Chicago

For work, Ryan needs to get some continuing education credits each year. There's lots of ways to attain those, but one is by going to conferences held around the country. Every other year, Ryan's employer pays for him to go and Ryan chose it to be this year. I hate being home alone and I really wanted us all to take some sort of vacation aside from visiting family. So, we bought my plane ticket and Rhys and I went with Daddy to Chicago, Illinois. I was really looking forward to it in hopes that my parents could come visit us for a day (they live 4 hours away), but that didn't happen.

I've been to Chicago lots in my childhood and I was looking forward to experiencing it as an adult. I was also looking forward to seeing parts that I've never seen. I've pretty much only gone to Wrigley Field, US Cellular Field (where the White Sox play, but pretty sure it was called something different back then) and the Chicago Temple. Luckily, we stayed in the heart of downtown. We stayed at a fancy hotel called the Palmer House Hilton. It's an historic and iconic building in downtown Chicago. Anyway, when we told people we were staying there we only heard good things.

The flight there was a little tricky- involving a 3 hour delay, which meant that we didn't get to our hotel until 3 AM Chicago time. With a one-year old who was beyond exhausted, it made it extra fun. We lucked out and were able to get a seat for him. So, he slept in his car seat, on his stomach with his knees where his bum should be. I know I should have strapped him in, but he slept beautifully the whole way there. I figured if the plane was going down, being strapped in a car seat wasn't going to provide much extra protection.

We made it fine and enjoyed ourselves in while we were there. It was hard on Rhys, with his new found freedom of walking. Our hotel room was tiny and the floors were uneven. Not to mention, we felt cooped up half the time. His schedule was off and it was hard to entertain a toddler in such a fancy place. He wasn't super happy most of the time, but he managed. He had two favorite things to do. One was swimming. So I took full advantage of that while we wasted time for Ryan to get back from classes.

One night before bedtime, we had Daddy come join us for some swimming fun. It's a lot more fun with two people to throw him around.

One great thing about the trip was that we didn't have to pay for any of our dinners while we were there. We were able to get a nice selection of Chicago restaurants. Our first night we had to go have our Chicago pizza. Now, I grew up with two parents who are from Chicago. My dad is a die-hard Chicago pizza lover. Even going to the extremes of driving to Chicago (4 hours, like I said earlier) on Christmas Eve, pick up some uncooked pizzas from his favorite pizza place and drive back. Pizza was our tradition for Christmas Eve dinner growing up. So, needless to say, I know my Chicago pizza. When I moved to Utah for college, I was shocked when everyone referred to the deep dish pizza as the Chicago pizza. You see, I grew up eating extra thin pizza from Chicago, with sweet sauce, cut into squares. That's the only way I knew it. I was excited to find a pizza place a block away that had my thin pizza. It was delicious.

Unfortunately I didn't get too many pictures, except for Rhys, of course. Our last day there, we were flying out at 10 PM, so we had all day to explore the city. Ryan skipped going to his conference and spent the time with us. We walked to Navy Pier. It's a touristy pier that's right on Lake Michigan. It was about a 30 minute walk from where we were staying, but we just followed the lake to get there, so it was pretty. Unfortunately, it was really foggy that day, so we couldn't see too far out. Apparently the Chicago skyline is amazing from Navy Pier, but we could not see it.

On Navy Pier there is a Children's Museum. Finally, a place where Rhys could walk around and touch anything he wanted without getting told no. We did it as a precursor to his birthday and made it his birthday celebration. (His birthday was the next day). Lucky for us, because babies 1 and older cost money. Missed it by 24 hours. Rhys had an absolute blast. We would take him to rooms that were age appropriate and let him chose where he wanted to go. He was having the time of his life. I wish we had something similar here. He loved exploring and seeing all the other kids. It was the highlight of the trip for me (and him).
The flight home wasn't too bad. Except Chicago O'Hare Airport is stupid. We asked if the plane was full and the lady at the gate told us it wasn't. So, we asked if we could move around so that we could get a third seat by us for Rhys. She said she had to ask her supervisor who told her that we would have to buy an extra seat to do that. It made me so mad for some reason. I've never been told that before. Most of the time people are really easy going and make it possible for kids to do that. I feel it makes everyone happy on the plane, so you don't have a screaming baby on board. But whatever. I'm still annoyed by it, clearly. Everything worked out great, Rhys slept in our arms the whole flight. And then slept through the transition of getting our luggage, going to car and driving home from Vegas. We were so glad:)

All in all it was a fun trip. I'm glad we went and got to see a part of the country that we don't get to see too often. And it was Rhys' sixth state that he's been to in his short first year of life. Too fun!