Ah, Chicago.

It’s been a week since we got home, and already I miss it. We got to spend the weekend in Illinois for an engagement session and a wedding (both of which will be coming to the blog later this week!) and all I can say is: WOW. I grew up watching Family Matters on TV and of course, Home Alone is one of my all-time favorite movies (and considering Noah is Macauley Culkin’s doppelgänger, we reference Home Alone ALL the time). We’ve had several people in our lives come from Chicago, and every single one of them would talk about their hometown with hearts in their eyes. They spoke about the people and the food, the sights and all the incredible things to do; it always sounded like such a great place!

We got to spend about 7 hours exploring Chicago last Friday, and I feel like we barely saw anything even though we saw so much. We didn’t get to go to Navy Pier or see the infamous Bean, I totally forgot there’s a whole Nutella Cafe downtown that is the stuff dreams are supposedly made of. We meant to visit Garrett’s Popcorn on Michigan Avenue, and when we didn’t get the chance to do that – we thought we’d pick some up at the airport. Turns out, Midway Airport doesn’t sell it! Totally crushed our dreams there a bit, haha.

BUT! What what we did get to see was absolutely incredible.

We took an architectural boat tour on the river, saw Trump tower and the Sears tower (AKA the Willis Building, because I’m told if we call it the Willis Building that true Chicagoans get offended because it was iconically the Sears Tower for… well, forever). We got to see Navy Pier from the boat, we floated on Lake Michigan. We got to walk around the park by Lincoln Zoo, and we stood in line for most of the day waiting for the most delicious pizza + wings we’ve ever had (thank you Steve, for recommending Lou Malnati’s … and thank you to Chicago Police Department for telling us which one to go to downtown).

We even went “Live” while we were out on the boat on Lake Michigan … and I got soaked by a wave in the middle of it (around the 0:55 mark). Story of my life, right? Haha!

On our way to Libertyville for the wedding, we even stopped off in Winnetka to see the McAllister house from Home Alone … which by the way, is under renovations right now and is surrounded by a huge ugly green fence. But hey! I saw it over the fence tops even though it was pitch dark, I can officially say we’ve been there. That totally counts, right?! No pics, but this was how I was feeling staring at one of my favorite movie house sets of all time:

I was seriously so sad to leave Chicago – and I can’t wait to go back and explore some more. I feel like we’d need at least a week there to really see everything, taste the “other” favorite pizza place that half of the people we talked to recommended (it’s a real pizza battle there, one I’m totally happy to be a casualty of!).

So, if anyone wants us to come back to Chicago – say the word, and we’ll come back!

Anyway, I wanted to share some photos we took of our trip; some are iPhone, some are with the ‘big’ camera!

Our One Day Adventure in Chicago

The skies were hazy from fires all over the western part of the United States … crazy to see from the air!

A floating bag and a bird .. by the Sears Tower. I think we were exhausted because this amused us to no end!

These apartment towers were SO cool looking! The tour guide said they’re the most photographed architecture in Chicago!

Then we went out on Lake Michigan and BOY was it cold!!

So this is pretty cool – they close these gates and there’s a depth difference, and water from Lake Michigan floods in to the river. Pretty neat to watch!

We headed to get pizza, and made some new friends.

I’ve never seen Randy so happy to get a slice of pizza. We waited a little over 2 hours for it … SO good! Then Randy gave our leftovers to a homeless man we walked by. 🙂

All in all, it was a great trip and we can’t WAIT to go back because our one day adventure in Chicago was not enough!!

When we go back, tell us: WHERE should we go???