The Windy City

This past weekend Jacob and I (Ashley) packed up the car and headed to Chicago. We were able to take Friday off work and get into the city by 2pm (missing rush hour traffic). I drove us into the city and Jacob was my captain with mapquest directions. We only missed one right turn to get us to our hotel, but Jacob was able to navigate us back onto our path and we found the Fairfield Inn! We parked the car, headed up to our room, dropped off our bags and we were off to explore the city!

Our first stop was lunch at the West Egg Cafe. This cafe is a place I dined at in my childhood with Marge and Cy! And it was exactly as I remembered it. Funny how nothing had changed in the West Egg Cafe in like 15-20 years...the purple sign was still in the window and the shirts were still hanging on the wall that said, "Just Hatched at the West Egg Cafe." I am pretty sure my dad still has a shirt that says that from the early 90's! Jacob and I enjoyed our lunch there and headed back out to explore.

The next stop was the beach area on Lake Shore Drive. We sat and watched Lake Michigan and people at the beach...of course this could provide hours of entertainment...but we headed onto check out Navy Pier.

At this point, I could hear Michigan Ave. calling my name...so we headed over to Michigan Ave. for a little shopping. We walked into Marshalls first and I was overwhelmed...so we walked over to Nordstrom where things were a bit more organized...and I felt right at home. I found a new top to wear to dinner and I was a happy girl.

We went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We made reservations at a great little Italian restaurant, Volare. Jacob ordered a seafood dish that he had when we were in Cinque Terre and he said it was the closest thing to authentic Italian food he had had since we were back from Italy. I attached a picture of the dish below.

The next morning we laid out at the beach. Jacob was brave enough to venture into Lake Michigan. He said it was actually refreshing...I thought it was a bit too cold!

That afternoon, we got back into the car and headed north to Barrington for a wedding/party! Our friend's Rambod and Judy had invited us to Barrington for the weekend to celebrate Bardia's wedding (Rambod's brother). It was a beautiful wedding. Their vows to each other were incredibly sweet and sincere. It reminded us of how it was when we first fell in love. What a great reminder! We had a great evening of catching up with friends, food and dancing!

Sunday morning we packed the car up again and headed home. We had a great weekend away...but oh how sweet it is to return to our home.