My kinda' town

On New Year's Day Dan and I packed up our car again and headed 8 1/2 hours north to Chicago, while my parents, brothers, and brothers' ladyfriends packed into a rented 12-seater van and did the same... unfortunately, they couldn't follow the same route as us since it's ILLEGAL to bring that crazy huge of a van into Iowa (as well as several other states).

Here's a shot of typical Iowa corn farm:

and here's our western Illinois sunset:

Dan and I joined the whole fandamily for an overnight stay at my aunt and uncle's place outside of the city, left the Camry there, and piled into the rental van for a weekend in the city.

What a crew! Pictured above (from left to right):

back seat = brother Joe, Mick's ladyfriend Robyn, and brother Mick.

middle seat = cousin Jasmine, Tommy's ladyfriend Laura, and brother Tommy.

front seat = cousin Jonathan, Cole/"Train", and Dan/"Gravy"

[not pictured = the bravest parents I know]

Our first stop was to my cousin Colleen's house to visit with her, her husband Danny, and their amazing new (to me) daughter, Nora. Nora is more than a year old, but she was born while I was out of the country so this is the first time I met her.

That evening we arrived at our hotel for some quality bonding time:

And then the whole crew walked to Edwardos for supper:

Below is a photo of Dan preparing to chow down on his first ever slice of deep dish pizza!

On our first morning in downtown Chicago, Dan and I woke up early to enjoy the pool all to ourselves at 5am. After that, we joined my dad for a walk from our hotel down to Navy Pier to watch the sun rise over a mostly-frozen Lake Michigan:

Being from the left coast and all, this was Dan's first time watching the sunrise over a body of water.

The walk was amazing, we felt like we had the whole city to ourselves:

While we waited for the rest of the family to join us for the day, we watched as a helicopter placed the final parts for an antenna on top of this GI-normous luxury apartment building... and shook our heads watching as one man proceeded to godzilla-style cling to the antenna and attach helicopter-delivered parts to it. WHOA buddy.


The crew met us on a bridge over the river, and we all hiked an impressively long distance to the aquarium.

This stained glass ceiling is in the Chicago Cultural Center, where we stopped to warm our toes for a while and check out some Lithuanian artwork:



Here are Robyn, Mick, and Joe enjoying a close-up of frozen lake Michigan:

When we got to the aquarium we met up with my old buddy Patrick, YEA PATRICK! We shared the day at the aquarium with him and parted with hopes and wishes to meet up again this summer, when Patrick rides his motorcycle out to Virginia.

Here's the crew chilling at the aquarium:


This snapping turtle's jaws can break a broomstick in half... as a matter of fact, they regularly do whenever the aquarium employees attempt to clean his tank. To help him out where a broomstick fails, they've added fish to the tank to help clean the algae off the turtle's shell.

I love this fish. He strategically blends right in with the reef that surrounds him.

Yeah leopard-print eels that look like sock puppets!

The next morning Dan and dad went out for a sunrise walk again and when they returned we all headed to the Art Museum:

where we met up with my Peace Corps companion Lauren (whom I hadn't seen in over a year!):

Dan and I were thrilled to pose in front of this fine portrait of our future selves:

Here are some of my favorite artworks:

(Monet's haystack series)





(Judith by Jan Sanders van Hemessen)

(The Song of the Lark by Jules-Adolphe Breton)

(Thistles by John Singer Sargent)

And here are some of Dan's favorite artworks:
(Jeune fille revant/ Young Girl Dreaming by Brassai (Gyula Halasz))

(U.S. 285, New Mexico, 1955 by Robert Frank)

(Commanding Officer at the Door of a Byzantine Monument: Memory of the Orient by Alberto Pasini)


Eh hemmm, does this Seurat remind anyone of Ferris Beuller's day off?! :-) This is Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte):

After the Art Institute, Lauren took us to play at "the bean" at Millennium Park:

Then we headed towards the Hancock building for cocktails and a view. Chicago does love the "American Gothic" This is a gigantic sculpture of perhaps America's most famous farmers, see Dan at bottom center for scale:

Here's the view from our table at the top of the Hancock building on our last night in Chicago:



Endless thanks to mom and dad for making this EPIC weekend possible. I miss you SOOoooo much already.