Helllllo Chicago! We woke up early this morning to make it to the airport for our 6:51am flight. I feel like we were always here with way too much time, so we shot to leave our house at 5:15. Brian says we cut it far too close for his liking. We waited a long time to check bags, and it took a while to make it through security. We grabbed breakfast and coffee and walked right on to board. I feel like it was perfect timing 😊 But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.. it’s our fun, family trip to Chicago!
I will always take this picture! I love how excited they are and also how little they are, loving traveling with their dolls.
"I snuck a third bunny in my American Girl doll bag. HAHA!"
I also love that they picked out their outfits and chose to match. I had nothing to do with it!
We grabbed bags quick, straight into a cab and headed for the city. Dropped our bags at our hotel, it was only 9am local time by now. And went out to explore. We stayed at the Arlo Hotel which was super close to Millenium Park. We walked to the bean first. It was so crowded, so we snapped a couple pictures and kept walking.
The PR team with Bubbl’R had a tent set up handing out free waters, koozies and glasses. We got all three and are now fans. As I’ve already ordered some in our next grocery delivery. We took the twisty walkway pedestrian bridge over to Maggie Daley Park and my goodness; it was so fun! The girls loved this. I wish we had more time to go back a few times. Wish we had this in Little Rock! Chicago gets an A++ for city parks! We wanted to come back and play mini-golf but never made it back. It was a gorgeous day, the parks were so clean and nice, and so interesting and fun.
the pedestrian bridge was so pretty!
I can't get over how beautiful her smile it.
"secret garden" in the park
We walked to lunch along the Chicago Riverwalk, which was gorgeous. Again, perfect weather!! A great into to Chicago. Walking along the river to lunch, getting to see so much of the city by foot.
We ate at Pizzeria Portofino, which I found out later is operated by the group owned by Giuliana Rancic, which—if you get the title of my blog, you likely know I use to be a huge E! News fan! The vibe and location were amazing! Again, lovely lovely intro to Chicago! Open-air Italian Riviera atmosphere, delish cocktails, and you can dock your mega yacht right there!
We ordered the crispy parmesan fries with garlic aioli, calabrese soppressata pizza, charred pepperoni pizza and the cacio e pepe pasta. The soppressata was my fav but the pepperoni was amazing as well. The fries were delish and crispy and really Kate got the pasta but shared with us all—delishly creamy.
I had this cute and tasty frozen piazza colada and it went down so nice and easy. So lovely for a beautiful day on the water! It was happening, and pretty to look at and just a fun spot to be. They had spritz’s going in every direction, they also had this Portofino purse which was a massive spritz served in a glass purse for like 2-4 people. It was so interesting! It was fun. We really didn’t want to leave.
drink with a view
Stopped and had our selfie arm (Brian) snap a picture. His idea, not mine!
But we did. We walked down to Eataly for dessert for the girls and espresso for the parents. On the way, we passed the Weber Grill, which I came to with my parents on our summer trip here in 2004.
Then we walked to the Navy Pier to catch our boat tour. And in hindsight, we went a little hard on the first day. Lots of walking! Clocked in the day with 18k steps.
We did the architecture boat tour and it took Emily about 30 minutes to just pass out. But it was nice. I loved being on the water and we learned a lot about the buildings and history. Glad we did it on the first day because then we knew everything! Brian and I were able to refer to each building and the type for the rest of the trip 😊
tallest building designed by a woman!
love this one!
I would absolutely live here.
skinny at the bottom, fatter at the top!
Learned some really cool things about the tall buildings. Like historic gravity tanks at the top-- but the most amazing is the liquid mass dampers to help keep the building from swaying in the wind. The water sloshes back and forth to counteracts the buildings natural movement. Isn't that crazy?
Also, like on the tallest building designed by a woman, it looks like two floors were left incomplete. Nope, that's intentional to allow wind to blow directly through the building. They are built to withstand the high winds. Blow-through floors are common and if you start looking for them, you'll spot them!
OMG they spelled it wrong, just like the JVSTICE building in Little Rock!
sleepy girl
lunch spot from the water.
After the tour, we finally went to check-in at our hotel. We refreshed, rested for a bit and then took off for dinner. If you follow this blog at all, you will know we’re huge Rick Bayless fans. We cook his recipes all the time and love his cookbooks! Dinner on the first night was at his restaurant, Frontera Grill. Honestly, we overdid it a bit at lunch, so we weren’t starving but still had a wonderful meal.
We had already told the girls that no one would have a kid’s menu but then they did! We ordered the ceviche trio, which included the classic ceviche, coctel de camaron, and aquachilie negro cevicies. I think my fav was the classic, call me basic but it was amazing! The negro was like a mole and was good and interesting and I also really liked the coctel. We also ordered the carnes al acarbon para tacos—which is basically chicken but had all sorts of other stuff with it that made it yummy + two salsas, Brian really wanted salsas! The girls got tacos and a quesadilla—Emmy’s tacos were steak and we ended up eating them. The steak was fantastic!! Everyone was happy so we skipped dessert and went back to the hotel for much needed sleep.
picking out art for our neighbors :)
On the way back, we stopped to take a picture and a lady stopped and asked to take one for us. I’m so glad she did. We joked that since we took one, we no longer have to do our fall family photos.
It was such a great, fun day that was the perfect start to a really fun trip! I will say that Emily has already asked where the American Girl doll store is about 15 times. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t stop. She only keeps asking!!!
XOXO
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