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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Chicago - October 7-9 2011

Curtis and I flew to Chicago this past weekend for a little getaway!  He ran the Chicago marathon and we thoroughly enjoyed the city!!!


 We stayed at the Congress hotel - it was a super old hotel with great character and charm, plus it was right across the street from the start line of the race:) - here's a pic of our room!

These are the old elevators - I thought they were cool!

We asked the concierge where the best place was to get pizza - he recommended this little pub - so delish!

This was the little pub - must go back!!!

This was the deep dish we had to eat with a fork - oh my it was gooooood!!!

This is a view of the street our hotel was on - the one with the red letters is ours;)

Pic of our hotel

I loved the sculptures and artwork in this city - here's a sculpture of Abe

Buckingham fountain was right in front of our hotel!

Curt and I in front of the fountain

So beautiful!!!

Fountain with our hotel in the background!

Navy Pier was gorgeous with all the sailboats!

All the trees were turning and the geese were out along the Pier - it was so pretty!

I loved people watching as the owners of these boats pulled in, cleaned their boats, and just hung out

After strolling down Navy Pier, we ate at Ralph Lauren's restaurant - I had tomato bisque soup and a arugula chicken salad, and Curtis had the Amish Chicken and Green Beans Almondine - sp?

I had such a wonderful time with my hubs - this was one of our first trips just the two of us since our honeymoon:)

This is the awesome amphitheater

The bean:)  Loved this sculpture;)

Us in front of the bean!

This is the lobby of our hotel!  This hotel boasts that the most presidents have stayed here than any other hotel!

We loved that we were able to see Curt's bro and sis-in-law and their kiddos - this is Emerson and Corbin - too cute!!!

Curt, his bro Kevin, and Corbin at Artiste Cafe - yummy breakfast place!

Emerson and Sarah - so cute!

Here is Curt and Kevin at the expo for the marathon!

Own it baby!!!!

I ran into my good friend Jacob - we grew up together in school and went to A&M together!  It was great to see him!!!

Hal Higdon was there - this is the man who started it all for Curt and I - we were nonrunners when we started his training plan for a half marathon about a year ago!!!  It was cool to meet him and get his autograph - he signed the boys bibs!

This is Dean K.  he just ran 100 miles - he has also done 50 marathons in 50 days!  Whew!  The boys were so pumped to meet him.  Curtis, Kevin and Sarah's friend Wes, Dean, and Kevin

Their names were on the "Wall of Fame" runners wall!

This yummy place is where we had our "pasta party" the night before the race!  Sooo goood!  From l to r:  Curt, Me, Wes, Hillary, Kevin, Sarah

Race day - unfortunately I did not get any pics of Curt or Kevin running - my camera has a huge delay and they ran by so fast it was hard to even see them, much less have time to catch a pic!  So...I just took a pic of all the runners - 45,000 to be exact!

This guy was awesome - what a way to stand out in the crowd - we told our boys to do this next year - ha ha!

All the boys after the race - Kevin shaved his face and cut his hair the night before!  Curtis had already showered here while the other two went to the massage tent, that's why he doesn't still have his running clothes on!

The girls - had so much fun with these two!!!

Such a blast - hope to do it all again next year!!!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

What a gorgeous hotel. Sounds like you guys had an awesome trip. I can't believe there were 45,000 runners!

Jenny said...

How fun! Ryan went to Chicago a couple of months ago for work and said we have to go back together because he loved it! I have read one of Dean's books, neat that you got to meet him. How fun for you and Curtis, great to see all the pictures!