weekend visit with family-part two

ah, the windy city. while emily and andy were here we drove down to this crazy, expensive city (can you tell i'm not a city girl) to check out some of the fun it had to offer. it actually turned out to be one of our best visits so far. i think it was because we had emily's husband, wes, with us who really knows his way around the city so, a) we didn't get lost and b) he knew where the cheapest parking was.

this time we decided to check out this awesome street:



it really is magnificent. there are plenty of free things to see and do while taking a stroll down the sidewalk.

we didn't make it very far without seeing a number of street performers out trying to make some extra money. they really are quite entertaining. i could have spent the majority of the day just watching some of these talented people perform.



the statue guy. he was my favorite performer...at first. that is until we saw him again on our walk back. he was counting a wad of money with a cigarette in his mouth. i'm really not judgemental. he just didn't seem as appealing anymore.

one of our first stops was to the big chicago bean. it really is a fascinating piece of art. i had a lot of fun walking around taking tons of pictures of all of the different perspectives. and katelyn, well, she just had fun looking at herself. she was enthralled with her reflection.







we also stopped at some water fountains nearby the bean. if i had realized these fountains were there, i would have come more prepared because this is where katelyn could have spent all of her time. maybe next summer. thanks emily for walking around with her!






these fountains had large pictures of peoples faces on them. they mainly just stared, but they would blink every once and a while. i think we were there long enough to see two or three different faces.

we also had the chance to stop by the lego store and the hersheys store. i had been wanting to stop into these two places all day, but they were hard to find. luckily we found them right before we decided to head back to eat.



katelyn loved this lego guy. she kept smiling at him and touching him like he was a real person.



steven spielburg

they had so many different things built out of legos. some of them were huge! you have to have a lot of patience (or a real love for legos) to be able to build some of those things.



you can't go into the hersheys store without taking a picture of the giant candy bar.

we ended our day in chicago at the rainforest cafe where wes and emily treated us to a delicious dinner. it was the perfect place to take katelyn. she was entertained the whole time-especially because we got to sit right next to a huge fish tank.

it was tons of fun having some family to hang out with. thanks for the great day in chicago and for the whole weekend.