CHICAGO ~ PART THREE

SATURDAY, SUNDAY AND MONDAY

We headed out to the Lake Forest area to meet up with my husbands family who were in town. From there we headed to Bohemian National Cemetery. We both have family members there. I wanted to go because my aunt & uncle who lived here in California, who were our only relatives in California, had their ashes put there as their final resting place with my grandparents. My father has not been able to visit them at the cemetery and I was going to get a picture for him. Well they were placed there two years ago, my brother attended the internment and guess what, they never put their names on my grandmothers stone! It was a huge disappointment for me. We did go to the office to voice my anger. I believe it was done this week and they will be sending my dad the photo showing that it was done.

We also visited my husbands family who are buried there. His uncle was being silly picking out a spot because they have a few empty ones. I also got some pictures of a few beautiful statues while I was there.

Then it was off to Aunt Butch's party. We were not sure what to expect since she has Alzheimer's. It turned out to be a beautiful blessing. It is very sad of course but she always has been a fun person. The favorite aunt who loved everyone. She does know her brother & sister because they visit often but didn't know any of us. Our son was with us but his girlfriend was unable to go because of her conference. We sat at a long table and there were other people who we didn't know at booths around us. You could see Aunt Butch asking her brother "who is that" over and over again as we partied for 3 hours. One good thing about where her mind is at is that she is happy and doesn't remember a lot. I am telling you this because she has a son who doesn't see her anymore and if she remembered she would be very hurt.

So during the course of the 3 hours, probably at least six times, she would push herself around the table in her wheelchair and introduce herself to each of us. She would ask who we were and for that split second she knew who you were. She was fascinated with my husband, his brother and our son Adam. You can see her with my husband and son as she went around. It was the most loving thing to witness. Several different times someone would say we are here for your 90th birthday and she would hold up her arms saying I'm 90! She still has a very quick wit and her birthday wish was for a man between 18 & 25. Then when she found out that our son was 31 she said maybe she could go older. Even though she didn't really remember us (I was very close to her) it was still very nice to see her happy, like a kid again.

So the tables around us were witnessing this and as each one left they came up to her and wished her a happy birthday. They all commented on how wonderful it was to watch this day unfold. I am so happy that we were able to join in this day.

So as we were driving home our son asked what we were doing for dinner. My husband always goes into, I can't eat another thing today, blah, blah blah! Well as we were driving Adam made reservations at Ditka's for 8:15pm. It was the most amazing time. Dinner was out of this world. He is know for his pork chops and let me tell you it was a delicious dinner. The ambiance was awesome and we went through two bottles of wine as we dined. If your ever in Chicago you must give Ditka's a try. I loved when he was the coach of the Bears, those were fun days with the Superbowl Shuffle!

On Sunday morning we took off to Gilberts, IL. My brother-in-law has been living there for about 4 years now. (he was born & raised in Texas, he is my husbands 1/2 brother but feels just like a full one to me) We love Jimmy and his girlfriend Caprice who bought their house together. Well Jimmy is all about the decorations for Halloween. That was just so much fun. My mother-in-law was staying there too until her flight on Tuesday.

We got to meet Caprice's family which was a blast. Her mother, her sister, her brother, their children and other family members who also came over. They were all there for the trick or treating event. For some reason Gilberts put rules out this year and kids could only go door to door from like 3 to 6pm. Even though it wasn't dark out the kids still got scared with all the decorations! Then we watched a movie that night and had some delicious, can you guess.....pizza! However all afternoon Caprice put out the most delicious snacks. She really worked hard on showing us a wonderful time. It was a great Sunday!

On Monday we got up and enjoyed a delicious french toast casserole. Then it was off to see a few sights around Gilberts and we got to spend some fun time at a Cabela's store. Then it was over to Claim Jumper for a great lunch before we needed to leave for O'Hare Airport. When we arrived at the airport my husband was upgraded to first class and I let him keep it for himself. Wouldn't you know that right at our gate there was a Vienna Hot Dog stand and an Uno's pizza stand. OH YES I DID! Our second flight from Denver back home to the Ontario, CA airport we got to be together in First Class and the wine just kept coming. It was a great Monday and to top it off I saw two shooting stars out of the airplane window. What a blessing for me.

Back here at the house our daughter Amber & son-in-law Dylan had a fun time with Halloween.

They carved 3 pumpkins which got great reviews from the trick or treaters! Also we had 57 kids at the house and they were thrilled to be given the BIG candy bars that I buy each year. They said it was cute how the kids would yell back to their parents "this is the best house, they have the big candy bars!"

So here are a few odds and ends that I wanted to show you. Our house in Western Springs always had this house on the corner who had this penguin on their garage door. It was still there even 21 years later! My daughter is just learning to crochet and she made me a scarf for my trip. When we were at the cemetery on Saturday, in the office that fake tombstone was sitting on a desk and Mark's uncle wanted me to take a picture of it for him. That building you see is a retirement center and my dad use to run all the maintenance on it! An interesting fountain in Water Tower Place Mall and a neat small water tower looking thing heading into Riverside, IL. Of course I could not leave the airport without taking a picture of the toilet. I don't travel often but to this day I haven't seen these anywhere but Chicago. They are so awesome. Wave your hand and the plastic moves around given you a fresh seat to sit on! (that of course is if you trust that it isn't just spinning around using the same piece of plastic each time:)

Thank you for sharing in my adventure to Chicago.

It was the best of the best!

CHICAGO ~ PART TWO

FRIDAY

Friday we were off to drive around the city and visited a few places. We went to the Field Museum for a few hours. It was wonderful. We were able to get several pressed pennies for our daughter on Friday in the city. See the Mold-A-Rama machine, remember those? My children had a big collection of these when they were growing up. They had several in the museum but I decided not to bring any home. (our daughter was a little disappointed when she found out)

Please remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Across the way from the Field Museum was Soldier Field the home of the Bears. I didn't have the energy to walk up closer but my husband and son did. We were able to shop in a store there where I purchased a few things for our daughter. It was very exciting. It would have been fun to go to a Bears game. I had been to several when we were living in Illinois. We ended up going to the Carm's in the city for our Italian Beef Combo sandwiches that we couldn't have on Thursday. LOVED IT!

Here are some of the views as we drove around the lake front.

We ended up going to Navy Pier and walked around for awhile. It was fun and the scenery was beautiful as you can see. Then we headed back to the "W" so Tristen could attend the start of her conference.

After we got back to the hotel I wanted to do something else. Our son Adam was going to go with Tristen and I felt like we also needed to do something. So DH and I ended up going downstairs to the lobby for a few glasses of wine. It was fun watching people! Then we went to the restaurant in the hotel for an awesome dinner. I didn't take a picture of our meal but it was perfect. I had a delicious steak, parmesan fries, some mac & cheese and a few other things. It was a great Friday!

These are some of the trees that I saw that still had some color.

This is actually a mosaic of most of the pictures I took. I just did this for fun.

Come back tomorrow for the rest of our trip.

P.S. NEW POST AT DEBBY'S TREE.

CHICAGO ~ PART ONE

First I want to thank everyone for your prayers. We all made it back and forth to Chicago safely which is a wonderful blessing from God. Landing in Chicago on Wednesday after all the storms that had been going through gave us a very bumpy landing but I wasn't even scared. (well maybe a little)

WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY

So for those of you that are newer followers I am going to give a brief description of why we went to Chicago. Our son's girlfriend is going for her doctorate at UCLA and had a conference to attend in Chicago. So a few months ago our son asked us if we would be able to join them. He was hoping that we could show them around and take them by the places that our son remembered when we lived there. They were leaving on October 27th. My husband wasn't real sure if he wanted to go, feeling that if we went he would have to visit his Aunt Butch who is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's. Not a comfortable situation for him. So he decided to call his mom, Butch's sister, to see what she thought. Well since Butch's birthday was on the 27th she was also heading to Chicago with several other relatives to celebrate Butch's 90th Birthday. So as you may have guessed we went!

We took off at 6:30 am out of Ontario, Ca. My husband was bumped up to First Class but he gave it to me. Initially I was mad because I thought if we go down I want to go down together. (that is how my mind works) Well I of course loved it and enjoyed a great breakfast on our way to Denver airport. Then we flew on to Chicago meeting our son and his girlfriend (of many years who bought a condo together last year) at O'Hare airport. Then the fun began.

We stayed at the "W" on Adam's street and it was wonderful. (thankfully we were able to get rooms for the conference price) However parking was $53. a night! The "W" was awesome, pretty trendy, geared for the young but a great experience. The entrance with the big lamps is also a bar with seating everywhere. I loved the Bliss samples that they had in the room and made sure I kept my supply each day to take home.

(Please click on the pictures to enlarge them. I could never post all of my pictures without doing them in mosaics. Also many of these pictures you will see over the next few days are taken from the car. We had a tight schedule to keep)

After we got all settled in we went to Gino's East off of Michigan Avenue. We took a cab because if your already paying for parking it would be silly to park and pay again. The cab rides were the better bet. So it was an awesome dinner at our FAVORITE DEEP DISH PIZZA PLACE. As we were seated I noticed that our daughters name was on the booth so I had to take a picture. It was as wonderful as I remember.

Then we went for a walk on Michigan Avenue over to the John Hancock building. We couldn't go up because of a special group that had something going on and we didn't have a chance to go back up into the observatory. It was a great Wednesday!

On Thursday morning we headed to the suburbs where we grew up. It's funny how you don't realize that we were only 12 miles from the city. You don't appreciate what you have until it is gone. By the way the downtown area was incredible and very clean. We were very impressed.

Our first stop was Woodlawn Cemetery to visit my Mother who passed away in 1982. She is in what is know as the inside garden in the center of the mausoleum. As you can see my Father's name is on there too. I always thought that was creepy. He will join my Mother in Chicago someday, hopefully many years from now. We didn't go over to the other part of the cemetery where I have other relatives buried because we were on a timetable for the day.

Moving on we visited houses that I, my DH and son grew up in. The first house is the house I lived in until I was about 3, below it is the house I lived in until I got married. Those were in North Riverside, IL. The house to the right is our home in Western Springs off of Route 66. This is the home we lived in when our children were born. We had put an addition on that home but the new owners have even a bigger one off the back of the house. The bottom of the house use to be brown and the Tudor parts were beige & brown. Next is the water tower in Western Springs.

The smaller pictures on the right are my husbands Nana's house which he spent a lot of time at. Next to that is a townhouse that he lived in with his mother after his parents divorced. Below those two homes is the Riverside water tower which is a town we spent a lot of time in when we were in H.S. Then the other home belonged to my grandparents (mothers parents) before they retired to Florida. The blue house belonged to my father-in-law and my husband lived there during his H.S. years until the day we were married. (we didn't have an opportunity to go out to Bolingbrook to see the townhouse we bought when we married) The white townhouse is where the kids and I lived after I was divorced from my husband, selling the house in Western Springs. We lived in that townhouse for five years before we moved out to California to reunite with my husband and become a family again. :)


In the next photo you will see the H.S. Riverside Brookfield which we both attended and fell in love. The white brick building is in Western Springs which was a day care center that our children attended and it was a must see for our son. The other day care in Clarendon Hills where my townhouse was we could not find but we actually searched for a very long time. The Cock Robin sign was a must have. It is closed but they had the best hamburgers and ice cream.

So after visiting the houses we headed out to Gurnee, IL. My father had a cottage near Antioch on a little lake called Huntley Lake. Our son had very fond memories from our time spent here on weekends during the summer. We also came out here for several weeks each summer after we moved to California. FUN TIMES! We got off at the Gurnee exit to meet up with my brother Raymond who lives in Milwaukee, WI. We haven't seen him in 9 years. He is an actor but for many years now he has directed many of the local theatre groups in Milwaukee and is very well known. The cottage is nothing special but was a wonderful place to spend the weekend. The kids would swim all the time and got to spend special times with their cousins. There are maybe 20 cottages on this lake which belonged to a farmer and was deeded with 100 year leases. You owned your cottage but not the land. My father really misses it. Please click to enlarge.

So when we were going around to the houses we planned on going to Carm's for an Italian Beef and Sausage combo. Well the place was closed so we ended up at Aurelio's which is my husbands favorite thin crust pizza in Chicago. I love it too. We did not have an opportunity to get over to Barone's pizza in Downers Grove which is my favorite:( So we arrived in Gurnee to meet up with my brother, meeting at White Castle so we could each have one tiny burger because it's a must. Then we headed to the cottage. After being at the cottage we went back into the Gurnee area to have Uno's pizza which is a Chicago favorite too. They also have a deep dish pizza like Geno's but we always loved Geno's more. It was a great Thursday!

Come back Saturday and Sunday for the rest of the trip.

I AM HOME

I hope to get some posts together soon. It was the most F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C. trip. It went well beyond what I had imagined. I will most likely do several posts because I must share some history behind each day. (especially for future generations to read) Hopefully I will be able to get it into 3 posts, not to long and hopefully not boring for you. It was Priceless!!!! Actually I find myself tearing up just remembering each moment.

POST IT NOTE TUESDAY