Chicago, It's Been Too Long!

 We've all been hearing the siren call of The Windy City, and this May, we decided to make the trip! 

We revisited so many of our favorite places, most of which seemed new to Noah, who either has a really bad memory or was actually too young to remember much about our favorite city. 

Let's rank some of our stops! 

Portillo's- Chicago's famous Italian beef sandwiches, hot dogs, and chocolate cake shakes. 

4/10- Sog, sog, sooooooogggggy bread was hard to choke down, beef was amazing, shakes hit the spot. Just give me a dry piece of bread that isn't touching one ounce of au jus and I'll take it from there, thanks. A nice worker offered to take our picture mid-roast, so most of these smiles are fake. 

Historic Palmer House Hotel-  Originally a wedding gift, built in 1873, it was the first hotel to incorporate the light bulb, the telephone, and the vertical steam lift (elevator) as well as being the creator of one of the world’s most adored confection, the brownie. 

Lobby scores 1000/10, the architectural details were incredible and it was prom! 

The rooms, not pictured, get a middle of the scale rating of 5/10. They were fine, the beds were fine, the views out the window were underwhelming, and, worst of all, the rooms were not next to each other. The boys were down the hall, which I never like except when they come to pick us up like we're all on a group date. 

Pool gets a solid 8/10, deduction for no hot tub but the whole pool was pleasantly warm. 

Brownie- 6/10- too moist, questionable nuts on top, but we got 6 for free which was pretty amazing. 

Walkability- 8/10- thug life coming out as we made our way to a nearby breakfast bakery. 

We adore the El. Even though it's so loud! 

We took said bakery breakfast back to the hotel lobby our last morning, and it was divine. 

Downtown views on the ground- 10/10. Chicago is just so clean and cute and lovely. 

Breakfast at Wildberry- 12/10. Second best breakfast place in the city, but we weren't anywhere close to our favorite, Elly's, because the temple was closed while we were there this time. 

Millenium Park! 

The Bean, aka Cloud Gate, always gets a solid 10/10 because it's a literal icon. 

Maggie Daley Park- 10/10. My only complaint is that my kids are too big to fully enjoy it anymore. But that didn't stop them from trying! 

Lake Michigan- 10/10- gorgeous, stunning, no notes. 

Random Norweigan appreciation parade we stumbled into that was blocking all the roads- 3/10.

Buckingham Fountain- 4/10 because it was still turned off for the winter. 

Riding the suuuuuuper crowded subway to Wrigley Field- 2/10. Points only awarded because it's so cheap and it reminds us how nice it is to catch an Uber. 

Attending a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field- a lifetime bucketlist item! 10/10!

Actually enjoying the game- 4/10. There was so much to look at, but it was SOOOO COLD!!! We had great seats but they were in the shade and we were suffering!

No peanuts and cracker jack and lemonade for us- we got hot chocolate and hot dogs and left before the 7th inning stretch. 

Cold! And tired! And cold!  When Jason's too cold to stick out the entire game, it's too cold! 

But the Cubs won!