Back from the Windy City!

And I cannot tell you how much fun we had and what a wonderful time we had at chez Hackett's. We could not have had better hosts or accommodations if we would have stayed at a five star hotel, or did we? What a great break away from the Twin Cities. What a HUGE treat for me to get to see such a wonderful friend and spend time with her and her family. She has the most adorable daughter who at 7 is just such a sweet little doll! They also have the most wonderful little guy who just turned one so I got to meet him for the first time, and little prince does not even do him justice. It was so much fun to pick him up and get a little cuddle, we even got some rocking and reading time in when I went to get him up from a nap, cannot trade in those moments for anything. There was some special bonding that took place one night as well between a boy, a husband and their good friend Jack. . .Daniels that is. It was so nice (not that I didn't know it) to see the two of the boys hitting it off. They are both so laid back, easy going and just genuinely nice guys, fun to see them having a good time too.

So we set off on our journey on Thursday, taking LOTS of public transportation which I thought was great that we could figure it out and also that we could take advantage of it as well. Just to get to Chicago we went by bus, lightrail, plane and train. It is great that my friends live so conveniently off of the main train line so that we did not have to disturb anyone or anyones schedules and just be independent. After dropping our bags off, we headed downtown to the loop to check some things out. We ventured off hitting up Harry Carrey's for some lunch,

then strolled down Michigan Avenue finally winding up at John Hancock going through the observatory spending some time reading the history of Chicago

and then heading to the lounge for a cocktail

and watching the sunset.

I couldn't wait to see my friends so we headed out to Oak Park to do some catching up which we did over a few glasses of wine and some good Chicago style pizza. SO good to see her and the kids and get caught up.

Our time was our own Friday, so we slept a little and then headed off again for more adventures in Chicago. We had a SPECTACULAR lunch at RL, SO glad that we got to go there. We were able to enjoy the day sitting outside, the weather was wonderful and the people watching prime! Love the location and RL,

cannot wait to go back. After a delicious lunch we had gotten tickets for the architectural history boat tour which was wonderful.

It was a beautiful day even though it got chilly in the end. We did a little shopping, picked up some wonderful cheeses at a new cheese shop and some bread and wine in town and headed back out for a nice relaxing evening catching up with friends. Turns out that she had also stopped off at the same cheese shop around the same time I did before heading back home to get a couple of cheeses for the party Saturday evening. Ironically, we only picked up 1 out of 3 of the same cheeses, but considering the fact that there were over 200 cheeses, pretty ironic! The guys spent the night getting to know Jack. Really well.

I was lucky enough to be able to catch an excellent soccer game Saturday prior to the party festivities, and it turned out to be the first win of the season. No doubt due to the fact that I had secured the pony tails and we were there to cheer them on!

Hackoween, as it is called where we were in Chicago, was the best party in town. The costumes were phenomenal, the food beyond delicious and the company the best. It was a really good time and even though the boy and I kind of petered out early due to a ton of activity over the previous three days, we had a wonderful time meeting new people and enjoying all of the very unique costumes!
We saw the Harry Potter crew, great costumes, very creative,

A very cute Fairy,

I was glad to see Hemingway showed up so that we could discuss literature, over a cocktail of course,

Elvis before and after,

and Elvis trying to leave the building,

The boy and I got our groove on as a gangster and flapper,

We are already thinking of costumes for next year!

The next day everyone moved a bit slower. The boy and I headed into town for a nice dinner and nice stroll around town. We had a wonderful time and stumbled across this place that I had never heard of before for some reason.

We had a couple of cocktails and enjoyed some wonderful music and will definitely be back!

All in all we had one of the most wonderful, relaxing long weekends, catching up with some wonderful friends and enjoying taking in the sights of a different city. I had a wonderful traveling partner and we just kind of went with the flow of things. Hope you all had a good weekend too! Are you ready for some trick or treating this week? I am!