Chicago

You might remember our epic day in Chicago last summer when we took M and the Elsmo's French student around town. Well, Leif & Melissa, and Chris & Penny are hosting students again this summer, and invited us to join them. We had planned on coming down for the day, but with the funeral yesterday, decided to spend the night in Chicago. Lora & Bill booked their hotel through hotwire and ended up at the same place. How great is that? Unfortunately, we were not able to check in until really late, and when we showed up, they informed me that there were not any more two bed rooms available ... so they had to upgrade us to a penthouse suite. Shut the front door! That stuff never happens to me. Brian didn't hear what was going on when I checked in, so I surprised him and the boys. They almost fell over when they walked in. It was insane in the best way possible. In fact, we ended up picking up food, and Bill & Lora joined us at our dining room table. I had reserved the room with a breakfast option (which was no extra cost), so the boys even got to experience room service. Not a bad place to do it. We were very comfortable there, and really, could have stayed all day. But we had other places to be -- namely, Navy Pier to meet up with our crew. Bill & Lora joined us, along with Amy, Graham and their girls. There were 21 of us total. It was so much fun and absolutely fantastic. We rode the ferris wheel. Took in the sites a little bit. Then hightailed it to the water taxi which took us to Chinatown, where we enjoyed a fantastic (slightly excessive -- thanks to us eating a good amount of the kid's food, which somehow came to our table instead of theirs) dim sum lunch. Unfortunately, we had to head back to pick up the dogs right after. We were sad to have to part ways. It was a great day.