Chicago, Mother's Day & Birthday Trip

A few months back Lance suggested we go to Chicago for my Birthday.  Awww, hubs....thanks for thinking of me.  But, because I'm so smart, I knew there had to be an underlying reason.  I quickly jumped on the Reds website and sure enough, the Reds were playing the Cubs at Wrigley.  Ahhh, busted.  But we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone, so off we went. 

We left on Saturday morning EARLY and arrived in Chicago about 9.  After gathering enough bags to appear as if we were moving to Chicago, we headed to the train, Easton in the stroller, me pushing, Lance looking like a camel loaded down with all our bags. 

We made it to the train station and took enough elevators to get to the core of the earth and boarded the Orange line.  After boarding the train and making our way downtown we transfered to the Red Line to our final destination.  The Red Line station has no elevators.  I can realisticly say we scaled at least 100-150 stairs, with stroller, bags and baby.

Once out of trains, tunnels and dark nasty places, we made it to the big city! 

And let me tell you, Springtime in Chicago does not disappoint!

We grabbed a little snack in the mall and let Easton stretch his legs and headed for Destination #1...H&M!!!

I've seen H&M clothing on lots of blogs and in lots of mag's but never been in an H&M store.

H&M, where have you been all my life???

3 floors of very affordable, trendy clothing!

Ahhh!  Heavenly!

We shopped till we dropped!

Literally.

 

We shopped a few more stores, had some lunch at Gino's East, went to the Hershey's store where I indulged

in the BEST Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie I've ever had. 

Somehow I managed to skip the picture on that. 

I think I was too busy devouring it. 

About the time it started to sprinkle it was time to check into our hotel.

So, we made the trek back to our hotel and took a nap fit for a King.

I don't think I've had a nap like this in a long time.

I seriously considered hunkering down and faking sick to just stay in this bed!

BUT----more shopping awaited!

We went BACK to H&M, the SAME H&M where we had spent hours earlier, filled an even bigger bag than the first time, went to a few other shops before ending up at The Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  I know, REAL Chicago right?  Not so much...but we'd had our feel for Chi-Town food at lunch so we were good with non-touristy food.

We set up 2 chairs, front to front and Lance made Easton a pallet to sleep in.

The boys slept like babies.

I saw every hour on the clock.  I was hot and had a stomach ache.

Easton got a bath in the hotel tub! AND LOVED EVERY MINUTE!

We had a YUMMY Mother's Day Breakfast at Eggsperience Breakfast & Cafe.

My French Toast was DELISH!

After breakfast we walked down to the Navy Pier, against my will. 

My stomach was still nagging me but I'm glad we did.

It was beautiful morning and we got some great pictures.  Double Whammy.

Why we didn't take his helmet off, I have no idea...but we didn't. 

Easton took his first cab ride too!

It was heavenly to not have to walk and push a stroller.

It went a little something like this! 

As did most of our public transportation adventures.

Oh, the adventures of traveling WITH child.

We made it to Wrigley in time to buy, sell, then upgrade to better tickets. 

Daddy likes to haggle with the ticket sellers!

We had pretty good seats on the third base line.

We were in the shade about half the time, but it ended up being a lovely day in the sun.

It felt good to have the sun on my back. 

Chicago was a success.  Traveling with child is much more challenging, especially in a big city.  But totally do-able.  You have to find every elevator, every cross walk, every open dressing room, every open space where baby can move around freely.  But, it was worth every minute. 

The plane ride home was a little more challenging.  Daddy got the Panda Flu (don't ask) and we were delayed with a flat tire on the runway.  Let's just say we ate all our snacks before we even took off making the actual flight quite a challenge.  But, we made it.

We returned home with our suicases packed a little heaver than when we left and our hearts filled full of precious memories made on this Mother's Day Weekend.  I couldn't ask for anything more.