{Chicago Symphony and LOTR}

First off - we are not dead. We've just been busy traveling back to Provo, unpacking and re-settling into our apartment, having family in town, starting school, and a lot more :)

Let's take a look at our last weekend in Chicago. Friday night we had an amazing time listening to the Chicago Symphony. They played in an outdoor park called Ravinia.  There were a crazy large amount of people there. There were the regular seats and then lawn seats that you could purchase. There were millions of people. Some people brought their own little tables with fancy table clothes, wine classes, and candles for the evening. It was kinda fun. We purchased real seats for the concert, and I'm glad we did.

The Chicago symphony wasn't playing regular classical music, but played the Lord of the Rings soundtrack while the movie was playing. It was wonderful! Such a cool experience!! The music was amazing and loud. There was even a full choir including a small children's choir and wonderful soloists. The soundtrack of LOTR is very exciting and it was thrilling to be able to watch the orchestra, hear it live, feel it all around you, and watch the movie. It was such a great experience - it was a fun way to experience the genius music and wonderful movie that it fit with.

This was our view from our seats - it was great! I'm glad we splurged on real seats so that we could WATCH the orchestra and no just hear them. I believe that watching a musical performer is as telling as listening to a performer. That was awesome.

this is seriously one of the coolest things that we did in Chicago - top of the list for sure :)

{You are SO beautiful!}

Sometimes being pregnant is hard. True story. Sometimes I miss my old body and I have had a couple of dreams about being back to my normal size. Overall, it's great, but sometimes it just gets a little hard. Being pregnant is the most wonderful thing and I love it. But, every now and again it's great to get some encouragement.

When we went to the Cubs game last week I had to take a trip to the little girls room [surprise....tiny bladder+big baby=frequent toilet trips]. After washing my hands I was wiping off the smeared make-up under my eyes and thinking, "I'm looking quite worn and tired...dang it." At that moment a girl...lady....person my age-ish walked up to me with huge smiling eyes and said "You are SO beautiful!!!" I gave a little hiccup of a laugh and said thank you. She then proceeded to awe at my belly, ask me questions about the baby, and was just so sweet continually commenting on how beautiful I looked. She said that she was trying to get pregnant and that it was so great to see me so happy and so beautiful and pregnant.

Isn't that the nicest thing in the world? I remember when the husband and I were trying to get pregnant and how long that took us [Long is relative - some people try for years, bless them, and others for a few days. It took us about 7-8ish months. Whether you are trying for 1 month or 10 years, every month that you're not pregnant is so so hard] and how grateful we were once we were finally blessed with our little girl. I wished her luck and said that everything would work out [because it always does. Not always in the way that we want, but Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us].

I am so grateful that girl came up and talked to me. Sure it was a little weird at first, sure I laughed about it later, and I'm sure she thought it was silly, too, but it was a great reminder to me. Even if my body is stretched out and I look like I'm hiding a basketball under my shirt, it is beautiful. What a great blessing and opportunity I have. I am very grateful and very humbled [more so each day as our guessdate gets closer and closer...] for the opportunity to be a mother.

Jan 22

 February 5

April 29

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June 3

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July 31

August 13

{Little Italy}

After our adventures down at the pier on Saturday we went up to Little Italy for the Italian festival. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but it was a ton of fun! They had many different booths with food, shopping, and carnival games. There was also some live music. It was a fun way to spend the evening - eating delicious Italian food and listening to some great music :)

These next two pictures are of dry ice bubbles! Coolest thing ever...

The head of The David. 

We got some delicious Ravioli! Luckily we didn't scarf it down too fast to snatch a picture of it

At a Mediterranean booth we got a lamb kabob on a bed of some rice - the lamb was SOOO good! 

Check out this girl's neon socks with sandals.... Thanks to the husband for his mad-sneaky picture taking skills.

Yum - Italian Pizza. It was just like the real thing - so good :)

And Italian Ice. Why have I never had this before? This was the greatest thing of my life. It's like those frozen lemonade things that you can buy at football games or whatever but a zillion times better. It was so so so good. I want another one. right. now.

Live music:

Pretty sky - pretty city.

{Stained glass and Tesla}

After we looked at the pirate ships and the rain got a little bit harder, we spent some time indoors at navy pier and looked through their stained glass exhibit and a special exhibit that they had on Tesla.

They had some modern art stained glass which was pretty cool:

And a lot of work with mosaics:

Trying out some electricity thing:

{Pirate Ships! AKA Tall Ships}

On Saturday the husband and I got to sleep in :) I get to sleep in and take naps on a regular basis, but never with the husband, so that was fun. After a lazy start to our day, we debated whether to head down town and face the rain and storm clouds or to stay at home. We decided to go and went down to Navy Pier to take a look at some pirate ships! Ok, they weren't real pirate ships, but they were real old ships that were used in the war of 1812. Cool, yes? But, I will refer to them as pirate ships because they looked like pirate ships, I love pirates, and it makes it seem more epic. They were offering tours of some and on others you could buy tickets to take a ride on them up and down the river. We, wanting to be on the cheaper side, opted to just do a tour of 2 of the ships. 

I included this picture just because my husband is a stud :)

 While we were standing in the really long line to buy tickets we had two different people come up at different times and offer us the extra tickets that they had. How nice is that?! "Umm, we have an extra ticket that we didn't use, do you want it?" YES! that happened twice so that means that free tickets for us! Double bonus.

 So excited!

I was very much tempted to climb up those ropes...

Going down.....

It was very cramped down there and so we didn't stay down there too long, it was not very comfortable for me and my big ol' belly.

I loved these little rope mats that they had all over the ship - kinda fun! 

My husband is epic.

The second ship we got to tour

check out that massive anchor!

There were pirates after all! This is me making my pirate face!

The weather was perfect pirate weather - a little bit rainy and stormy. It helped set the mood and kept large crowds away, which was very nice.