I think I’m fired… I haven’t blogged in two months. To make up for it, here is my recount of our trip to Chicago. To those also following along on FaceBook, some of the pictures will be repeats for you, but I promise to add in a few new ones 🙂
We left at O Dark Thirty Thursday morning. After Hawaii, the kids act like seasoned travelers. Thankfully, we packed lighter for this trip. This was our first experience flying Southwest, and I’m not sure I’d choose them again in the future (at least when traveling as a family of 5). Southwest has open seating (sit wherever you want) and sorts travelers into three groups. Families with kids under the age of 5 are allowed to board in between the first and second groups, which was helpful, but Alyson won’t be ‘under 5’ much longer, and if we were in the third seating group, we would’ve had to split up.
On our flight to Midway, the boys sat with Bill and Alyson sat with me. Thankfully, the gentleman who took the aisle sit with us has grandkids and was very understanding when we had to wake him up every hour so Alyson could use the restroom. The boys spent the flight doing homework, playing DS, and watching movies. Alyson did stickers, colored, and played a little bit of DS.
We arrived about 12:30 and caught the hotel shuttle to the hotel, Marriott at Burr Ridge.
The homes in Burr Ridge are amazing. Massive beautiful homes on large lots. Even three hours before check-in, the hotel had our room ready. We had a suite, which was great. The kids shared the living room and we had our own room. Here’s the view from our room:
After we settled in, we went for a walk (in the freezing cold). The hotel was near a shopping center that reminded us of Redmond Town Center, without all of the restaurants and bustling people. We went out to lunch at Cooper’s Hawk restaurant, and stopped in at Eddie Bauer. Mom will be proud, Alyson wanted a stuffed puppy. It was a Steiff.
In the evening, Brenda’s dad Bob picked us up to go to dinner at Giardino’s. He was our chauffeur for the weekend, and we were so grateful. With Alyson, we needed a carseat, so it was really thoughtful of them to make sure she was taken care of. We had a lovely meal and enjoyed getting to know Bob and Lynne better, and meeting Brenda’s brother and sister-in-law Kelly. Alyson took the opportunity to draw a map of her community. The big house is ours, the green one is Grandma’s, and you can see our church and daycare in between. Grandma helped her spell a few names as well.
