Ok, so I've been back for almost a week, but I've been too busy to make a post. Anyways, I had a blast.

We left Thursday right after work, but caught terrible traffic on the way out of New Orleans. And by terrible I mean we were literally sitting at a standstill on the interstate for a good ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Once we were passed that it started pouring rain and we couldn't drive any faster than 40mph.

Wesley's brother flew to St Louis, where we picked him up, and he drove the rest of the way so Wesley could get some sleep. Jeremy is an awesome brother to have!

We got to Chicago at about 8 in the morning. We were all pretty well rested, so after stopping by Jeremy's apartment to shower and whatnot, we headed out to see the sights.

Friday:
Most of the day was walking around downtown Chicago. Some of the things we saw:

* Sears Tower which had amazing views of the city.







^^ I'm told that the water in the last picture is like that because the part of the river leading from the lake is built higher so that the nasty water from the rest of the river doesn't get into the lake, thus the crazy mixing of the water.

* Buckingham Fountain






* Cloud Gate






* Crown Fountain
* Lots of great architecture and statues








* A bum laying in the grass, peeing

Saturday:
* Field Museum of Natural History





Outside the museum are these big globes all done artistically and all in the theme of saving the earth. This one was my favorite because it's made entirely of Hot Wheels cars:





* Browsing stores on Michigan Avenue, the Lego Store being the favorite for my group of nerds



* John Hancock Center, with more great views of the city.




Sunday:
We had so much more planned for Sunday, but decided we'd take it easy that day since we had a long drive ahead of us Monday.

Pretty much, we spent all day shopping. We walked around downtown Oak Park and were doing a little window shopping when I spotted a store with Ugly Dolls!!! Who doesn't love ugly dolls?! So of course I just had to go in. By the way, this store was Fly Bird. We bought a few Ugly Dolls and a bunch of pins (I'm crazy for pins/buttons and magnets), and while we were checking out Wesley spotted some toys on a shelf behind the counter. These toys were the same toys he had been drooling over the week before on Kid Robot. Sadly, they weren't for sale, BUT she did point us in the direction of a store that sold them.

So we ended up at Rotofugi, where we spent a whopping $110 on toys for Wesley (NOT TO BE PLAYED WITH lol), pins for me, and a Pocket Stache for Calvin (he's got a thing for mustaches).

Monday we spent driving home, which was a very long drive with hours and hour of nothing but corn fields.

We didn't get to do everything we wanted to do on our trip, but that gives us another reason to go back :P Not that we really need an excuse. But the next time we go we're going to fly rather than drive, and we're going to go for a full week rather than just 3 days.

Those pictures aren't all that I took, but I didn't feel the need to bore everyone with multiple pictures of my face or little things I found to be humorous. If anyone wants to see the rest, they can be found HERE. My photobucket account is password protected (long story), but I don't mind sharing that password with any of you........ it's red123