agt_spooky | Entries tagged with chicago 2013

It's been a great last few days with lausbub0402 here in Chicago with me. The weather has been our enemy since it's October and always unpredictable, and unfortunately it's been cold and windy. But no snow or rain like was predicted, so we braved the elements and headed out on our adventures.

On Monday we took the train into downtown Chicago to do one of those hop-on-hop-off bus tours. The tour guide on the first bus we had was hysterical! When we left the suburbs it was really cloudy and I was afraid we'd see nothing from the top of the Sears Tower (yes it will always be that name to this native Chicagoan) but lo and behold the clouds parted and the sun came out! It ended up being a beautiful view from the top.

We had lunch at a restaurant that was right next to the Chicago river and we watched the tour boats go by. Afterwards it was back on the bus to go to Millennium Park to see The Bean and the fountain. I was surprised to see the fountains still running, as they had shut down Buckingham Fountain just the day before.

We made another stop at Navy Pier which ended up being pretty disappointing as 90% of it is now under construction and all the stores were closed. We still walked all the way down to the end of the pier to get the view of the city and then we had dinner there at Margaritaville. Yum!

We left at 8:30 am and didn't get home until nearly 9:00 pm. A tiring but fun day!

Then yesterday we braved the cold and went to Goebbert's Family Pumpkin Patch and Farmer's Market, to show Claudia a local fall/Halloween festival. The hubby and I had never been there and it turned out to be a lot of fun! I got to ride a camel and we got to feed giraffes and watch a pumpkin eating dinosaur. :-) There were a ton of animals there, like bears and tigers and kangaroos and some I'd never even heard of before! Honestly, it was better than being at Brookfield Zoo! We took a hayride and went through the haunted house before having hot chocolate and coffee and apple cider donuts. Yum!

After we warmed up we went to a place called Pinstripes to play some indoor bocce for an hour or so before heading to lunch at a French bistro where we all had some amazing food. Went back to the house for the rest of the afternoon/evening where Claudia and I watched Supernatural and Firefly and just relaxed.

Unfortunately I'm at work today, but charityflint is stopping by this morning to pick up Claudia and take her to the arboretum to see some fall colors on the trees. After I get off work we're all going for Chicago-style deep dish pizza.

Then tomorrow the three of us are off to the Supernatural convention! Whoo-hoo!

How 'bout some photos of what we've been up to?

Barb and Claudia at The Bean and the Sears Tower: