I Went to Chicago and all I Got Were These Crummy Pictures!

So, my friend Cami organized a girl's weekend to Chicago and mentioned that I could come.  I mentioned to Paul about the mention.  But didn't expect to go.  You see, I have already gone to Seattle and Mississippi all alone this year while my dear Paul watched our kids, and I thought that was enough use of his vacation time for babysitting.  A few months later, though, Paul said, "so, when is your trip to Chicago?" as if it were a done deal.  So I made it a done deal and had an awesome time.

I ended up not hanging out with the group of girls so much (hard to cram all of the fun all in one weekend!) but I got to stay with one of my best Chicago pals, Sarah S. and her wonderful family.  And my friend Andrea who recently moved from here to Boston met me there.  We all had an amazing time.  I forgot to take pictures, but here are the few that I took.

When Paul and I were dating we would go to the Art Institute and hang out by these Chagall windows.  It is my favorite place.  It's in a new place at the museum, and was out of sight while they built a new wing there for the last few years that we lived in Chicago, so I was excited to go back and see them again.  Only thing that would have been better would have been to have my Paul with me!

I liked this painting because the goofy and curly Christ-child and young John the Baptist look like my goofy and curly Clark.

Andrea at the Point in Hyde Park with the Chicago skyline behind her.

Me in front of the townhouse where we lived with our darling baby twins.

Poor Andrea had to put up with my nostalgic talk the whole time... "this is where our kids first swung in the swings... this was our favorite Thai restaurant... this is where we kissed by the Chagall windows... this whole dang city is where we fell in love and got engaged and had our little babies and it was so cold and so great and so wonderful."  She was very patient with me.  A little too patient, perhaps.

And then I didn't take any pictures of Sarah and her family.  So I stole these off her blog.  Above is Asher, the smiliest chunk of love you will ever meet.  Below are Lauren and Autumn- a great sister pair.  Also, I maintain that Autumn is the missing triplet from my group of twins.  It was so so so nice hanging out with Sarah and her family.  I feel like they are an extension of my family- even though we are far apart and hardly ever talk with each other.  Isn't there some way that all of my favorite people can live in the same city or something?  Although if we did that, who would let me stay so graciously at their home?

I can't tell you how nice it was to have this trip.  Getting to see the old place, but realize that I've moved on and it has moved on was really nice for me.  And getting to see old friends and realizing that we can still be great friends even though we've moved on was also great.  To all my soul mates out there- I love you!  (Chicago, the city, you are included in this.)