Double the Love: Chicago Series, Part 1

I decided to split our Chicago trip into a 4 part series and blog about each day individually. I figured if I crammed all of the amazing moments into one blog, it will be long and drawn out and I might lose you. So here we go...

Chicago Day 1 - November 23, 2015

We hit the road at 7:30 AM. The drive (which is 5 hours for us) didn't seem as long as the first time we went last October. We arrived at the Ronald McDonald House at 12:30 PM, but our room wasn't quite ready so we decided to eat lunch first and let the boys play on the Piano and in the Play Room. Staying here has GREAT Advantages. The house is beautiful for one and has so many nice amenities. It is like a huge house with lots of bedrooms. There is a shared Kitchen - which is huge, shared living areas (one on each of the 3 floors) and the 4th floor has been turned into a Rec Room since last October. We used this room quite a bit for Pool, Air Hockey and Ping Pong. The house is available to families that are visiting the local hospitals and is much more affordable for us than a hotel downtown. We get to bring snacks and drinks and even food. They have companies who come in to volunteer and cook meals so we sometimes get a great home cooked meal while we are there too! The biggest disadvantage for us I would say is that is is a 20-30 minute drive to downtown Chicago which can be grueling with traffic going to and from. I would say that all of the advantages outweigh the one disadvantage.

Ronald McDonald House

Kitchen

Looking down from the 3rd Floor

Looking up from the sitting area

This one is from last year. Forgot to get one this year. :(

After lunch we relaxed and spent some time in the Rec Room before heading downtown for the evening. I wanted to walk the Magnificent Mile this time because I knew all the trees would be decorated and we didn't do it last year. We took the boys to the Disney Store, The Water Tower Place - which is a 7 story mall. Alex and I really enjoyed riding the glass elevator from the 7th floor all the way down to the ground level. Eric and Evan....not so much. LOL! We visited the Lego store which the boys loved as well as wrote letters to Santa at Macy's on our way out. We picked Pei Wei (our favorite) for dinner and took a few more pictures before heading back to the RMH for the night. It was a cold night out but worth it for the experience.