Chicago

Some of our friends from Florida moved to Chicago for a radiology fellowship, so we took a day trip to see them in the big city.  It's about 2.5 hours from Madison, so not a bad drive at all.  The kids were thrilled to see all the tall buildings and, of course, the bean.  

Garrett wading in the lake:

Of course, we had to get some of Chicago's famous "Garrett Popcorn".  It was delicious.... and thankfully we can buy pretty much the same thing at Costco (and I do!).

Stopped at a playground for a bit:

In the late afternoon we ended up at our friends' apartment, where we ordered deep dish pizza and ate on the roof!  It was fun to enjoy the amazing views and eat one of Chicago's signature dishes:

We also spent more time at Millennium Park, had lunch and rode the carousal at Navy Pier, went to the American Girl store, and just did tons of walking!!  It was a great day.

I will admit that I was a little nervous to drive into Chicago - I hate traffic like that and always feel anxious in that situation.  However, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating so that was good (of course, I wasn't driving so....that helped. Ha.).  Garrett's the same way (not anxious, but he hates big cities and traffic), but at the end of the day we agreed that it was totally worth it and not too awful.  I did get a little nervous after dinner when Garrett had to walk back to the parking garage to get our car (it was about half a mile away, but he was gone for about 45 mins).  Thankfully that was the only really crazy traffic we (he) encountered.  Hopefully we will get another chance to see our friends before the year is up!