Sunday, April 11, 2010

The St. Louis and Chicago Highlight Reel


Hi Internet friends. I haven't seen you guys in years. No writing. No reading. I'm a blog sloth these days...I'm sorry...I'll blame it on my impending old age. Yup, I turn 34 this week. What a substantial number that feels like.

Anyway, I didn't log on to whine about being a year older. I'm here to show off some pics from my great whirlwind trip to St. Louis and Chicago this past week. We went to visit Mr. Wonderful's fantastic family and decided to take an extra jaunt to Chi-town to see the sights and meet up with one of my favorite fellow bloggers. How gorgeous is that shot above? The entire city of St. Louis was bursting with Spring flowers. My eyes were in heaven.



Our first night in town, Mr. W's oldest friend took us out to a great Irish pub to listen to some live music. You know me and the Irish...again, I was in heaven. I found out on our trip that I have a few St. Louis family blog readers—so I should explain to them, and the rest of you, that the reason I didn't include any pictures of people we visited is that I don't want the paparazzi to start chasing them all over town. Anonymity is important. Except when it comes to me trying my first toasted ravioli...



It was SO good!



Our hotel was right in the heart of town by this theater. I loved walking all over the city. It was so beautiful—great architecture, nice people, surprisingly mild weather. And of course a sweet boy who might have said, "Pumpkin, we can register at Bloomingdale's if you want" when we wandered into the store. Oh how my heart pitter patters when he dangles carrots like that.



Like ALL the sights we saw, Millennium Park was amazing. Chicago is seriously one of the most well-thought-out cities I think I've ever visited.



Enjoying the view from the top of the John Hancock Building.



Mr. W and I were so lucky because the lovely, hilarious, eternally thoughtful Nilsa of SoMi Speaks agreed to meet us for brunch with her super cute hubby, Sweets. We had SO much fun with them—it was like we were old friends. Too bad that I drank too much wine the night before and looked all puffy and pasty for our morning date...



Not sure why these trees were painted, but they looked really cool tucked into the middle of the city.



We completely lucked out with the weather. Most of Saturday was spent walking around town under these beautiful, sunny skies. I can't wait to go back and see more!

11 comments:

Jane Moneypenny said...

Didn't I tell you how awesome toasted ravioli is? I miss it so much...I miss STL a little too. Sigh. Glad you had fun!

Nilsa @ SoMi Speaks said...

Toasted ravioli ... yummmmmmm!!!!

You were a ... no, THE highlight of my weekend. It was kinda like a REALLY GOOD online date ... the kind where you really want to go back for more. =)

Hope your travels Saturday evening went smoothly! xoxo

LesleyG said...

Looks like a wonderful, wonderful time!

megabrooke said...

sounds like such a perfect weekend! the weather, the sites, the family... the toasted ravioli.. and most importantly (because im so jealous), hanging out with nilsa and sweets! we totally need to get a race midway for all of us on the books!

Sizzle said...

I love Chicago and Nilsa! What a great trip. So glad two of my favorite bloggers got to meet in person. :-)

Bretthead said...

Ahhh, my old home town, sweet home Chicago...

Braden Matthew Johnson said...

Happy Birthday! I never know if you receive text messages, so figured you'd read a post on your blog.

Anonymous said...

Looks like a pretty awesome trip. I can't say I've ever been to Chicago (I don't think slogging through three hours of rush hour traffic to get from one side to the other on a cross-country road trip counts), so it's one of those places I need to get to. After all, it is the start of Route 66...

laura said...

Looks like you had a great time!!!

Scribe said...

Chicago is one of my favourite cities in the U.S. I'm happy the weather cooperated so it could show you all of the city's colours.

blakspring said...

great pictures, especially that sunset overlooking the city. sounds like a fun time :)