Chicago!

Over the Thanksgiving break, Tom and I went to Chicago. It was nice to get away for a few days and to spend time together. Chicago is only about 4 hours away. We left Sunday night and stayed until Wednesday evening. It was a great trip. Here are some of the fun things that we did.

We took Ainsley to the Shedd Aquarium. Besides being packed, it was a lot of fun. There were tons of fish, sharks, and animals from all over the world. We didn't get to see the whales, dolphins, or penquins because their exhibit was closed for the winter. Ainsley enjoyed looking at the fish, and would always stick her hand on the glass trying to touch them. It was cute.

Shedd AquariumGiant Spider Crabs-they were scary looking!The Sears tower is in the background, but it was kinda foggy that day

Next we went to Millenium Park. It has a huge outdoor theater for concerts and plays. We took pictures in front of "The Bean" statue. Then we walked down Michigan Avenue to go shopping. We passed the historic Water Tower which was one of the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire. We ended at the American Girl store, which I had been looking forward to all week. I was a huge American Girl fan as a kid. My friend Steff and I spent hours playing with our twin Samantha dolls. While at the store, I wanted to buy everything for Ainsley because I knew how much fun I had with them as a kid. We got her a few souvenirs:)

The Bean
Our reflection in the Bean

The Water Tower
At the American Girl store, standing in front of the two dolls that I had as a kid-Addy and Samantha

On Tuesday, we drove up to Glenview to go to the Chicago Temple. Since we had Ainsley in the car, we had to take turns. We are actually in the Lousiville, KY temple district but that is still 2 hours away from where we live. We never realized how lucky we were in Utah to be 5 minutes away from a temple. We wish we had gone more when it was so close, because now we really miss it.
After the temple, we went to Navy Pier which stretches out onto Lake Michigan. It was gorgeous. We wish we could have seen it in the summer when all of the shops were open and they shoot fireworks out onto the lake. But it was still fun. Afterwards we went to DUE, the sequel to UNO pizza to have real Chicago deep dish pizza. Then we finished it off with a sundae from Ghiradelli. It was delicious! We did more shopping on Michigan Avenue and then went back to the hotel to take Ainsley swimming. The indoor pool was a little cold but she loved it.

On our last day, we went to the Art Institute of Chicago museum. It was amazing. Growing up, my family always played a game called "Masterpiece" that had been my mom's game as a kid. Anyway, it you buy and sell famous works of art. As we walked through the museum, I realized that every painting in the game came from this musuem. So I had a fun time picking out the works of art that I knew from this silly game. Here were a few:

American Gothic

Night Hawks

This Renoir was always my favorite in the game-my sisters and I would always fight over it.

Mary Cassat's "Mother Bathing Child"
Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"

We came home to celebrate Thanksgiving with all our new friends in Bloomington. We got together at a clubhouse to have dinner. There was tons of food and pies and although we were away from family, we had a great time!