We took advantage of a few warm days over Spring Break this past month to head to the Chicagoland area. We didn't have much planned - we literally decided the night before and packed at 6:30 the next morning! All that we knew was that we were ready to hit the open road!
We stopped and found some letterboxes along the way. Naperville was our first stop. We found this nice Grotto in the cemetery. The kids loved the rock "stairs" and climbed to enjoy the view.
Maddie found this prayer plaque - the same prayer we say every night before bed.
We found some "snow" behind an ice skating rink. While Matt logged into the box, the three younger kids had a snowball fight.
We ended up spending most of our first day in Glenview - north of Chicago. We visited
The Grove. We have visited The Grove
twice before and
love it more every time we visit! The Turtle Pond is always intriguing. We all enjoyed the many animals, including the small snapping turtle that tried to eat my pink bandaid!
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| Will - pretending to play a "flute" as the snake rises towards him. |
We left the nature center to hike a bit around the preserve. The sun was shining and the temps were perfect!
We left The Grove and drove across the street to our hotel. The kids were in AWE as they saw the atrium for the first time. When I chose this hotel, I chose it knowing that the kids would love it!
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| Matt & the girls riding the glass elevator |
We checked in to the hotel, unpacked and then headed out for a few more boxes as well as dinner. We asked at the front desk about the nearest Chicago style pizza. They told us that there was a Giordano's a few miles down the road. Of course, a few miles equals 1/2 hour in Chicago rush hour traffic! We found the Giordano's - surprisingly it was closed! We checked the GPS and found the next closest was a few more miles down the road in Evanston. After another 1/2 of driving we found a very tight parking spot (we wondered if we would be able to get out!!!) and went to see how long the wait would be before paying the parking meter. Matt came back with the news that this Giordano's was also closed!! We later found out that both of these restaurants were owned by the same person and due to a breach of contract, the stores had been closed. Craziness! We drove around Evanston for another 15-20 minutes trying to decide our next option. With no luck finding a parking spot, we started to drive back towards the hotel. We ended up at a Lou Malnati's for dinner. After 2+ hours of driving, we were hungry and frustrated! We were thrilled to find that Lou's didn't have a wait, so we were seated right away and ordered garlic bread to eat while we waited for our deep dish pizza.
Everyone enjoyed the deep dish, which was a nice surprise! Alex & Kaitee both had seconds! We left Lou's with full tummies and energy to go swimming!
When we arrived at the pool, we shared it with another family...but they soon left and we had the pool to ourselves for the next hour!
It was late and we had had a full day of travel, boxing, hiking, eating and swimming! Sleep wasn't far off for any of the kiddos!
We woke early the next morning with the promise of driving to Woodfield Mall for shopping and a special treat of Cinnabon, we checked out and headed east.
We arrived at Woodfield Mall around 9:30 after finding a few boxes in the area. We were surprised that we didn't smell Cinnabon as we got closer...and then more surprised when we saw that it was not open! We waited until the mall opened and saw that Cinnabon was STILL not open (Matt contacted Cinnabon after we got home and found out that the opener wasn't aware that she was supposed to open, so no one was there that morning). We ended up grabbing some food at McDonalds (next door to Cinnabon), did our shopping then left to head to IKEA. We spent our share of time & money at IKEA and then headed home.
We continue to laugh about the "closed restaurants" and the snapping turtle. We enjoyed our time together - away from the usual home hassles. It is good to get away every now and then!
