A trip to Chicago...

Hello Again! I have some great stories and pictures for you today. My mom, sister (Ashley) and I went to Chicago this weekend. We went there expecting to be there only for the day (Friday) but due to a few circumstances, and just in general wanting to stay, we ended up staying over night and coming home really late on Saturday. Our trip was due to an exhibit that we had heard about at the Science and Industry Museum, it was a CSI exhibit where you play the CSI!

We started the trip at Navy Pier. When we first pulled into Chicago on the 90, the first thing we saw was Lake Michigan. Right on the water in the harbor, is Navy Pier. It's beuatiful and fun, so we had to stop.
This is us at the Pier. Ashley and I both wore our I heart Mom shirts, because we knew mom would love it and think it was hilarious. Sure enough, she laughed, and she loved it. =)

This is Ashley and Mom, I made them pose in front of the Harbor. In the background, is the harbors dierectionals... all of the birds were covering it, and it was pretty neat.

While we were at the Pier, we wandered around and looked at all of the pretty boats. We also grabbed some lunch, and ate a lot of Ice Cream. Unfortunately though, the parking garage was our first sticker shock to reality. It was $28 to get out of the garage, and we were only there for a few hours!! It's not like Indy, that's for sure!

After we went to the Pier, we decided to go find the Science and Industry Museum. It took us awhile to find it, even though it was realtively close, because we took I-90 instead of Lakeshore Drive. (We came to realize that Lakeshore drive is a much more accessible to all of the tourist sites than the Interstate.) When we got to the museum and pulled into the garage, the sign read "Museum closes at 5:30" I looked at my mom and said, "We're too late! It's already 5:30!" -- And this is how we missed the museum. We were all really disappointed seeing as this was the reason we came to Chicago. But we decided to go on to some other things. So we left and went to find the Sears Tower.

This was the entrance to the Sears Tower...
As we got into the elevator, I started to panic. The elevator takes you to the 107th floor (out of 115) and travels 45 miles an hour. When the elevator starts to go up, it makes loud noises and the doors shake due to the wind. It takes less than a minute to reach the top. They are smart though, they put a tv in the elevator to occupy your mind.

This is the White Castle headquarters. For those of you who don't know what White Castle is, it's a Hamburger place that is very unique to our area. You either love it or hate it. Jared and I however love White Castle. They cook your burger on a bed of onions... mmmm, and you order them in sacks of ten. If you've never had it, come stay with us and I promise to take you. =) This is the view from the Sears Tower, straight down to the East. It kind of shows how the Sears Tower just hoovers over all of the other buildings. This is a shot of the Northeast side of Chicago. A little of Lake Michigan is showing. I figured that I had to add a shot of the Harbor. I just think that the little boats are so neat looking. That and I just love the water.
Just a few more beautiful shots of the Chicago skyline. I won't bore you with the details, I just hope you enjoy the pictures!

It was funny, the following is one of the conversations we had up inside of the Sears Tower.

Mom: Geeze, why don't they wash the windows up here, they are disgusting! (reffering to the rain spotted windows) You would think they would clean them!

Me: If you were a window washer, would you want to come up 107 stories to clean these windows?

Mom: No. But you would think there would be some other way to wash them!

Me: We'll I doubt they ever really get cleaned. It would be hard to get someone up here.

Mom: Well they should have thought of that before they built this huge building!

LoL, it just shows how much fun we can have together. =)

Mom and Ashley at the dirty windows. haha.

All of us at the Dirt windows. =) It was just beautiful.

Ashley, Mom and I rented a audio tour to listen as we moved around the tower. That we pretty neat. Here I am crushing a building with my foot, who knew I was so big!!

After we went to the Sears Tower, Dad had set us up with a hotel room in Glenview, IL just across from the Chicago Temple. (He's so good to us!) since we didn't get to see the Museum. After we were done at the Sears Tower, we decided to start heading to the hotel since it was a half an hour away. We were all really tired after our day of playing, so we just stopped at Wendy's on our way back to the hotel. We actually stayed in the hotel that was right next door to the hotel Jared and I and my family stayed in the day of our wedding. It was so neat to see it all again. None of us slept very well that night. Maybe it was a mixture of the excitement, the hard beds, and just the room temperature. I think I got the most rest, Ashley was tossing and turning all night (and trying to cuddle with me!!) and mom was up late washing what clothes we had since it was a spur of the moment stay. Thankfully, we stopped at the local Target and picked up a few things. We picked up toothbrushes, a few clothes (tops, etc. since we just washed our jeans) and facewash, makeup, etc. We were really lucky, because we were right across the street from the temple, which has a clothing distribution so we were set.

When we all woke up in the morning, mom flipped on the tv to find on the biography channel a documentary on the Beegies. Haha, she made us watch it for like an hour. Then after we were done getting dressed, she went to jump in the shower to get herself dressed, and made us stay and find out how one of them died. I think it was Alan?? Anyways, they never said, they only said he died. She didn't believe us when we told her, so if any of you know how Alan died, let me know. Haha. After the Beegies, we ate some breakfast and then traveled over to the temple to pick up some more temple clothes.

These are just some pictures of the temple. I'm sorry that there are so many I j ust get a little excited about the temple here in Chicago, since this is the place Jared and I were married. Enjoy! They added a new little patio to the big grassy area outside of the temple. It wasn't there when we got married. It's pretty nice, and a great addition, but it was sad because they took down the little knee wall that outlined the grass which we all sat on to have our pictures taken after we got married. It will be great for future weddings however, since there are benches to sit on now.
After we went to the Temple, we decided to go look around the LDS book store. I bought a few things there of course, including a game about how well you know your Celestial Companion. I'll let you know as soon as we play it, how well I know Jared and Visa-Versa. I bet it will be pretty interesting.

After the Bookstore, we decided to head to the museum before it closed. We thought it closed at three because when I called the day before to the temple they had told me that the clothing distribution closed at three and for some reason I woke up thinking that the museum closed at three. So we were on our way to the Museum and we were getting a little lost, because we took I-90 instead of Lakeshore Drive. It was like 3:15 when we finally made it, and we were all a little stressed thinking that our night stay was in vain. Come to find out it was open until 5:30. So we had plenty of time at the museum. The CSI exhibit was great, and we really had a great time. I would also like to note that we solved our case. =) I took a few more pictures while we were there. I think I Ashley enjoyed the museum the most.









Jared doesn't believe me when I have told him that I can taste a difference between tap and bottled spring water. So at the museum I had to take a picture of this when I read it. We also got to see the inside of a plane, and play with an Alternative fuel car.

I drove a combine while we were there, and Ashley was scared of my driving. It was a lot of fun. Mom wanted me to get in a John Deere, but I really didn't want to considering she would probably use it against me as blackmail someday. =)
This picture of Ashley and I pointing is us sitting in the Cafeteria in the muesum at a kinetic energy exhibit. It was neat, you watched a ball roll all around up and down. Mom thought we were silly, but that's okay, we enjoyed it!

After the Museum, we decided that we weren't ready to go home. None of us wanted to leave. We even irrationally discussed calling the boys and telling them to pack all of our things because we were moving to Chicago. haha, Needless to say, that idea came and went, and off to dinner we went. I wanted to take them out for a nice dinner and possibly a play so that we could really experience the Full Chicago Atmosphere and night life. Since mom payed for most of the trip, I wanted to make sure I took her out for something fun. When we got back to the car, I looked through some of the pamphlets the concierge at the hotel had given us, and found a few theatres that looked interesting. After calling a few I came upon one that got my attention. It was called Tommy Gun's Garage Dinner Theatre. If you're ever in Chicago, make sure you look it up, it was so much fun!!

Tommy Gun's is set in the 1920's Prohibition era. Once you enter you instantly become either a flapper or a gangster.

Johnny our waiter was also an actor in the show, and so we asked him a few questions. He said that all of the actors and actresses were on and off broadway actors that did this show in their spare time. They work soely off of tips, because they are all the waiters and waitresses. He sold us some flapper headbands with feathers in them, and we loved them. The show was amazing, it made us laugh the whole time. The food was good too! We enjoyed the show so much that we wore the headbands the whole way home. We also listened to Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/Love sounds "Sexy Back" really loud, and my mom enjoyed it, so you know my mom had fun at dinner. =) lol After the show, we headed for home. It was a nice long trip home, we didn't get home until about 4am our time.

I forgot to mention a part of our trip that was really enjoyable, it was while we were at the Sears Tower. My mom got to meet Oprah Winfrey!!!! (in her fatter days.)

This is Ashley giving Michael Jordan some love! She's guarding him from making that shot. When Jared heard that we met Micheal he was so excited! The pictures were more of a disapointment. This is me hanging on the net with Michael. We had some fun in that game. =)
Did I mention that he and I fell in love?? Oh yeah me and MJ are a thing now. Jared isn't jealous, he just wants his autograph.
My mom and MJ became friends too, he licked her hair!
Ashley is not going to let him make that shot. The ball is hers.
Overall, the trip was a blast. We had so much fun. It was great to do it all over again. From now on we're making it an annual trip. I wished Jared could have been with us, but it was nice to get away too. It was so much fun! Next weekend is Jared and I's relationship. The 17th! He got Saturday and Sunday off, so I think we're going to head back to Chicago on Saturday morning and visit the temple and then stay the night. It will be a lot of fun to go back so soon. I can tell you one thing though, I will be taking him to Tommy Gun's!! It was great!

I hope you all have been having a lot of fun recently, goodness knows that I sure have. I wish you all well, and much happiness!