Catching Up
I was apprehensive about entering this new phase of life we’re in. Technically our nest isn’t empty since Lindsey moved back home after college graduation, but with Grant, our youngest, off to college out of state, we’ve definitely transitioned to a new place and I wasn’t entirely looking forward to it.
I shouldn’t have been concerned. Life lately has been a whirlwind of activity and memorable events, including birthday celebrations, family visits to Grant in St. Louis, baseball playoff games, and a quick getaway to Chicago.
It turns out this new life phase comes with a lot of freedom and we’ve been taking full advantage of it.
The Chicago getaway was a four-day trip Tom and I took last week to celebrate my 50th birthday. I posted a few pictures from my (broken) iPhone to Instagram and I have a few more to share with you here.
Since this was my birthday trip, the agenda was all mine to plan. First on my list was The Art Institute of Chicago, where we had never been before even though it’s on every “What To Do In Chicago” list I’ve ever seen.
It’s on those lists for good reason. You could never begin to cover this amazing museum in a day, but we saw as much as we could.
We spent a lot of time in the Impressionist galleries. Simply amazing.
Two pieces at the museum that I especially wanted to see (American Gothic and The Child’s Bath) and one I didn’t know I wanted to see (van Gogh’s self portrait) were on loan to other museums, so we’ll definitely have to make a return trip.
We also took the architectural boat tour even though we’ve done twice before. We highly, highly recommend it.
It’s a relaxing, 90-minute river cruise (with a brief journey out onto Lake Michigan) and you get to see the city from a very unique vantage point. The volunteer guides – who are excellent – make sure you leave looking at architecture in a whole new way.
There are a couple of other places we went to on this trip that I want to share with you but I’ll save those for future posts.
I’ll just leave you with these two pieces of Chicago eye candy: the Thanksgiving window displays at P.O.S.H., a shop I’ve blogged about before.
I could happily pass an afternoon at P.O.S.H. just studying the way they style their merchandise. They’re masters at it. And while I don’t want to hurry fall along any, these displays have me looking forward to setting a Thanksgiving table.