Well, I arrived home safe and sound from the Windy City. This is the first trip in a while that I've had no drama driving out there! haha! David ((my old roomie)) came down from Sioux City on Thursday night around midnight or 1 am..we contemplated driving out to Lake Zurich right then and sleeping while Abby and Brad worked. But..we got talking, lost track of time and decided to sleep and wake early to head out. We got to Abbys work around 12:30 or so. She left work when we got there and Brad met us all at their place. We sat around and played Wii for a while and let the dogs get re-acquainted before we headed out for supper. Abby was in the mood for Mexican food, so we checked out Chevey's. It was good...I had chicken fajitas. They gave us way more food than I could possibly eat! My favorite was this sweet corn mash stuff...who knew?!

Saturday morning we all got up and headed into downtown Chicago on the Metra Train. I decided I do like trains, but Ferries were funner in Washington. Haha. We arrived to Union Station at like 10:3oish. I decided that it would make so much more sense if the L Train also stopped at Union Station. I know we didnt use the L train this time. ((p.s. i donno if its L Train or El Train...I know it stands for elevated train..any one help me out?)) We walked to Millennium Park. Abby calls the sculpture the Bean. But its really called Cloud Gate. Its so cool! I guess it was inspired by liquid mercury. You can learn more about it if you want at: http://www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/cloud_gate.html
Here are some of our pictures from it!
Abby, Brad, Kari, David

After leaving the Cloud, we walked along the shoreline down to the Shedd Aquarium. It had the LONGEST line I had ever seen! So, since that was first on our to do list, we got in line. It move surprisingly fast! We were in within an hour. We had a blast looking at the animals! It was not only fish and sea creatures, but we saw monkeys, toads, snakes, ducks, and so much more! Some fish were pretty ((thats a huge statement coming from me--I HATE fish! I love to fish, I will occasionally eat fish, but fish freak me out! I CANNOT touch one! I can barely touch starfish. But I do like looking at them)) a lot of the fish were ugly amazing creatures!

Here Abby and I were waiting for the boys..they weren't so excited for picture taking. Haha.

By the time we left the Aquarium we realized we had no time to do any other museums. I was kinda sad, but we had to walk back to the train to make it home! At the train station where we parked there was a Bar and Grill type of place called Durty Nelly's Pub in Palatine. http://www.durtynellies.com/

It was delish! AND our waiter had the cutest accent! He had to be from Scotland or something! We just got pitchers of beers and some wings to eat! Everything was delish! We tried Asian Wings and BBQ Wings. My fave was the Asian ones..yumm!

We decided it would be best if we left while Brad could still drive and we should prolly go let the puppies out! haha

But, as soon as we got home to Brad and Abbys, we played Presidents and Assholes! My favorite card game ever! I enjoy it so much cuz its a drinking game! haha..imagine that!
This is where the night gets funny!

David kept winning. Thats why he is all smiles, while Brad and I pout!

But then again..its SHOT time!
Haha! Needless to say, we took it easy on Sunday. My sinus's were giving me problems. David is allergic to Aspirin, so he couldnt take excedrin. And, Abby ran out of excedrin. So, we had to leave..so we got some grub at my FAVORITE--Red Robin!

Davids food got lost so he ate for free and me and him also won free burgers for next time! yay! haha. After we ate--I of course had the Royal Red Robin--its the one with the egg! haha--so after we ate we ran next door to Target. I think we all bought medicine! haha! Im sure we looked funny! We spent the rest of the day on the couch watching the Olympics---USA vs. Canada in Hockey--what a GREAT last part of the game and overtime! We ordered in some deep dish pizza to round off the weekend!

This morning David and I left about 8:45 and got back to Ames shortly after 2. He had to drive all the way to Sioux City..what a long day! But it was perfect for driving! Im soooo glad the weather cooperated for us all weekend!

I can't wait to go back!

Check out facebook for the complete photo album! hehe

xoxo, me