Big City Girl Wedding Finale

It's been brought to my attention that it's been a while since I've posted. Well, you've asked for it... a full length Daddy B post!

It appears that we've made it through another year of weddings (we're not forgetting anyone, right?). Last weekend, we were in Chicago for the wedding of Erin & Henry, two of our much-missed neighbors from back in Ohio City. They've been in Chicago for over a year now and have now tied the knot! Congrats guys! We had a blast!

We took the Megabus on Friday morning from Tower City in Cleveland to Union Station in Chicago. The ride was nice and we sat on the second level! Since we got to Chicago in the early afternoon and had nowhere to be, I convinced Naomi that we should walk to the hotel (about 1.5 miles). When I pulled out the camera, Naomi told me that she thought, "oh great, now everyone's going to know we're tourists," but then she looked at our entourage - 6 bags and a baby - and realized that the gig was already up. I snapped a couple sweet pictures along the way.

We were on the 32nd floor, which was great! We rested at the hotel for a spell and then headed out to Michigan Avenue for some shopping. We knew we needed to be back in time for the big presidential debate, so we stopped off at Trader Joe's for a bottle of wine and some snacks and ordered a Chicago-style "stuffed" pizza from the restaurant downstairs. When I got tired of watching the candidates yammering on, I moved over to the window and took some pics from our room, including this gem:


Needless to say, I took a bunch more in the morning. This view, to the southeast, includes a glimpse of Millennium Park's Cloud Gate (more later) and the Field Museum in the distance.


Nora played a little Nintendo (not really, we're too cheap to pay for that stuff) on Saturday morning before we headed out for a lovely walk along the Chicago River.

Seeing as she'd spent a lot of time looking out the window of our hotel room the night before, she wanted to point out everything that she recognized!

We took a few more shots on the riverfront before Joe, Norma & Fiona picked us up for brunch in Wicker Park. We went to Feast, which was delicious! Yes, those are the same Boyds from Cleveland. They're from Chicago and were coincidentally home for a visit the same weekend!

The Bongornos hung around in the neighborhood a while longer after brunch and ran into Sarah Palin at Marc Jacobs, looking militant as ever:

From there, we hopped on the Blue Line and headed for Millennium Park:

Millennium Park is a new addition to the expansive Grant Park along Lake Michigan. One of its most distinctive features is the gigantic shiny lima bean space ship, also know as Cloud Gate. If it looks high brow, consider that there is a cornhole area directly in front of it (unfortunately, it's part of a restaurant). Still, nice contrast!

Nora makes a leafy offering to the Cloud Gate

After shooting ourselves in the "bean," we walked for a while, looking for some grass for Nora to play in. It wasn't as easy as it should've been because a large part of the park was closed for some fancy event (boo!). When we did find a nice shaded patch, Nora decided she wanted to play on the sewer drain instead! She came to her senses after a few minutes and really enjoyed playing in the grass:

Nora took a couple old-timey shots of Mommy & Daddy for posterity:

Oh, don't worry, we didn't forget about the wedding. It was Saturday evening at the Museum of Contemporary Art. We had such a good time that we didn't get to take very many pictures!

Waiting for the hotel elevator:

The beautiful setting at the Museum:
Nora is enamored with the beautiful bride, Erin:

Come Sunday Morning, Nora was pooped (and hung over, I might add). We had to get on the 8:45 Megabus, though, so no rest for the weary. Back to Cleveland!