Chicago... March 29, 2008

It was really fun to have a "date" with my lovey, to explore one of America's biggest cities, and to have some time all to myself to do things mommies never get to.  I slept in, spent hours reading my latest book (an autobiography of George Stephanopoulos about his time during the Clinton years), and watched American Idol with the volume up loud and no interruptions!  It was so fun!  I missed Noah, but not too much until we were on the plane home and then I couldn't wait to be mommy again.  Noah had a lot of fun with Grammie Parker while we were gone too.  They went to the zoo and the Treehouse Museum.  When we got back and picked him up I could tell it was a really good experience for both of them because Noah didn't want to say goodbye to them.

The first day we got there Chris and I walked the "Magnificent Mile" which is a downtown street lined with famous and super expensive stores like Cartier and Tiffanny's.  We went inside Tiffany's just so we could say we did and gawked at how beautiful and also how expensive the things in their display cases are.  Seriously, who has $71,000 to spend on a pair of diamond earings and why are they spending it on earings instead of starving orphans in Africa?  I thought about this a lot the few days we were there because there were so many homeless people begging on the streets.  Chris had his interviews in the 2nd tallest building in Chicago on the 80th floor in a nice private club that they were going to renovate soon for $5 million dollars.  That is so much money.  It made me want to re-evaluate how much money I spend giving to others instead of just giving "more" to myself.

That afternoon we also spend time walking around  famous park that had some art sculptures in it.  The two things that impressed me most about Chicago were the architecture and the art that seemed to be everywhere.  In the park there is this sculpture called "the Cloud Gate" but everyone calls it the "bean".  It looks ok in picutres, but in person it is incredible!  It is so beautiful how it relects the skyline of skyscapers and the sky.  It's so interactive and engaging.  Here are a couple of pictures of me and Chris looking at it.