Ok, so these are the ONLY 2 pictures I took on our last day of vacation. We said goodbye to the Ziparos the night before since they were leaving at around 6am on Saturday morning and you know we weren’t getting up that early. We had some breakfast, packed up the rest of the bags and hit the road to Milwaukee (only 2hrs this time). On the way, we stopped at Mars Cheese Castle. No, really. Ken bought some cheese. I waited in the car.

We checked into the really nice hotel (they were all 2 story condos) and I made the executive decision that I was NOT going to any more baseball games. 5 in 5 days was enough. The boys sat in the very top/last row in the stadium right under the retractable roof. Good thing too, as it was raining. But the even more good thing is that the game wasn’t a rain out and we don’t have to go back to Milwaukee. (I’m sure it’s a lovely town. Just need to finish these baseball trips so we can start on Europe.)

So that concludes the baseball adventure for 2011. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. And Bob.

Our ‘free day’ in Chicago, no baseball game until the evening. I took full advantage of the day off.

Bob enjoying a little breakfast (Elves like syrup. Just ask Buddy the Elf).
We all walked Michigan Ave and I was very excited to take my one and only goddaughter to the American Girl Store. Oh. My. I had no idea. We got Katie and Julie some matching pj’s and matching Chicago AG shirts. And some outfits and accessories for Julie. What a racket that place is. And overwhelming. And fun! It was so nice to do something girly for once, but I’m kinda glad I don’t have to do that on a regular basis. It’s a whole ‘nother world that girl thing. Stopped by the Hershey store too. Timmy was in his element. As was I. Ok, who remembers these lipglosses from their childhood? Bob didn’t realize there was glass over the cupcakes and brownies.While Katie, Maureen and I were in the AG store, they stopped in the Lego store. And got just a few guys.This was my next stop. I shopped by myself for a little while, and picked up a new pair of pretty Tiffany sunglasses. Almost bought a gorgeous Tiffany blue purse but just barely managed to restrain myself. (ignore the wonky color below on the bag, I didn’t set my white balance before taking it.) I figured John and the boys like looking at baseball diamonds, I like looking at diamonds too. Just the sparkly kind. Then Ken & I went out walking and headed over to the Chicago Art Museum. Shades of ER. I think this one was my favorite that we saw. And then we embarked on the Ferris Bueller portion of the museum tour. Can you hear the Smiths “let me let me let me get what I want, this time” instrumental version playing in the background? Couldn’t get that song out of my head the rest of the day!Loved the lighting in the one on the left. You know we love the movie The Ten Commandments, right? Ok, cmon you know the shot on the right is totally right out of that movie at the end when the Pharoh’s (yul brenner’s) son dies and they put him on the altar.American Gothic. And Bob.Totally filmed episodes of ER here. Bob makes friends everywhere he goes. And then the fun was all over. Back to baseball for the White Sox this time. It was fireworks night. At least I had more time to hang out with Maureen. And the nachos in this park were really good. More on the baseball trip still to come.

So the start of our second day in Chicago found us driving a pretty good distance to Hot Doug’s restaurant for “the best” hotdogs ever. At 11:45am I wasn’t really in the mood for any ‘encased meat’, but thought the sign was pretty funny.Then it was back to the hotel and then some MORE shopping for hats and tshirts on the way to the park. Let me tell you that my boys (including John) are never allowed to say that they hate shopping. They stopped in every. single. store that sold baseball crap. Sometimes twice. Since we weren’t running late, I finally got around to the front of the stadium for the ‘official’ wrigley photos. And then we went on the Wrigley tour. That was Wednesday’s surprise for the boys.We learned all kinds of interesting things about the stadium, scoreboard, team history and surrounding neighborhood. It was a good tour (I like the baseball history, just not the actual game) and the boys all really liked it a lot. Even Bob enjoyed the tour. It’s all about the bricks and ivy. Then we stayed for the game. I didn’t take any more pictures cause this was our second of three Cubs games at Wrigley and I was done already. We also met up with John’s friend from Fordham, Maureen and her daughter who stayed at the game with us for a bit. Maureen told John that she couldn’t understand a few of the things he was saying because of his accent. Funny! And we saw Michael Jordan at the game (he was on the catwalk in front of the luxury boxes but it was too dark up there to get a picture).