chicago

a city of brilliant architecture, statues and fountains.

a city of little details and paintings on the buildings.

a city of bookstores. have you ever seen one like this?

books stacked in an unorganized fashion.

it was a too chaotic for me but just right for david. this is how he files his books away too.

I did find a book in this mess, a little book of german sayings for 

my nephews who live in germany. 

a city of gargoyles and spires.

a city of crawling leaves and magnificent interiors. 

another bookstore in here but much more organized.

it was a city of wind and rain this week.

this is as close as i can get to getting a picture of myself. 

yay, i can still wear my flip flops! 

a city right on lake michigan. i usually enjoy the lake when visiting 

the city but this time the architecture was more attractive.

a city of steel and concrete with a mixture of colorful gardens and plants.

a city to try new shops like this ice cream one. i was going to 

order some pumkin ice cream but i was curious about the steamers

on the menu. it is like a milkshake but hot.

i ordered the chocolate mint one and it was good.

a city of countless amounts of  every kind of restaurant. 

we had lots of good food.

and our fave -chicago style pizza!

thick delicious pizza pie! .

a city where the parking is the worst with sky high rates. 

luckily we had friends who new about cheap parking so we paid less than 

half of what the regular rates were. 

and a very generous chicago resident hooked us up with a train ride back to our hotel. 

i think she felt bad for us because we looked like lost puppies.

a city of hotels and a mum in every planter. maybe its because

i had mums on my mind this past week that i was seeing them left and right.

 our India team had to sell about 500 for one of our fundraisers.

a city that has frank lloyd wright home and

where a few tall structures look like corn on the cob.

a city of beautiful views, and cozy little nooks in the parks. 

a bustling city of people of all sorts. we encountered quite a bit of homeless people this trip. 

we do have a heart for the homeless but we can't help out every person that asks

for money and we had a lot of people ask it seemed around every corner we turned.

we don't like to give money but rather pay for someones meal or a place to stay. 

but we did give a little money. a guy asked if we were going to eat our leftover pizza

that we had in our hands and we gladly gave it to him. i  never hesitate to buy someone a meal who 

needs it.  then we came across a woman and child who was

homeless i knew we couldn't just walk by. we figured out her needs and wanted help.

she needed an extra night at her her hotel she was staying at. we wrote down

her name and the hotel she was staying at to pay for another night.

but when we got to the hotel the clerk said she had checked out. we didn't know what to do 

so we left feeling a bit useless for lack of a better word. the only thing we could do at that point was pray

so we did accomplish to get some family quality time in on this trip but we didn't put an end

 to homelessness. a little trip that brought us closer together and left with thoughts for the homeless.

i leave you with a picture of the hancock tower. it is one of my favorite buildings in the city.