July 4th 2014

The 4th was different for us this year. It was really fun and we had a great time, but it was the 4th when we realized that we are not big city people. Since Chicago is so big they don't really do parades, or fairs, or even a close firework show. All the things that make the 4th special to us. I'm sure if we went to like Evanston or something we would have gotten all that, but Chicago itself it just too big for stuff like that.
The best part about the 4th  was that Ethan got the day off and Sean Vanhille came to visit. He stopped by on his way in from Europe and could only stay for a day, but it was the best day we have had in a long time. It was just great to have someone so familiar around.

In the morning we went to the ward breakfast and then went to Lincoln Park to walk around the Lake for a little bit.

After the lake we went home for our picnic, naps and some QT time with Sean. 

 

After a quiet afternoon, we decided to head downtown to show Sean Chicago. 

The train was like 20 minutes late due to the amount of passengers, but luckily we were able to keep her off the tracks.

 We gave Sean a very short walking tour of Chicago and then went to Millennium Park for the 4th concert. The music was a little less patriotic than I am used to but it was still a good time. It was fun to see everyone stand up and sing along though during the Star Spangled Banner. Made up for the lack of Red, White, and Blue.

 As we were watching the concert, Kelsey decided that the family next to us was way cooler. She hung out with them like the whole time.

As we were showing Sean downtown, we realized that we had never been downtown in the evening/night either so it was kind of a bucket list thing for us.

 After the concert we walked over to Museum Campus and watched the firework show from there. It was beautiful but it was no Holladay. Holladay is pretty unique itself allowing you to be right under the fireworkds, but we really missed that small town feel.

 All these lights are actually boats. This was maybe the coolest part about the show. All the boats gathered around the pier where they were shooting off the fireworks and when the show was done, they all honked their horns for like 20 minutes. If we ever are here on the 4th again, we ARE watching the show from a boat!!

 All the buildings had red, white, and blue lights as did the Buckingham fountain.

 The 4th was wonderful, but on the way home we accidentally got on an express train which took us all the way to the air port. BECAUSE of the 4th, the taxis were all busy and the buses weren't running their normal routes. We felt so stuck not to mention that we were all really tired and hungry. FINALLY at like 12:45 we were able to find an Uber and made it home by 1:15. Kelsey fell asleep in the Uber so it wasn't too bad. She actually may have been the happiest in the whole group!!!
Once we got home we headed straight to bed despite the war zone we like to call our neighborhood. Apparently our neighbors LOVE fireworks and are known for shooting them off for hours!!!! It got pretty loud at times, but by 1 is was pretty quite. I still look out the window every time they shoot them off. It sounds like a car bomb! 

It was a 4th for the books, but we definitely missed the small town feel to it. We still did some great things and saw some great things, but Chicago just has too many people to get an united feeling like other cities can. People cared, but we were all just spread so it felt really different.