Anniversary Trip - Day 1

We are back from our 10th anniversary vacation! And, it was soooo much fun!! As you know it was our first overnighter away from the kids and the report I got back was that they were all really good and, of course, did their normal "kid" thing, but it wasn't anything that Jill and Adam couldn't handle. In fact, when we got back yesterday, we walked in and they were outside playing. And, when they came inside and saw us they were like "hey" and just kept on walking. :-) Soooo glad to see they didn't miss us at all. Seriously. So, that made me feel better, just knowing they had so much fun that they didn't need us there, ya know? I won't have to be nervous anymore about that. Anyway, we left right after lunch on Sat, because we weren't able to check in until 2 (at least that's what we thought).



Here's our hotel. We stayed at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel and it was right in the heart of Chicago. We were close to everything there. It was soooo nice!

We got there about 2:30, but the room wasn't ready, so we gave our luggage to the bell hop and decided to go walk around the city some. Here's the inside of the hotel. I LOVED the lighting. It was just beautiful! We walked down to see if we could catch the 3pm Wendella boat tour, but it was sold out, so we bought a ticket for the next morning. Walked around some more, then went back to hang out until we got the phone call that our room was ready.

We walked around the hotel some when we got there. There were shops in the hotel, down below the street level, but nothing terribly exciting. So, we just went back to the lobby and waited for the call. Here we are waiting. :-)

It didn't take long and they called us. Here's our hotel room. Isn't it nice? We were on the 17th floor. And, me, scared of heights, did NOT look out the window much.

But here was our view. That's the Chicago River. The boat tours are literally just a couple blocks down from us. That's the Trump Tower that the sun is reflecting off of. I don't like Donald Trump, but I must say it's a nice tower.

Here's a better shot of the river. And, you can see how high up we were too.

We had made reservations to eat at 5, because we needed to get to the show by 7 and we didn't know how long it would take to eat and get down there. We changed our clothes and walked down. The restaurant is known for being a really great steak place. It was only a block away, so that was nice.

Here's the restaurant. It opened at 5, so we stood outside until it was open. I felt a bit dorky showing up so early, considering most people in the city eat at 7, but we had places to go and things to see, so we had to eat early. It was delicious though. We really enjoyed it!

And, right across the street was Harry Carey's bar. I almost wish we had gone there! I didn't feel quite fancy enough for Keefer's. Harry's is probably more my style. :-)

We got done earlier than we thought, so we headed back to the hotel for a quick minute, then headed out for the theater. We had tickets to see Mary Poppins. The Cadillac Theater was only 5 blocks away, so we got there quickly. Again, everything was so close to our hotel. It was terrific! We got there about a quarter till 7 and found out that it didn't start until 8! Doh!!!! I thought it was 7 and didn't bother to look at the tickets. So, we could've made our dinner plans later, made the 3:30 boat ride. Looked at the city more. But, I screwed up, so what are ya gonna do? So, we walked around some more, then just waited until the doors opened up. The show was spectacular!!! Watching it made me the miss the kids though, because I KNEW they would've loved it. And, believe it or not, Pete, who mocks out the shows on a regular basis, really enjoyed it and said he'd want to see more. Woo-Hoo!!! It got done about 11pm and we walked back to the hotel. It was so nice and relaxing to walk through the city at night. Much calmer and so pretty with all the lights. Oh, and I didn't take any pictures of the palace and stuff, because I didn't take my camera. Plus, cameras are prohibited in the theater, so I didn't bother. But, it was beautiful. So, that completed Day 1. I'll post about Day 2 later.