Family Chicago Trip 2013: Part 1

I grew up outside of Chicago, my parents still live there as well as a couple of my siblings but we don't get back there that often; it is expensive to fly five people! This year we saved up and spent an awesome week in Chicago.   I took a ton of pictures, I am a photographer what do you expect?  I will be sharing some of fun and highlights over the next few days.

We arrived late on a Friday night, followed by an even later dinner and an even later bedtime.  Most of us survived... some did not.

The late night and not enough sleep made mini-golf just so so hard.

Thankfully, a nap did him good and the fun continued.

My brother-in-law was a favorite and a really good sport when they kids dressed him up.
My brother-in-law also introduced us to the fun of a "Root beer Tasting".  A Root Beer tasting could be considered the Mormon version of a wine tasting. He has bottles of root beer from around the country, literally.

Ross' personal root beer supply

His friends will actually bring him root beer when they go on vacations as they know how much he loves it.   He would present each bottle of root beer, tell us a little about it and give us all a little bit to sample and we would all rate it on a scale of 1 to 10.  It was seriously so much fun and I was floored at the different kinds and styles of root beers there are (we are going to be introducing Eric's family to this fun while in Utah this week).
On Monday we went to the Morton Arboretum.   This is a beautiful park with tons to see and an awesome children's garden.  I had forgotten how green everything is in the midwest, it really was so beautiful!  We went with my brother Aaron's family  (he was at work but his wife and 4 kids came) The kids loved catching tadpoles, there were hundreds so it was pretty easy to do. Pretending to be spiders on the giant web was fun too

The oldest and youngest cousin sharing a snack

There was one near disaster though as you see, the princess got her shirt wet (yes it may have been her own fault)- but a princesses shirt cannot be wet!   Daddy to the rescue, carrying for maximum sun exposure to dry her shirt. It was a fun first few days, with much more to come.