Weekend Chicago Trip

Kyle and I made our 2nd annual trip to Chicago to see Mel & Steve (Kyle’s sister & her husband). We took off for Chicago after he got out of class Thursday night, which ended up meaning we had a 3am arrival time! I stayed up with Kyle about half the time, but boy being prego I just can’t last as late! Kyle did great though and got us to Chi-town safely!

We slept in Friday morning a bit and then headed about an hour north to Wisconsin to a HUGE outlet mall! But before our day of shopping we went to the Jelly Belly Factory!

The middle of the store was a huge sample station! Look closely and check out some of those flavors on the bottom…baby wipes, booger, barf, skunk spray…no thanks! ;)

Not sure if this counts as vegetable serving! ;)

We finally made it to the check out with a few Jelly Belly finds, only to find out they were hiding the good stuff up there! Check out the size of those peanut butter cups! Of course we HAD to get one!

Next we were off to empty our wallets at the outlet mall! The place was HUGE! Sadly it was raining so we hit our favorite stores and called it an afternoon by 3pm.

So this was Kyle’s first time in Wisconsin, so he had to have a real Wisconsin experience! Cheese!! Mar’s Cheese Castle to be exact!

It was literally a castle! And it just opened the day we were there! Great timing, huh!

There were all kinds of things made out of cheese…  

Beer sausage & cheese anyone?

Of course there were samples galore! Check out that giant wedge of cheese!!

Chocolate cheese fudge anyone? It was actually VERY good. The said they just replaced the milk with cheese.

No castle is complete with knights! :)

After our cheese excursion we hit up Ikea! This is an old picture, it was raining cats & dogs when we got there! We picked up a few things for the nursery. Can’t wait to show you guys!!

When we got back to Mel & Steve’s place and knew just what we wanted! Our giant peanut butter cup! We cut it into 4th’s and each enjoyed a piece of delicious-ness!!

Friday supper we knew just where we wanted to go….Giordanos!!

It was well worth the 30 minute wait for our pizza to cook!!

Mmmm, look at all that cheesy goodness!!

Saturday we spent our day shopping…the mall, Costco, Marshalls….you name it! :) Here are a few of my favorite finds!

Some new kicks!! Don’t ya love the sparkles!!

And of course I couldn’t pass up a few things for Baby Bangert!

After our day of shopping we went out for supper with some of Mel & Steve’s friends at one of their favorite spots, Ron of Japan, a Japanese steak house.

This was the kind of place where they cook right in front of you!

Pretty impressive!

We had a good time & of course, plenty of food!

Sunday we slept in, packed up the car, and Kyle wanted one more stop before we left town…Portillos! Kyle got his hot dog & Italian beef and I stuck with their chocolate cake!

We said our goodbyes and made the trip home. Thanks for a wonderful weekend guys! Next time you’ll have a family of 3 visiting! :)

(old picture…sadly we didn’t get a picture of the 4 of us while we were together)