Chicago Day 1

About 3 months ago my friend Ryan and I were chatting about school ending for him and things changing so I came up with a brilliant plan to do one last vacation with my 2 guy friends that were graduating together from school. So I called up Dave and threw the idea to him. He was, of course, down! But where to go was the huge question.

Hawaii and Alaska were on the list but Dave and Ryan's schedule were completely different and we couldn't take that much time off.

So Yosemite is what we had decided and the planning had started.

I had talked to my Dad who recently went. Got some tips and did my research. I was all gung ho until I looked and the price of everything. It was uber expensive, even if we did decide to camp. So after much talk with the boys we decided to scratch Yosemite.

So back to the drawing board.

Seattle?

Vancouver?

Chicago?

After A LOT of research we settled on Chicago

We invited our good and dear friend Tori to come along to complete the vacation.

So happy she could join us.  

Chicago was so much fun and ah-mazing!

I love the big cities and I have been to 3 of them so I needed to add Chicago to the list.

So let the trip begin!

We all met in Denver for our layover to Chicago.

Catching up and picking up right where we all left off.

That's what I love about this particular friendship that we have all developed.

Soon to be graduates
Ryan & Dave

Reunited :D

Tori & Yours Truly

The only thing we decided to this day was the Taste of Chicago

We were very lucky that this was happening the time we were there.

Basically it's a food festival of the restaurants in Chicago.

You buy tickets and walk around to the all the vendors and try sample size portions of their hot menu items. It was all so tasty and filling. We definitely ate good that afternoon.

They also had a free concert there. The day we were there was Death Cab for Cutie.

It was hot this day but nothing that we Arizonans couldn't handle.

Next to the festival was the Buckingham Fountain. Huge fountain that was really pretty so we took some pictures and enjoyed the beautiful city. I was already in love and didn't want to come home.

Some of our tasty samples

This was the crowd

Us in front of the fountain



Free concert? Yes please :)



Here is a collage that Dave made of this day
He now has way too much time on his hands

Afterwards we headed up north to stay with some family friends of mine. They were very generous and let us sleep at their house. It was great to see the Eagar's again and to play catch up. But it was late and we needed to get some sleep cause day 2 was going to be fun/busy.

Gratitude Rocks!!!

- having friends that have a certain hope for my future, seeing two of my best friends graduate, prayer, getting to know and remember people in my ward, my new favorite breakfast (granola, frozen blueberries and coconut milk) YUMMY!