The beginning of December, I was lucky enough to join Jared for a "weekend" in Chicago. He's been there every week and his company had a deal where they'd pay for the hotel over the weekend if you don't fly home. So, we had planned for a while that I'd try to join him. I'd never been to Chicago (except the airport a bajillion times), so I was excited to see what he's up to during the week. My wonderful mom offered to come hang out with all 3 of our kids while we were gone! The kids were just as excited to have Grammy come as I was to go...with the exception of Capri, who I had a terrible time leaving.
A couple of days before I left, we were watching the weather and saw that a huge ice storm was coming toward Texas. I decided to leave on the 5:45 a.m. flight, and it's a good thing I did, because every flight after 11 a.m. was canceled. Unfortunately or fortunately, after that the largest ice storm to hit Dallas in a decade quarantined my Mom and kids inside the house while I was stuck in Chicago in 4 days. It ended up being a lovely blessing for me, but I felt so bad for my mom!! To top it all off, the last night I was gone, we experienced our first hard lesson of home ownership. Four days of ice stuck on a roof not made to hold ice leads to flooding. Grr...
I loved meandering around a new place I'd never been before. Even though it was freezing, I got out as much as I could and just went exploring. Jared worked a lot and was really, really sick, so I had a lot of alone time to just go walking/shopping/etc. I really didn't want to take my hands out of my gloves very often to take pictures, but here are a few I got:
A beautiful Presbyterian church I found on Michigan Ave. a little North of where Jared always stays (at the Marriott on Michigan Ave.).
I loved meandering around a new place I'd never been before. Even though it was freezing, I got out as much as I could and just went exploring. Jared worked a lot and was really, really sick, so I had a lot of alone time to just go walking/shopping/etc. I really didn't want to take my hands out of my gloves very often to take pictures, but here are a few I got:
A beautiful Presbyterian church I found on Michigan Ave. a little North of where Jared always stays (at the Marriott on Michigan Ave.).
Everything dressed up for the holidays was just lovely!
Just a little fact for my blog journal here: My grandfather and grandmother on my Dad's side were Presbyterian. My dad was raised Presbyterian and went to a Presbyterian college. I used to attend services at Presbyterian churches whenever I would visit my grandparents and I remember that even though they were different than I was used to, there was still a spirit felt there.
Chicago had some really beautiful Christmas trees! This one was one of my favorites:
The Drake Hotel
This was taken right outside of Jared's office building that is right on the river. It really is such a great location that he gets to be every week. Right in the middle of everything!
I'm still not quite sure I understand "The Bean" sculpture, but we went and checked it out as the tourists that we were. We were freezing, but trying to smile anyway!
I did think the reflection of the buildings were pretty neat!
This was taken right outside of Jared's hotel. One of my favorite parts of visiting where Jared lives every week was meeting the cute little older ladies that work at his hotel. Because of Jared's status he gets to go to a VIP lounge that serves free breakfast and then has dessert, drinks, etc. at night. Since Jared's been going there every week since September, the workers know him well. When I got there the first morning, a little lady named "Eugenia" got up on her tip toes, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks. She is from Mexico City and with a very heavy accent told me how much she loves my sweet, cheerful husband. It made me happy to see that he was being well taken care of far from home. He lives quite differently on the road!
Another snowy, freezing day in Chicago. Looking down Michigan Ave. which has some of the most amazing shopping! Every store you could possibly want to go to all in one place. Except Target.
Outside Jared's office building during the day. The Trump tower is that tall building.
The Chicago Tribune building that is right next to Jared's office. This building was actually really cool because all around the outside it had little pieces or artifacts from other buildings from around the world. My favorite? A little piece of the LDS temple in Salt Lake City!
Out of order, but Day 1 flying in and figuring out how to take the public transportation the hour into Chicago.
Decorations inside the Drake hotel:
The view from our hotel room on the 44th floor. Poor Jared had an ear infection and would cringe in the elevator every time we went up or down. I'm not sure he and Chicago get along very well considering he's been sick for months!
A few more pictures. Imagine you're as cold as you've ever been in your whole life, and that's what it's like to be in these pictures. :)
My other favorite Christmas tree was in the Macy's off of State Street. 7th floor in the Walnut room.
Selfie outside of Macy's!
Window shops:
Trump tower from down below:
This was as we started our 2 mile-ish walk in the snow to Jared's cousin Kiley's house for dinner. Jared REALLY didn't feel good, but was such a good sport to stop for some pictures with me anyway.
This is what it looked like by the time we were done with dinner and ready to walk home. I'm bummed I didn't take any pictures with Kiley and her cute family! She was so sweet to have us over and we really enjoyed meeting her husband and little boy. Our walk home was actually kind of lovely because we had the city pretty much to ourselves! We thought about taking a taxi multiple times but by the time we found one we were almost back to the hotel anyway. Just added to the memories/adventure, right?!
Another view from our hotel room. Just beyond the edge of those buildings is a very cold Lake Michigan!
One of my favorite activities was checking out the Christkindl market. It's a little market with shops from all over the world with different kinds of food, ornaments, coo coo clocks, and other gifts. It was fun to see so many different cultures all in one spot!
This seems like nothing now! Today Jared's high is -2 with wind chills of -37 degrees! 10 degrees must seem downright warm to him right now. I assure you, however, that this was freezing. I really thought my face might be forever stuck in one place! I learned the beauty of Starbuck's Peppermint Hot Chocolate on every corner. I may have lived off of that stuff!
The day I left was actually beautifully sunny, even though it was still cold. I loved this picture with the Illinois state flag:
My plane as I got to the airport. I decided I never wanted the job of being a de-icer. That poor guy had to be so cold! I told that to my Dad and discovered that once upon a time he did have the job to be the de-icer at American! Lucky man!
I flew home via Indianapolis 4 days after I was supposed to be home. My mom and kids thankfully all survived, and I so appreciated the timeout and alone time with Jared. We don't get much of it these days, and it was just nice to hang out with him again. Thank you so much to my wonderful Mom for being such a trooper and taking such good care of my kiddos! Til next time Chi-town!
