Osaka Gardens

On Tuesday June 24th Kelsey and I made a trip down to Hyde park to visit the Osaka Gardens. We made it there very smoothly which is impressive because I had to drive on three different freeways with no GPS. I was super nervous but it went great. Despite the smooth drive down, parking was a DISASTER!! The worst parking experience I have ever had. We drove around for almost an hour looking for a place to park. It was a street cleaning day so only the East sides of the streets were functional which didn't help at all. I even tried to pay to park but those were full too. It was terrible! We finally found a place to park, made our humid walk over to the park and got to enjoy.

 Because parking too so long we couldn't check off anything left on my list. Fortunately on the way out we were able to pass some pretty cool things.

 The Frederick Robbie House, the last of the Wright homes that I wanted to see

 I really don't know what this is, but it was pretty cool

 

 This is the fountain of time. It was huge!

 And then we made it to the freeway. We went home a different way then we came which turned out great because on the way home we passed the White Sox's stadium.

 However, we hit lunch traffic so this was odometer for about 5 miles. Nice huh?! Funny thing about Chicago: the "busy" times on the freeway include early morning getting to work, breakfast traffic, lunch traffic, getting home traffic, dinner traffic, and late night traffic. Basically if you are going to drive on the freeway just plan on getting stopped. Period

Not related, but still pretty cool. We went back to Lincoln Park and saw some new things that we had never seen before.

 This is a 6 way intersection, the most common type of intersection in Chicago and they are CRAZY!!! You can either turn left or sharp left, right or sharp right, or go straight two different ways. Yeah. I still mess up every time I have to use one.

 The Dewes Mansion: just a really cool old building in Lincoln Park

 The mural when you drive into our neighborhood. Welcome to West Town yo!!

Stanleys

 One of the best things I have discovered while here in Chicago is a little store called Stanley's. They are a small grocery store with only produce, a small deli, and a single fridge with some cheeses and milks and stuff. I try to make it to Stanley's once a week because it is amazing. Their prices are so much cheaper than any other store around so its totally worth the short drive. Once a week they have 3 great deals. Its like their door buster sale. Here are some examples that I can remember

Corn for 10 cents an ear
A CASE of Blueberries, like 12 packages of blueberries in a box 98 cents
Strawberries 9 cents a package
A pound of red peppers for 98 cents


And the best part is that the produce is all great. Its not like cheap gross rotten stuff. Thank you for existing Stanelys. You have helped our Chicago food budget stay kind of normal. 

Chicago To Do List

 There is so much to do in Chicago. I have hand written a list about 7 different times, but I wanted to make sure that I never lost our list. I just hope that I stay adventurous enough and keep up my energy to check everything off. I have an A list and a B list, a food list, a short trip list, family fun list, and a list of things to do without Ethan. Now that I know the area a little bit better, I have started making my lists in areas of location so that when we go visit neighborhoods I don't miss anything including restaurants.
Here is just a basic numerical list of things to do.

1. Sears Tower
2. Hancock Tower
3. Chicago Theater
4. Tribune Tower
5. Trump Tower
6. Union Station
7. Corn Cob Buildings
8. The Bean
9. Millennium Pavilion
10. Buckingham Fountain
11. Water Tower
12. Magnificent Mile
13. Museum Campus
14. Lincoln Park Zoo
15. Oz Park
16. Aqua Building
17. Crown Fountain
18. Chicago Dog
19. Deep dish pizza
20. Take a taxi
21. Ride a train
22. Ride a bus
23. Wicker Park
24. Coyote building
25. Culture Building ceiling
26. Lincoln Park conservatory
27. Navy Pier
28. Chicago Library
29. Wrigley Field
30. Botanic Gardens
31. Navy Pier fireworks
32. Ride the eL
33. Garfield Park Conservatory
34. Peggy Notebaert Museum
35. Macy's Ceiling
36. Rookery Ceiling
37. Taste of Chicago (rain cancelled the event)
38. Cubs Game
39. Play in Crown Fountain
40. Target Days
41. Blue Man Group (a girl can hope)
42. Lilly Pad Park
43. Chinatown
44. Osaka Gardens
45. Hyde Park
46. Nauvoo
47. Southbend
48. Sand dunes (too rainy when we went)
49. Springfield  (drove home a different way)
50. Concert @ Millennium Park
51. Chicago Temple
52. Eat from a food truck
53. Boat Tour (too long and expensive for a two year old)
54. Beach Day
55. Museum of Science and Industry
56. University of Chicago
57. Money Museum
58. Jane Addams gardens
59. Lake Shore Gardens
60. Gardens around Art Institute
61. Dewes Mansion
62. Leaning Tower (really far away)
63. Frederick Robbie House
64. River Walk
65. Ernest Hemingway House
66. Museum of Stained Glass
67. Jesse Owens Park(bad part of town)
68. Humbodlt Park (bad part of town)
69. 50 cent bakery
70. Children's Museum
71. United Center
72. Bears Stadium
73. White Sox Stadium
74. Spirit of Music Garden
75. Art Day @  Chicago Art Institute (decided we weren't really age appropriate)
76. Museum of Art (didn't want to wrestle a two year old in there unfortunately)
77. Thompson Ceiling
78. Second Pres Church ceiling
79. Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park (way further than I anticipated but sad we didn't make it)
80. Fourth Presbyterian Church
81. Route 66 marker (found out that I didn't care enough to walk to it)
82. Frank Lloyd Wright home
83. Skinner Park
84. Mary Humboldt Park
85. Washington Square Park
86. Walking tour of West town
87. Rockefeller Memorial Chapel Interior
88. The Obama's House 
89. Roots
90. Coal Fire
91. Alliance Bakery
92. Hot Chocolate (went to too many other great places to eat)
93. St Mary's Church Interior (didn't care enough to go apparently)
94. French Market (tried to find it twice and couldn't)
95. Watch the bridges rise on Bridge Day
96. Superdawgs (further than I thought)
97. Rainbow Cone (further than I thought)
98. Sprinkles ATM
99. Lous
100. Buckingham fountain light show
101. Milton Olive Park
102. Hot Dougs ( way further than we thought)
103. Frank Lloyd Wright tour
104. Oak Park Conservatory
105. Garfield Conservatory
106. Fatso's
107. Eat at Mariano's
108. Gelato at Mariano's
109. Hoosier Mama Pie
110. Fountain of Time
111. Wagner Farms (way too far of a drive)
112. Drexel fountain (only cool at night so never made it)
113. Washington Square Park
114. Navy Pier fireworks

What now!

I knew this day was coming and for some kids I knew this day has passed already, but I was just hoping that this day would wait until Provo when we had the resources to deal with it. Despite my thoughts, the other day  Kelsey discovered that she can do this...

AND she can climb back in! On Saturday June 21st, she was throwing a temper tantrum so we placed her in her room to cool off. After a few minuets she stopped crying so we assumed that she was reading or something because the light was on. After a while we opened the door to put her in her bed and SHE WAS IN HER BED!!!!! Blanket on, bunny in hand, asleep!! This all happened so fast that we literally don't know what to do.

Family Date Night: Fatso's

Friday and Saturday's are devoted to eating as much of Chicago as we can. Towards the end we may have to up the ante and eat out more, but for now its getting us through our list of "Must Eats" We don't really have babysitter options so we call it Family Date Night.

Friday June 20th, we stopped at a West Town favorite called Fatso's! It was delicious charred Chicago dogs and burgers with some of the best fires I have ever tasted. The best part about Fatso's was the neighborhood feel to it. Everyone talked to everyone. Everyone was asking about each other's weekends and if they liked their summer plans and stuff like that as if they had known each other for years. It was awesome. I love that about Chicago. People really have a sense of pride and unity for their neighborhood. Unlike anywhere I have ever seen. Strangers just stop acting like strangers if they know you are from the same neighborhood.

 

We just got Fatso's but we were tempted to get a double fatso with cheese. That is 5 patties with all the fixings with cheese! We felt like we had to out of respect for Fatso's but we just couldn't stomach eating FIVE hamburger patties! That's a lot of hamburger! Ethan settled for two

After Fatso's we tried to go to a pie place called Hoosier Mamas but it was closed because 7:30 on a Friday night is late right?!
Luckily down the street was the West town bakery and it did not disappoint. Again a very neighborhood feel to it. Everyone was talking to everyone like they actually cared about each other. This place was especially cool because they went with a graffiti theme for the exterior and interior which made it really fun. They had board games that you could play and had a glass room where they made all the pastries so that you could watch if you caught it in time.

I think I'm itching my leg or something but it was the best picture of me from the night

There were so many things to choose from, but I thought the cake balls just looked so cute! Apparently they are the 2014 people's choice award winners for best doughnuts. It would make sense too because all the doughnuts were gone. 

 

But no worries! We got this delicious chocolate cake. Basically it was a brownie, covered in pudding, covered in fudge, sprinkled with chocolate bars. Yeah. It was delicious.

Summer Catch Up

I recently went through my phone and wanted to get some of my pictures from my phone onto the blog. It was weird to see photos of Provo. It feels like that was years ago! I almost forget that that is our real home still!

Two days before we moved out of Moon's Ethan got crazy sick. Like really sick! Kelsey and I did our best but we hit the wall one day so we just stopped mid pack and went to Subway.

Chicago had its harshest winter maybe in history which has meant that summer is really mild. On June 22nd we can still wear pants half the week. That being said when its not pants weather its blazing hot! AND Chicago's forecast can say rainy, but that could mean rainy for an hour, 80 degrees with 80% the next 5, and then a thunderstorm coming at night. The Lake does some crazy things to this city. The last two weeks have been off and on rain. Although I am ready for constant sun, I am okay with the cute attire that it presents for Kels.  Also lets be honest, I don't need hot hot hot to have a great summer. I am totally content with no swimming, 75 degree days and occasional overcast. Man I sound like I grew up in the Northwest of something!

Park hair and workout hair. Both require a lot of time and effort

One of the hot days we had we hit up one of the local splash pads. It took Kelsey a while to get in but once she did, I couldn't get her out. She was in heaven.

All you Harry Potter fans, can you see what the name of this street it called?! I wish I would have taken more pictures of street names that I have seen. Some cool ones (cool to me) include
Harrison, Scott, Washington, Lagoon, and Division. Loomis is hands down the best one

Hot day number two. Miss Fran brought us a kiddie pool so we cooled off in that. I put my feet in but apparently took up too much space because I got yelled at every time I put them it.

A good days work

A storm about to break

I have never seen an entrance like this and I just thought it was the coolest. I missed this on my architecture tour so I guess its kinda rare

A pizza Ethan got to eat at work. We ARE going back as a family. I promise!

And my favorite picture of the summer. Some days she sits in the chair waiting for daddy. She often will yell out the window "Daddy? Where are you?!"