Spring Break in Chicago

Last year, our flight coming back from Edmonton was overbooked and our family of 4 gave up our seats.  In exchange, when we boarded the next plane, we got to sit in first class and were given 4 plane vouchers.  Jason and I decided to use it for a getaway for the two of us.  We were originally thinking of going to Boston, but every time we checked, the tickets were super expensive, as were the hotels.  We considered other cities and most people we talked to suggested Chicago.  We decided to go for it.  The Saturday after school got out for Spring Break, we boarded a plane for Chicago.

SATURDAY

Goodbyes are always hard and tearful for me... We're so lucky and grateful that Jason's mom is always willing to watch our kids whenever we go away.  They were as excited to spend the week with Grandma as we were to explore a new city.

 

By the time we arrived in Chicago, it was pretty late.  We decided to save some money and take the L Train from O'Hare to our hotel downtown.  We didn't know that along the way, there was construction being done and we'd have to get off the train, board a bus that would take us to another station, and then reboard in order to continue on our way.  Normally, it'd take an hour, but that night, it took over an hour and a half.  And then, the station was aways from the hotel, so it was not fun pulling our luggage through downtown Chicago in the late evening to get to our hotel.  We ended up crashing as soon as we checked in.

SUNDAY
First up, Jason had booked a Pizza Tour.  We met at the meeting point, Pizano's, and joined our tour guide and a group of about 15 people.  The guide was awesome and full of knowledge about pizza and the city of Chicago.  At Pizano's we tried a deep dish pizza and a thin crust sausage pizza. We then boarded their company bus and went to Coalfire.  Here, we tried some pizzas made by a coal burning oven.  Their specialty was to add whipped ricotta on the top.  We had 2 types and they were both delicious.  In fact, I would have to say that was my favorite stop.  Next, we headed to Pequod's, for another version of deep dish pizza.  Wow!  It was topped with lots of cheese and meat- quite tasty and filling.  Our last stop was called Flo and Santo's where we had another version of thin crust pizza.  We were told this place was like a fusion between  Italian and Polish cuisine.  On one, the toppings were unique to Chicago, since they were topped with giardiniera (pickled veggies).  Overall, we had an awesome time on the tour.  Our guide didn't just tell us about pizza- he also shared Chicago trivia/facts and pointed out places as we rode on the bus from one pizzeria to the next.  We also loved chatting with the other people in our group.  It was fun to get to know others and share about our traveling experiences.  We would absolutely do another food tour!  

After the tour, we got to wander around downtown.

Later that night, Jason got tickets for us to see a comedy show at The Second City venue.  This place has seen the rise of many comedians- Tina Fey, Martin Short, John Candy, Stephen Colbert, and Mike Myers to name a few!  We got dessert and some drinks, chatted with the people next to us, and got to see a fun show.  It wasn't the best comedy we've seen, but overall, it was a very fun night. 

MONDAY
We treated ourselves to breakfast before heading off to the Chicago Art Institute.

It was pretty magnificent and we could've spent many more hours there. We couldn't though because we had to get to our next tour, which was an architecture boat tour, sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.  As we walked there, we stopped off at "The Bean," a huge reflecting sculpture in Millenium Park.  It's pretty neat in that there are no seams and it wonderfully reflects the city's buildings in the background. 

I'd just like to take note here that when we arrived on Saturday, the weather was 78 degrees.  By Sunday, the weather had dropped by at least 20 degrees! Luckily, we were somewhat prepared and brought the right clothes, but we definitely hadn't expected to be spending our Spring Break in such chilly weather! Having said that, we both wish we had worn warmer clothes for our boat tour.  It was an awesome tour except we froze while we sat on top of the boat for 90 minutes!

We would highly recommend the boat tour and would've loved it even more if we weren't so cold.  It actually started snowing right after we got off the boat.  Before heading out to dinner, I joked with our concierge that there needed to be a heated pedway.  To our delight, we discovered that there was!  We felt like we had uncovered a city mystery as we walked through the underground pedway like the locals!

That night, we had dinner at the Slurping Turtle, owned by well known Chef Takashi.  We both had ramen soups to warm up! Delish!

From there, our night wasn't over!  We went to a blues club called Kingston Mines.  We arrived at 10pm and were told we were early, especially since the place is open until 4am.  The place has two stages and the bands alternate playing from hour to hour.  We only lasted until a little after midnight! Even without kids, we were pretty exhausted!

TUESDAY
Walking along the pedway to go catch the next L Train, I convinced Jason to make a quick stop at the Chicago Cultural Center. We found some unexpected treasures- look at this beautiful Tiffany glass dome!

On the top floor, there was a beautiful exhibit hall with a current exhibit about a historic building called Mecca Flats in Chicago that had been torn down in the 1960s. The exhibit wonderfully told about the families that lived there during its history.  

Next, we continued on our way to The Field House, Chicago's natural history museum. We loved it and know that our kids would've loved it as well.  The largest and best preserved skeleton of a t-rex greets visitors in the lobby.  It is enormous and over 90% of it is from the original dinosaur. 

I was completely fascinated by the Egyptian exhibit- there were mummies on display, and all sorts of artifacts that have been discovered over the years.

There were many other exhibits on display, but the Egyptian and Sue the T-Rex seemed to take up most of our time.  Walking distance away from Field House was the Shedd Aquarium, and we decided to at least visit for a few hours. I love aquariums and this one was pretty fantastic.

It seems like we had packed in a lot for the day, but no, we continued on!  We headed to the Sears Tower, nowadays known as the Willis Tower.  It's 103 stories and the tallest building in the US.  The views are pretty amazing, and we waited in line for our turn to step out onto "The Ledge."  These are glass boxes that extend from the top floor.  Since they're made of glass, you can look down and all around for a magnificent view.  I'm scared of tons of things, but I do ok with heights.  I thought this was a very cool experience.

 Here's me looking at you looking at me! :)

We ended the day by ending up at Rick Bayless' amazing restaurant called, Xoco.  We had unbelievably delicious food here and the service was fantastic.  We loved it (I'm drooling, just thinking of it...)!

WEDNESDAY
I call this our All-American day.  Jason is not a Chicago Cubs fan, but as a baseball fan, he couldn't pass up the chance to tour the historic Wrigley Field.  Even though I am not a baseball fan, I really enjoyed the tour!  The guide was passionate about his Cubs and it was neat to see the stadium through his eyes.

 In the Visitors changing room

 In the pressbox

On the field

From there, we headed over to Hot Doug's, a very well known hot dog place.  It was worth the wait in line!

With only a few hours left in the afternoon, we decided we might as well visit the other tower that Chicago's known for: the Hancock Building.  Compared to the Willis Tower, this one barely had anyone in it.  Chicago has such a pretty skyline so the views were wonderful, but for the excitement of standing on the Ledge, we're glad we did the Willis Tower first.  The Hancock Building is preparing to "up its game" and will be introducing a new tourist attraction called "The Tilt" in the next few months.  It's where you stand in a glass box and the whole thing tilts so you can get an even better view of the city.  Yikes- now that, I'm not sure if I'd have the guts to do! (here's a pic of Navy Pier, a huge tourist attraction here.  From what we've read, it's got an amusement park- not my idea of fun, so we didn't venture out there).

We walked along the Magnificent Mile, a stretch of shopping all around the Hancock Building (which is actually not even called that anymore- it's called the 360 Chicago).  I'm not that type of shopper, but it was still fun to people watch along there.

 Our final dinner in Chicago was at Urbanbelly, an Asian fusion restaurant.  YUM!  It was soooo good!

We had to head back home in the morning.  Before going back to our hotel to pack up, Jason and I stopped at Haymarket Brewery for drinks and to unwind- what a busy trip it was.  We packed in a lot, had so much fun being together, and loved exploring the city of Chicago.  There are so many places around the world we still want to visit, so who knows when we'll ever be back in Chicago, but one thing's for sure- there's so much to do... We'd love it!
Here are a few more random pictures...

Meow!

This is going to seem like such a silly post, but I wanted to remember the crazy few weeks our family had when we went to get Daisy and Cupcake spayed.
I should start by saying that a few weeks prior to this, Jason stated that if anything ever happened to one of our cats, that "there are plenty of cats in the world... (hopefully you get my drift).  Well, one day, a very upset Grace came to him and said, "Something's wrong with Cupcake's leg."  Sure enough, it was bent awkwardly and she was in so much pain, she was limping around. Jason took a day off work to take the cat in to the vet.  It turns out that she had been bitten to the bone and it was swelling up due to infection.  We had to give her antibiotics.  Around this time, we started noticing a lot of other cats coming around.  They were all noisy and hissing, and it didn't take long for us to realize that our cats were in heat.  We spent a few weeks confining them to our house and our garage.  We couldn't take the cats in until Cupcake's leg was better.  The time came and Jason took the cats in to get spayed.  Everything seemed fine.  When I went to get them at the end of the day, both cats seemed calm and settled in for the night.  They had to wear cones for at least a week while their bellies were healing from surgery.  We left them in the kids' bathroom.  When Grace went to check up on them the next morning, Daisy had a huge skin "bubble" hanging out from her belly.  Jason said it was bloody and looked disgusting.  He had to take another day off work to take her in to the vet.  It turns out that she must have jumped up on the counter, split a stitch so that some of the fat from inside her belly had herniated out through the stitch, now hanging outside the body.  She underwent surgery again to remove the bubble and had metal sutures inserted.  She had to take antibiotics twice a day, wear a cone, and was not to be outside.  This was difficult news to take, especially since Jason and I were planning to go out of town for Spring Break.  We looked at possible overnight places that would take cats, but there were only a few, and none would take a cat that needed to have a cone and take medicine (if you're looking for a business opportunity, this might be one to consider- a cat hotel).  Thankfully, my friend, Michelle, came to the rescue and took our cat for us while we were gone.  We are so grateful- after everything we've gone through with those cats! 

Daisy

Cupcake

Annual MCC Sale

 

  Grace was asked to help out the Puppet Show this year.  I was proud of her for volunteering her time and she did a great job!

Start of Spring Sports Season

Well, ready or not... Here's the start of our spring sports season.  the kids will be doing baseball and volleyball this year. 

Jeremy got kind of bored playing t-ball last year and started playing around in the dirt. For that reason, we decided to move him up to Rookies this year.  That means, the other team pitches 3 and a coach can  come in for 2 additional pitches.

 Jeremy is on the Cardinals team, and he is in Central's baseball league.  We determined that since he would have practices twice a week, it would be good that Jeremy and I are already on the west side.

 He is one of the youngest and shortest players, but so far, has done really well.  Coach Nacho has consistently played him at first base or shortstop.

This year, Grace has decided not to do softball (believe it or not, I am very sad and disappointed- I really was hoping she'd do one more year). She is playing club volleyball for the Patriots Club (through Hoover High School).  She is also one of the youngest and shortest players, but is learning a lot and doing really well.

At least with her new passion, we'll get to sit inside gyms with a/c instead of outside in triple degree weather! 

So let's recap this:  Jeremy has two practices a week, Grace has two practices a week, Jason is coaching volleyball every day afterschool, Jane is coaching Science Olympiad four days afterschool, Jeremy has Saturday games, and Grace has games on either Friday or Saturday... All of this makes for an extremely hectic few months in our household!  Most nights, we won't eat until 7:30pm, and then Jeremy needs to get in bed by 8:15ish and Grace still has homework. AGH!  Fun times, but truly busy times! 

Carmel/Monterey Field Trip

With my school day, it is really hard to take days off and prepare sub plans, so whenever it comes to field trips and Grace's school events, Jason's the one that usually goes (it's much easier for him, and he has more sub days than me).  Well, this year, I was able to chaperone for Grace's field trip to Carmel/Monterey.  Our friend, Marcy, also volunteered to chaperone, so we got to spend the day together.  It was great to be able to chat the whole way there and back.  CJ and Grace have been in the same class two years in a row and it has been awesome.  They are great friends- we are grateful for the Bergens!  
The day started off really early in the morning at 6:00 am as we met at school to board the charter bus.  We arrived at the beautiful Carmel Mission and went on a guided tour.  From there, we took the charter bus to Monterey and had lunch by the pier.  We took a walking tour to Colton Hall and got to tour the hall before walking back to the charter bus in the wharf area. We got back to Fresno at about 6:30pm. It was a very fun day (worth the hours of lesson planning I had to leave for my sub, lol)!

 Grace and me in front of Colton Hall

Me, Grace, Marcy, CJ

2nd Trimester Awards

At my school, the Kindergarten year is divided up into trimesters.  Jeremy is having such an awesome year, he earned every award possible: Perfect Attendance, Hawk Reader,  Math Marvel, and the Hawk ABC award. Needless to say, we are extremely proud of Jeremy!

Ash Wednesday

For the first time, we took our kids to our church's Ash Wednesday service on March 5.  Growing up, the only times that I really heard of Lent was when my Catholic friends would talk about it.  I just always associated it with Catholicism.  My understanding of it has certainly changed, and in the past few years, Lent has become a special time of reflection for me, a time for being intentional.  I know many people who try to refrain from doing something during the entire time, but for me, I "add" something to be mindful of, to have a specific purpose.  I was so glad that we shared Ash Wednesday as a family because the service was full of symbols that my kids could actually relate to.  Each symbol was set up at a station that we could freely rotate to.  There were Bible passages/stories that we read with our kids to help them understand what each symbol was supposed to help us remember.  Here are some of them:

 Clay

 Oil

Salt and Light

 Water

 Repentance (kids writing something they're sorry for to lay down at the foot of the cross)

Quick Trip to Santa Cruz

In February, we were able to go spend a night in the Santa Cruz area for Jason's cousin, Cheryl's wedding.  I am so bummed that I forgot my camera and the camera on my phone did not get very many decent pictures.  In fact, the ones I got of Cheryl and her new hubby, Harold, didn't turn out! :(
Here are a few that kind of did:

 Dan, Jen, Jason, Jane

 Booo.... So grainy and blurry!

The kids thought it was cool that we sent off the newlyweds with sparklers.

We spent the night with Jason's cousins, Brad and Terri.  Here's Grace with Hannah's pet lizard.

The next day, we met up with the family for breakfast before spending hours on the beach.  Seriously, our family never tires of being at the beach!

Verenika Dinner

So within a matter of weeks, our kids got to experience their Vietnamese culture and Mennonite culture in very special ways!  A month ago, we were so lucky to get to be a part of Jill's annual verenika dinner!  The best way I can describe verenika is that it's a Mennonite dish that is basically a ravioli-type dumpling with cheese inside.  I know that it's incredibly time-consuming to make, so to get to enjoy them was a real treat for our family!  All Mennonites seem to have "their" version of how to eat it; Jill makes hers with a sweet sauce that is to die for.  It was perfectly paired with German sausage and zwiebach (Mennonite bread/roll). Yum!  Thanks, Jill!