Our Trip to Chicago

Hannah cruising around town Hannah standing on her own

Tour of downtown The FMI Food Show
Brian at Gino's East
At the Grand Luxe Cafe
At the aquarium:
Dinner with Bryan and Lynn

More aquarium

Well, it definitely has been an adventurous trip. It was a little more work than we were expecting, but it was worth it. On the plane ride to Chicago Hannah decided she did not want to take a nap, but instead wanted to look at everything going on in the plane. She did pretty good, but eventually her missed nap caught up to her and she started fussing a little. She fussed on and off and then her eyes could not stay open any longer and she fell asleep on Brian's lap (see the picture below). We made it to Chicago and were on the Hertz shuttle going to pick up our rental car when we realized that we probably did not need a car. So we circled the whole airport a few times (the airport is VERY large), canceled our reservation and hopped on a shuttle. Three hours later after we landed we made it to the hotel. Hannah fell asleep on the shuttle. We went to the Weber Grill with one of Brian's co-workers and called it a night. Our hotel was in the heart of downtown, but unfortunately the first night we were the subjects of harassment by a bunch of students on a high school trip. I won't go into all the details, but we ended up with a voucher for a free hotel stay.

The next day Brian went to work and Hannah and I took a stroll down Michigan Avenue. We stopped at the Hershey Store and the Water Tower. We also went to Navy Pier. I think we walked 10 miles on this day. Brian spent the day with his co-workers setting up for the FMI show (Food Market Institute). We were all so exhausted by the end of the day that we ate a sandwich shop next to our hotel and went to bed. Thankfully the highschoolers left!

On Sunday I gave up on trying to get Hannah to take her daily naps. She was so distracted in the hotel and right when I got her to sleep the cleaning people called and woke her up. I thought it would be fun to have a relaxing day at the park. We decided to walk to Millennium Park b/c Bryan told me it was really cool. We get there and there are thousands and thousands of people there. Turns out the Dali Lama is speaking, so we can hardly even walk anywhere near the park. We found a different park and had a picnic. That night we went to a restaurant with Brian called the Grand Luxe Cafe. It was really fun. It turned out to take a long time and Hannah's eyes started closing as she was sitting up at the table. It was really funny. Brian had a great time at the show and met a ton of new people from IBM and all sorts of other companies. Oh yeah and Hannah and I also got to see the Marsha Field's picketers protesting Macy's:)

Monday, I decided it would be fun for Hannah to see the aquarium. We figured out the bus system, since I was very tired of walking. It was fun, but Hannah seemed to like her reflection in the glass more than the fish:) The view of the city from the aquarium was AWESOME! Then we met Bryan and Lynn for dinner that evening. Lynn's parents were in town and Bryan had finals, so we were glad they could squeeze us in. We went to this restaurant where they are rude to you on purpose. Kind of like having my brother's friends from high school as your waiters, but they are suppose to be sarcastic to you. Then they gave us a great tour of the down town area.

For the last day Brian really wanted me to go to the Food show. So we made it on the bus (barely). I got evil stares by a few people b/c we had a big stroller and there was a women with wheelchair, so it was a little tight. It was awesome. There were a million free samples of everything you can think of. I mean a million. It was awesome. One of the new things they had was diet coke with vitamins... Now Jenny, can get all of her daily vitamins from her 10 diet cokes a day:) I LOVED the organic show and I got to meet the owner of the cloth diapers I have been using. Plus there was not as much junk food at the Organic Show. We stopped by the Art museum on the way back to the hotel. I was tired but very glad I decided to do this. I had to sneak in all my food from the show, but luckily no one caught me. When Brian got home, he finally got to have Chicago style pizza at Gino's East- deep dish crust with cheese, sausage, and sauce in that order. He also got to bring home a bunch of free food from the show.

We just got home and had an EXHAUSTING but good trip. We are praying Hannah catches up on her sleep and gets back on her schedule.