Chicago Temple and Botanic Gardens

On Sunday July 6th we finally made the trip up to the temple and the botanic Gardens. Both were absolutely beautiful, stunning, and peaceful. It was such a nice treat after a crazy weekend!

Since it was Sunday the gates to the temple were closed but we were still able to walk around. It is a very small temple and interesting in the sense that the steeple with the angle Moroni is not even connected to the temple. 

 There's a giant field by the temple and Kelsey started chasing the bunnies she saw in the field. Then when she thought she was being left, she booked it to us as fast as her little legs could go

 Family selfie session. We just can't figure it out

A short drive from the temple are the Botanic Gardens. They are like Manito Park on steroids. It was so peaceful to walk around and be in a place with so much green. I didn't really realize how much I missed gardens and grass and water and such.

 Once again, Kelsey tried to join another family....

 And that was the last picture we got of Kelsey. After that picture came the MAJOR meltdown. I'm not even sure as to why. She wasn't tired or hungry but she would not stop screaming. Ethan graciously took Kelsey and went and got the car and let me walk around by my self for like 45 minutes. It was so heavenly! There were so many times that I just wanted to stop and sit and stay there all night. There were also so many times that I said, "Man my dad would love this!"

We don't know where life will take us, but if we ever do live in Chicago again, we will probably live somewhere like Glenview. Its just a little more calm, a little slower, and a little more normal to us as a family.

Family Date Night: Lou Malnatis

Blogging has been tough for me lately. The heat is just draining us and during nap time all I want to do is eat a Popsicle and sleep. I'm going to have to try to push through these posts without being too boring. Who knows, maybe the break in detail will be nice!

On June 27th, Kelsey and I met Ethan downtown for our family date night. We toured around the city some more before we met up with Ethan.

One of our stops was to see the ceiling in the Rookery Building. I don't know what the building is, but Frank Lloyd Wright designed the ceiling was it was very unique and beautiful.

We were walking around and this view just caught me off guard. It was just a small reminder of where we get to live this summer. Nothing super unique, just really cool.

We also stopped inside Macy's to look at the Tiffany's ceiling. Not sure if I'm classy enough to understand all those words, but the ceiling was cool.

Just another "I live in Chicago moment"

After walking around down town for a bit we stopped to play in Millennium Park.
The summer art work

And Kelsey's favorite... we played in the Crown Fountain and LOVED it!!

When the fountains turned on Kelsey booked it in the opposite direction but that didn't really stop her from getting soaked!

At 6 we met up with Ethan at work and got to tour the Gallup building

 

 

The view from the conference room

After our tour we headed to the Gold Coast for our family date night at Lou Malnati's, maybe some of the best pizza I have ever had.

We knew Lou's would be popular, but we were not prepared at all for the wait. We got there and what we thought was a crowd waiting for a bus was actually the line to get into the restaurant!

The wait was bad, but not as bad as we thought. We had to wait for 45 minutes (actually 50) which was a bummer because we were all really hungry, but while we waited we just walked around looking at the houses.

The Gold Coast is super ritzy so all of the housing shows it

We finally got in and while we were being seated everyone kept asking if we had per-ordered pizza. We of course hadn't and said no. Once we sat down, we ordered our pizzas and then the waiter was like "Great choices. That will be 45 minutes!" WHAT!!!! 

Thankfully they had coloring stuff and appetizers so we were able to hold her off.

The pizza came, we took a picture and wasted no time to eat. We were all STARVING!!!!

Ethan got a tomato, mushroom, Alfredo pizza

And Kelsey and I shared the traditional pepperoni deep dish. This is why Chicago pizza is different.
Crust, about a pound of cheese, pepperoni, more cheese, and then the top has the chunkiness pizza sauce ever. It really tastes different and it really tastes better.

After a great meal, we Ubered home (a cheaper safer taxi service) and called it a night.