Be Our Guest

Last weekend was great, except my camera was mostly dead, so I will just have to tell you about it and steal some pictures from the internet. On Friday, Michael had a meeting downtown at the Accenture office, so I decided to join him, and just wander around downtown while he was in his meeting. I wandered down to Millennium Park, and they just have so much going on!

This is a neat fountain.  The faces change, and are blinking, and there were lots of kids and families running around and playing in the water!  So fun!

Then I stopped and looked at this beauty, the Cloud Gate. It is way cooler in real life than I would have expected.  We'll go back and take our own pictures :)

This is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.  They had a free symphony playing so I stopped and watched for a minute.

Then Michael got off work, and we wandered a little bit more.  We went to the Macy's on Michagan Ave that is the biggest department store I have EVER seen.  It was awesome. Then we thought, we should go see what shows are playing in the Broadway theater, and it was Beauty and the Beast!  I had heard it was a good one, so we went to see if we could get tickets.  It was our lucky day because we got great seats, and when you are a student it is only $25 for seats that are usually $85!  So we were really excited! Right next to the theatre is Garrett Popcorn and I made Michael go in with me because it just smells so delicious, and we had walked by a couple of times.  So we bought the "Chicago Mix" which is carmel and cheese popcorn, mixed.  We thought it would be weird, but it was delicious!  Oprah said it was one of her favorites, and it is now one of mine too!

Then onto Beauty and the Beast!

It was at the Oriental Theatre and it was beautiful!  The architecture of it was amazing, and then Beauty and the Beast was even more amazing!  Michael had never been to a Broadway Musical before, and he couldn't believe his eyes.  It's our new favorite thing to do!  

Chicago is wonderful and everyone should come visit us!

Living on the edge

Not really, but let me tell you, the 4th of July weekend was nothing like we expected it to be! We started off the weekend by going to this hot air balloon festival in Lisle, Illinois called Eyes to the Skies because I LOVE hot air balloons, so I dragged Michael there. And it was worth it!

We watched real lumberjacks log race. Apparently this guy is the world champ!

A real live transformer

It was windy, so the balloons were not coming up.  I was so sad, but we waited anyway.  About an hour and a half after it was supposed to start, one started to appear!

I was so excited!

So was Michael!

This guy was one of our favorites

The panda was neat too!

And once it was dark enough, they all started to light up!

They were so neat when they would light up!

And then there were fireworks!

So, we didn't get to ride in one because it was to windy, but I think it was overall a success!

Then my phone had been dead all day, so once we got in the car and turned it on, we found out that Shawna, Val, and Lauren (aunt and cousins) were going to be in Nauvoo that weekend!  So we decided that we would jump in the car the next morning and meet them!

We left bright and early (9 a.m.) and the started driving.  But then we saw the outlets, so we had to stop...

Saw the Mississippi for the first time

We found some great stuff for Michael, and then we were back on our way.  We were a little bummed when we found out that the pageant hadn't started yet... Then we realized Michael didn't have his temple clothes.  Luckily the Nauvoo temple rents clothes, and once we got there, we went straight to the temple.  It was so beautiful, I couldn't even describe it if I tried.  We were much happier once we were inside the temple...

Beautiful Nauvoo temple

The next day we went to Carthage Jail and got to see, and hear about, where the prophet Joseph Smith was and how he spent the last hours of his life. We then went back to Nauvoo and wandered around and saw the sights. 

Walking to the jail

The church always keeps their grounds so beautiful!

Carthage Jail

Little deer running around

Val was looking for turtles and getting eaten by bugs!

Then we found out the Shawna and the kids were going to spend the 4th in St. Louis, so we decided we might as well join them, so we jumped in the car and spent the night in St. Louis! First we went and saw the arch... off the freeway...

Then we saw Busch Stadium, so we stopped to take pictures, then we bought tickets.

We got really good seats... Right behind the Reds dugout. 

Big Mac Land... We thought we could win a Big Mac if we took a picture. No luck.

The Rainbow over the Arch

We bought shirts and were Cardinals fans for the day

We also went to the art museum

And the elevators were HUGE

Michael's rainbow picture is better...

Then we drove home.  We watched fireworks all through Illinois, and we would say it was a VERY successful 4th of July weekend. We love being married, and we love the Midwest! We also love when Michael has 4 day weekends :)

Experience Chicago

Michael's job is great, because it only allows him to work 40 hours, and that means he usually has Friday's off! (although he would like to work more, I really enjoy it!) For our first weekend here, we decided to head downtown to see what we could find.  Chicago is a beautiful city, we just love it. When we made it, we didn't really know what to do, or where to go... so we just parked and started wandering around.  We found the Taste of Chicago festival, and thought we would go see what it was all about.  Basically there are tons of restaurants from all over that set up little tents and you can sample their food. Since we had eaten right before (dumb) we didn't try very many things, but we watched a little circus show, and sat in on some cooking classes!  It was fun just to experience a little bit of Chicago.  I hear it is something you only need to do once...

Stole from Internet

Michael was getting artsy, Alie was getting sassy

Beautiful Chicago

Just sitting in the park

On Saturday, we went to the temple.  We love the Chicago temple, especially because the endowment rooms are so small we can sit right next to each other :) We will take a picture there soon.