Last week, Justin had a board certification exam + conference to attend in Chicago. He left Monday morning and I joined him on Thursday after dropping LJ off with my parents. We so enjoyed a few days together in the city! Beware this re-cap involves a lot of food and March Madness – you have been warned!
Several of Justin’s co-workers were also attending this conference and I drove up with another spouse on Thursday. We arrived right around lunch and met up with our husbands at the hotel (we stayed at the Grand Sheraton downtown). Justin and I ran up to our hotel room to quick drop off my luggage and then we headed out to lunch at Mother Hubbard’s. It was a sports pub with TONS of TVs which was perfect for us because the March Madness tournament had just begun and we were excited to get to watch a lot of games and smack-talk our brackets. We ate a light lunch because we had plans for a big dinner and hung out at the pub for a few hours watching games. I love the atmosphere of a sports pub when there is a big game on, and at one point the entire bar was watching and cheering loudly for the Auburn vs. New Mexico State game because it was so close. The energy in the room was awesome! It was a relaxing and fun way to spend an afternoon.
We strolled back to our hotel room to freshen up and met up with our friends to walk to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Justin and I split an entree so I still had room for dessert – Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple did not disappoint!
After dinner the six of us walked to the theatre district and enjoyed all the stunning views of the city along the way.
We arrived at the Nederlander Theatre to watch A Bronx Tale. Honestly, this was not my favorite Broadway play ever and I thought the plot kind of jumped around a lot but the music made up for it. The performers were all SO talented and two in particular blew me away with their vocal performance. It was a great way to cap off our first day!
Friday morning Justin and I enjoyed the fact that we were kid-less which every parent knows means you can SLEEP. IN. Glorious! We met up with a couple of our friends for breakfast at Yolk, which was super delicious. I didn’t remember to take a picture until all I had left was one piece of cinnamon roll french toast left, but take my word for it that my skillet breakfast and french toast was beautiful and delicious!
After breakfast Justin and I both had a little work to do so we headed back to the hotel to work on our laptops for a few hours. Around lunch we headed out to meet up with my uncle at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel which was an absolutely stunning building! There are different restaurants inside and we chose The Game Room, which has an awesome old-time clubhouse feel. The ambiance was just incredible! Their menu is limited with small portions, which was perfect for splitting a few small plates among the three of us since Justin and I were still pretty full from breakfast. The restaurant had March Madness games playing and since my uncle is a University of Cincinnati alum, we got really into their game vs. Iowa.
After the game finished we headed up to check out the rooftop restaurant Cindy’s, which has a great view of Millennium Park and the lake. It was the perfect lunch spot to enjoy and catch up with my uncle!
Justin and I headed back to the hotel but couldn’t resist a pit stop at The Bean for some super touristy pictures. I love the one with “The Bean and our growing Little Bean” haha!
We headed back to relax in the hotel room and watch more March Madness (and I took a nap – once again, kid-free gloriousness!) until it was time to head out to dinner. Because this conference is so huge, there are a lot of schools and organizations that have alumni meet-ups and Justin and I went to his school’s alumni dinner at Pizzeria Due. Nothing like delicious deep-dish Chicago style pizza! It was fun to catch up with a few people we knew from our time in West Virginia and hear what everyone is up to now.
Afterwards we met up with our friends at Timothy O’Toole’s for a few drinks and, you guessed it, more March Madness. I was cheering hard for my Buckeyes! It was extra fun with our group of six because everyone’s brackets were different so our alliances kept changing each game with who we were co-cheering with. Only one other friend had picked OSU to win their first game so we were pretty smug for the rest of the night. 😉
Saturday morning Justin attended a few hours of his conference so I headed to the gym to get a workout in. The gym overlooked the river so it was fun to watch the buzz of city life go by as I got my cardio in.
We met up with all our friends for lunch (another spouse arrived Saturday morning so we were now a group of seven) at Weber Grill, which was fantastic! Once again, I got so into our conversations and enjoying time together that I have zero pictures but our food was delicious and we were all very happy with our choice!
We split off into groups after lunch, as some people wanted to shop Michigan Avenue and others wanted to find dessert. I was in the dessert camp and we ended up at Ghirardelli’s where a friend and I split a delicious sundae and we enjoyed people watching from the window.
Justin and I, along with two of our friends, had decided to leave Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning so we spent the afternoon packing up and getting ready to leave. We met up for one more group dinner at Pinstripes, which was a fun atmosphere. I got their wood-fired pizza which, while not deep dish Chicago, was still delicious! Next door to the restaurant was Molly’s Cupcakes and as soon as we saw they were Cupcake War winners, we knew we had to give them a try. I was stuffed so we got two cupcakes to enjoy later.
Once back at the hotel, we grabbed our things, said goodbye to the friends leaving Sunday, and headed back to Indiana. We didn’t get back until around midnight but it was worth it to have a relaxing Sunday morning before meeting up with my parents to take LJ on a plane to Virginia (yes! So much travel in so little time!) It was a short and sweet trip to Chicago but we really enjoyed the time away!
simplify the chaos 