The Great Chicago Binge of 2011 (Day 2) - Navy Pier, Millennium Park & The John Hancock Observatory

Waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed, we hit the ground running on this Sunday morning with a tentative schedule for the day.  We're usually go-with-the-flow type people when it comes to our Kelley Adventures so we had a general idea of what we wanted to hit..but no real plan besides that.  Our first stop after heading south from our hotel was... The Navy Pier.  :) 

Being a far cry from the MASS of people we dealt with the night before... the walk to the Pier was quiet and relaxing..even with the blistering wind hitting our faces along the way.  Guess everyone decided it would be best to sleep in on this somewhat gloomy but very "holiday feeling" winter-like morning.  :)  We loved it! 

Stay inside and snuggle weather that's for sure.. ;)

Except...we had things to SEE!!  ONWARD!!  ;) 

Statue commemorating Bob Newhart's role as Dr. Robert Hartley outside the Navy Pier entrance. 

And this statue of these creepy looking kids playing a weird backwards ring-around-the-rosie type game..

Spotting the Hancock Building from amongst the trees..

The winds were CRAZY out here!

I wish you could tell how nuts the water looked..

The sun, trying to break through the clouds..

While inside the atrium at the Pier, we stopped for a morning snack..

(the plan was to keep the morning and lunch time eating to a minimum so we could handle the TWO dinners we had planned that night..;) 

Mmmmmm... better than I expected.. at least I thought so.  Chad just thought it tasted like regular popcorn.  hehehe... 

Walking along the waters edge to our next stop.. Millennium Park! 

The water looked crazy blue.. almost like a pool

This little quacker about to jump in with this friends.. I tried to wait around for him to do it..but.. Chad was on a mission at this point.  ;) 

Almost there..

The pedestrian bridge designed by Frank Gehry that led us to Millenium Park

Pritzker Pavillion

The Silver BEAN known as Cloud Gate

Having fun trying to think of the best way to capture our reflections..

Kisses to myself maybe??  ;)

hahahaha.. loving this one of Chad. 

hahahaha.. I have no idea what kind of faces we were trying to make..

Ooooooo...pretty... :)

Walking back to our neck of the woods..

Time for another Chicago MUST

A Downtown Dog with mutant, but TASTY green relish.  ;) 

Why was this relish SO GREEN?!?!?!

The Water Tower during the day...

 Followed by panoramic views (AGAIN, this time during the day) from the Hancock Observation Deck..

View down to the Navy Pier

View towards Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower)

View up Lake Shore Drive..

I'm pretty sure this was looking out towards Wrigley Field.. somewhere out there..

Time to head back to the hotel to rest our poor and incredibly aching toes-ies ;) before heading out for our Binge-fest Dinners later this evening..or afternoon, I should say. 

NEXT UP: 

Dinner #1 at 5:30pm - The Publican

Pit Stop for Appetizers & Drinks - Avec

Dinner #2 at 8:30pm - Girl & The Goat

The Great Chicago Binge of 2011 - Day 1 :)

If you know us well at all, you'll know that when Chad and I plan a getaway, we usually...well scratch that, we ALWAYS plan our trips around food.  We make mental notes of the things we absolutely MUST try in each city.  We try to find out what foods the city is known for...what makes it special... if certain foods have been on the Food Network or some other foodie show... you know, those sorts of things ;)  For the restaurants that need reservations, (usually the fancy schmancy ones Chad wants to try that have famous chefs at the helm)... reservations are made AS SOON as plane tickets are purchased.  It was obviously no surprise that Chicago had a LONG list of restaurants for us to try and food to endulge in.  UN-fortunately.. (but a good thing for our bank account)...Chad wasn't feeling up to snuff and was battling his non existent taste buds... so we ended up scaling back our reservations to only a handful.. lol..)

This little extended weekend getaway, which actually marked our two year wedding anniversary!!(woo hoo and awwww all at the same time ;)  was a food binge like no other.  (I've honestly never eaten so much in my life.. one day, we actually had dinner reservations at TWO restaurants...Holy Food Overload is all I can say!  Apparently reservations for these places were hot commodities and we took what we could get just so we could say we had tried it.  CRAZY-NESS! 

But first.. we had to check in to our hotel and take a gander at our surroundings... 

The Allerton Hotel right off the Magnificent Mile at Michigan Ave. and Huron St.

Two seconds after we checked in...it was DARK!  Sunset here was at 4:30pm... crazy

On our walk to see what was around...and to find dinner..

We ran into The Old Water Tower of Chicago

This day was only MILDLY binge-y (it was technically a half day afterall) with one of my all time FAVORITE foods...Chicago style PIZZA!!  On our walk around our little part of the city, we ran SMACK into Lou Malnati's, a Chicago favorite over Pizzeria Uno on Food Wars.  :)  I was pretty giddy, I must say.  It was YUMMY!!

 

First of the Trilogy of Pizzerias we needed to try... for "research" of course.. ;) 

Lou Malnati's - Soooo good.. Butter crust was awesome

Even the "small" pizza was massive!  Time to walk off this beast...

Next Up:  The John Hancock Observatory.  We'd heard that you could skip paying the Observation Deck price by going to the lounge on another floor... BUT, we ended up not taking that route considering it was Saturday night and there was a HUGE line to get up to the bar.  We were also both NOT dressed to be amongst the "trying-too-hard-to-look-cute-so-someone-will-buy-me-a-drink" crowd....so, we bit the bullet and bought the "Sun and Stars" pack...which just meant we were able to come back for a day time look at the city as well.  (cause during this first go round at night...we had NO idea what anything was!) 

Beautiful at every turn :)

Information about the city...

Time to rest up for Day #2 :)



Schmidt-heads :)

Needless to say, life's a party with these kiddos.  They always keep you guessing and they always make you laugh your head off!  Gotta love these goofy Schmidt-heads :) 

A day in the life of our silly niece Kenzie and nephew Logan..

Hellooooooooo in there.... :) 

Kenzie passed out, Macie patiently waiting to be let out in the middle, and Logan being silly after taking a long walk and spending an afternoon at the park.  :) 

Chuggin' along in their make-shift train.. but...

Apparently no one has introduced Kenzie to a belt yet.  ;)  hahahaha..

CRACK IS WHACK!!

My name is Kenzie, and I approve this blog post.  ;)  hahahaha..