Chicago, My Kind of Town (Days 1 and 2)

As most of you know, I look for any excuse for a vacation. I blame this on my parents. I would tell you to bring the issue up with them, but most likely when you try to get a hold of them they will be off on a cruise somewhere.

Late last year Taki mentioned that he was going to have to go back to Chicago for work (Nikos and I went with him last May.) Method has an office in Chicago and some of his vendors are located out there as well. Of course I jumped on the idea, and, realizing that I would still be on maternity leave, told him that I wanted to take the kids and go along with him. Before Olive was born we decided that we would plan the trip for after she was two months old (so she would have her vaccinations) as well as plan it when the Cubs were home so that we could take both kids to Wrigley.

Last Friday afternoon we hopped on bart and headed out to the Oakland airport. Here are a few shots of the kids in the bart station - I am also including these so that you can see what our stroller looks like since I've mentioned people being confused when they hear Olive crying.

Once we arrived in Oakland we took advantage of the fact that we had an extra set of hands to carry luggage.



Nikos debuts the first time we have paid for a seat for him (and monkey.) He is very serious about his seat and his window view.

The flights went pretty well. We left Oakland, had an almost three hour layover in Denver (our flight to Chicago was delayed) and then flew to Chicago. Nikos was up the entire flight to Denver (despite the fact that it was during his naptime) and then fell asleep promptly as we landed. Slept through the layover you say? HA! Apparently the five minute catnap gave him a second wind so he was wide awake the whole time we were in Denver. Sadly, that second wind did not come anywhere near this parents. Selfish wind.

Before we grabbed a bite to eat, this is basically what Nikos spent the ENTIRE time doing. Taki and I took turns being the chaperone. I know when it was my turn Olive I honestly followed Nikos back and forth on this thing FIFTY SIX times - and that was before I lost count. I am not joking. I started hearing people saying "there he goes again" and "wow, she looks tired" and of course the favorite "she's got a baby in there!" (I was wearing Olive in the pouch.)



Luckily the back and forth must have tired Nikos out a little bit because he fell asleep for part of the flight to Chicago. We arrived a little before midnight and got to our hotel just before 1am. The kids handled the transfer into their pak-n-plays well - we stayed in the Embassy Suites so they were out in the living room - and didn't wake up until after 11 the next morning which was nice.

Since technically this was a business trip for Taki, he only had about a day and a half of vacation time with us. After sleeping through our free breakfast (booo!) we packed the kids up and headed over to the subway to Wrigley Field to catch the Cubs game.

Taki and Nikos wait patiently for the Redline to take us to the game. Despite the deadpan look on his face (or should I say, on both of their faces), Nikos was very excited about getting on the train.

I must warn you, this will be one of only a handful of Olive's appearances on the Chicago blog. The poor kid spent some serious time in the pouch (which she loves) and I kept forgetting to take pictures of her. Ahh second kid syndrome.

But isn't it fun that one of the kids in the above picture finally looks like me? Wahoo!

Here's our family picture in front of the Wrigley Field sign. If it is up to me we'll have one every year. :) Also, this is the only family picture we took the entire trip. What? I know.

And last year...View of the field from our seats.

As you can see, we are waaay up in the third deck, which also happens to be where a lot of trashed people were sitting. Considering I was far from trashed, I took full advantage of this fact by sharing some of our (horrid) fries with the guy next to me...who then gave me a bunch of his mai tai. What? Who got the better deal there? Of course, it is also highly possibly that the guy was stoned, since he declared the fries the "best ones he had ever had" when in actuality they really tasted like cardboard and cold cardboard at that. I must say, it was a lot easier to get trashed since they sell beers in the stands. I know this because the guy next to me bought me one since I let him finish off the so-called fries.

Warning - those that aren't familiar with Twitter can skip this next paragraph because it will just be confusing. Lewis Aunts should have Kristin explain it to you. :) I also experienced a Wrigley Italian Beef - which I then trash-tweeted because it basically tasted like meat that had accidentally fallen into the nacho bin and was then thrown on a roll. And MUCH to my surprise @italianbeef tweeted back to me! What? I know...totally bizarre. Anyway, I am sure if you are interested in this you can just follow my tweets...

After the game we headed over to the Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier. It was Armed Forces Week (who knew? Fellow blogger (and friend) Jocelyn and I were both commenting how in the Bay Area - at least where we live - you don't even realize it is Armed Forces Week, which I think is sad..but I digress.)
As a shout out to Pop-Pop, Nikos takes the Air Force jet for a spin.

Here are some fun pictures at the HUGE Children's Museum (which Taki commented "kicks Habitot's a**!) Of course, our membership at Habitot got us in to this one free, so we can't complain too much.


We ended the day at the free happy hour at our hotel. Nikos was a big fan of the free snacks they had (and as you know, when he is eating something - anything - I am loathe to stop him!) I think he thought it wast the free all you can eat pretzels hour.