The Chicago Getaway

As mentioned on the previous post, Mark surprised me this year with a trip away for a few days, as a birthday present. First, let me say I was a little stressed when he told me we were going away...because we are really trying not to spend money we don't have. (Novel idea, huh?!) Anyway, as far as I could tell, we didn't have the money for a trip away right now!

So, I think Mark was just as excited to tell me about his great deals, as he was to tell me where we were going! I guess one "perk" of having a husband who has to travel occasionally is that the miles rack up fast. He used miles to get us to Chicago, miles to get us a WONDERFUL hotel room, and we used my birthday money (thank you, family!) for our dinners. Another tradition we have every year on my birthday is to withdraw whatever we have saved over the last year in our BofA "Save the Change" fund. It is amazing to see how much you save, just by rounding your debit totals up to the next dollar! Anyway, between all of that, we didn't have to spend much at all to have a good time. (Well, that was until I found the H&M clothes store on the third day...hee hee.)

ANYWAY, on to the trip! Mark kept it a surprise until we were sitting in the airport having our first kid-free meal. He busted out a NOTEBOOK full of information about our trip, including a little travel book he bought for me. I was so impressed...because this is NOT his style of traveling! He did it just for me, because he knew I would want to prepare on my way there. And, he was so right! He even asked some people he works with about Chicago and their favorite restaurants. I looked through the travel guide and got some ideas of what to do while we were there too. So, by the time we landed, we were ready for a fun time!

Our hotel was one of the oldest in Chicago (which I LOVE!) and had such pretty historical decorations. Here's a picture of the lobby...except that it mostly just shows me and the clock tower. BEHIND me is some gorgeous decor. :)

Across from the hotel was beautiful gardens with flowers everywhere...

And right beyond that was Lake Michigan. It was gorgeous!

Now, I always knew Chicago was on the lake. But, I didn't know it was literally ON the lake.

We took an architectural boat tour through the middle of this gorgeous city, and it was such great historical information about this place! It was a little cold that day, so most of my pictures are pretty gray, but here are a few of the stops we made:

Trump Tower (for the "Bill" fans from Apprentice out there...he was my favorite!)

Hershey's original location (now in Pennsylvania).
The girls got their souvenir here--A very large Hershey's bar with "Chicago" on the front. (NOT as big as the one in this picture!)

One thing I was absolutely amazed at was the cleanliness of the city. Not only was there not a single piece of trash anywhere, there were also NO parked cars anywhere, and tulips and flowers EVERYWHERE. Every single median was covered in tulips, as well as hundreds of flower boxes, hanging baskets, and side gardens. It was amazing. As you can tell, I couldn't stop with the flower pictures...

And,yes, Mark felt the need to put me in front of a lot of the sites, since it was "my trip". So, please be patient with the extreme number of individual poses in one blog. :)

This trip was so relaxing, and we spent alot of time in the city gardens. They had beautiful fountains, funky sculptures, and even squirrels and bunnies. :)

Look at this fountain! The "face" you see is painted on a wall, and a fountain stream comes right out of the kid's mouth. And, this sculpture was VERY cool. Mark had a hard time taking a picture while looking into the mirrored art, which eventually made me laugh so hard, I almost peed in my pants.

Probably the most memorable part of this trip will be our meals. Mark and I have been "eating healthier" for a while now, and this was our trip to splurge. And, splurge we did! We had delicious fish, steak, pasta, deep-dish pizza, cuban/mexican food, and yummy desserts. Mmmmm!!!!

My birthday dinner was on the 94th floor of the John Hancock Center.

This was the view (excuse the bad photography from indoors):

And, this was my bug-eyed pose with my birthday dessert. (It was dark, and the flash was bright...sorry!)

The last day, we had planned on attending a Chicago Cubs game. And, I really think Mark was pretty excited about it. Of course, we woke up and the weather was beautiful. We started the day walking around the town, and found some GOOD shopping...and then my 'baseball' mood had slowly passed. Mark was SO sweet to give up his game for more shopping time and some lounging in the park instead. I felt really bad about not including a baseball game, but he insisted. So, I obliged. :) It really was a great afternoon outdoors, and I'm glad we didn't spend it in a bleacher seat.

Instead, we went to Navy Pier, and had ice cream, popcorn, and lemonade. We walked on "the beach" (yes, Chicago even has a beach!), and we even took a nap in the middle of the park! It was so fun...and made me wish Dallas had a few more positive traits like these.

It was such a wonderful time away, and was the perfect trip to take. Mark, thanks for making my birthday so special and for being my favorite traveling partner. You're the BEST!

(Oh, and in case you were wondering about us seeing Oprah while we were there...I'm not the world's biggest Oprah fan...so Mark decided not to try for tickets. My sister, Cortni, called me Friday afternoon, as she was watching a LIVE Oprah show from home. Apparently, Oprah was somewhere in Chicago, giving away thousands of dollars in her "Favorite Things of Summer" show. Ugghhhhh....WHY didn't we go??? Oh well...we were quite busy taking a nap in the park anyway! :)