With nothing exciting happening in the Lou over Memorial Day weekend (the opening of the Webster Groves pool doesn't count) we decided to plan a trip to Chicago with the boys. Given my newly minted status as a Marriott platinum rewards member, I was able to secure an excellent Marriott suite near the Magnificent Mile for mere pennies a night.
(You can skip the dialogue below and go right to the pictures here.)
We started out on Saturday about 2 hours later than planned and the ride went something like this:
Drew (15 minutes outside of St. Louis): How much longer until we get there?
Me: 4 hours.
15 minutes later...
Drew: How much longer until we get there?
Me: 3 hours and 45 minutes.
20 minutes later...
Drew: Are we almost there?
Me: Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Drew: But this is boring! All I see are boring farms.
Me: Count how many barns you see.
Drew: BUT THAT'S BORING!
And so it went off and on for the next four hours as Drew continued to pester us while in between picking fights with Ben which made the ride just OH SO RELAXING. Ben, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content just looking out the window and eventually fell asleep for about an hour and a half.
Upon arrival at the hotel, the boys threw on their suits and wanted to go see the pool. After a quick swim (the pool was MUCH, MUCH smaller in real life than it appeared on the Marriott's website) and a dip in the hot tub, we headed out to explore the city. We walked down Michigan Avenue towards Navy Pier which was so packed we couldn't actually walk on to the pier itself. By then both boys were claiming they were starving so we walked over to Giordano's for dinner.
After a nice two hour wait for the best pizza in North America (according to the Today Show and ME) and with a big ball of mozzarella cheese sitting in each of our stomachs, we were too lazy to walk back to the hotel so the boys were able to experience their very first cab ride ever... something I wasn't expecting to thrill them as much as it did given my hatred of cabs BUT WHOA! Cabs are fast and you don't have to wear a seatbelt!
Sunday we spent time touring the Pirate Exhibit at the Field Museum and ate hot dogs on the grassy field near Lake Michigan. And swam in the hotel pool. There was a LOT of swimming in the hotel pool. We walked Michigan Avenue again and stopped in the Crocs store for new daddy crocs and new bugger crocs. Dinner was at the Rainforest Cafe, another exciting event (almost as much so as the cab ride) because the Gorillas? They banged and OOOHHHED and AAHHHED while it thundered during our meal. Such fun.
Again, more swimming in the pool.
Monday morning we got up AND....
went swimming in the pool.
The ride home was pleasant as BOTH buggers fell asleep in the back seat for a good portion of the drive. Listening to the radio, we discovered that Chicago was the 5th largest tourist destination for the holiday weekend.
Go figure.
