day and all night!

That didn't stop us from celebrating my aunt's birthday. I won't say how old she turned...but it's more than the two candles on her cake.

Nor did it stop us from shopping! Downtown Chicago has some serious retail establishments. One of the reasons for my no-spend January was to save up for this trip. I found some crazy bargains at Banana Republic and Nordstrom Rack. I could barely zip my suitcase on my return trip!

 It was a super, sloppy, snowy, wet day. I was prepared for it to be crazy-cold but it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Either that or I'm used to wintry weather.

Saturday night we went to dinner at Vinci (delicious!) and then headed to Second City to see Let Them Eat Chaos. Oh my gosh...I laughed so so so so hard. It was excellent.

On Sunday we woke up to a beautiful sunrise over a snowy Navy Pier.

 We got dressed and went to Mass at Old St. Patrick's Church. I haven't been to Mass in several years but it was a beautiful service and the church was absolutely gorgeous. I forgot to take a picture until we'd started to walk away.

 We grabbed a quick lunch at Potbelly Sandwich Shop and I don't know if I was super hungry or if it's because I rarely eat gluten but that was one DELICIOUS sandwich.

After lunch we took a cab back to our hotel and everyone packed up to head home...which is basically all over the US. I flew back to Denver with my cousin from Seattle and since it was Super Bowl Sunday we changed into our respective Broncos/Seahawks gear. 

I really did not expect Denver to lose that game but I was SO happy for her and for all the Seattle fans. She texted me when she arrived home and said the fireworks display over the Space Needle was the biggest she'd ever seen!

Of course we had some deep dish pizza from Giordano's while we were there. Seriously YUMMY! We also ate at The Local one night and it was amazing too. So much good food.

It was such a great girls weekend! My three aunts are my dad's sisters and since he is gone, it is very important to me to stay close to them. Trips like this make staying close pretty fun. Can't wait to go back...Chicago is a fabulous city!