The West Family : Good Friday In Chicago!

Good Friday, was Goooood to us! Hahaha... and it all happened by circumstance that we would both get it off. I had asked if it would be possible to get this day off for a leadership conference at one of the colleges in the area. Because it was sort of left as a "We'll see, but don't count on it," I figured I better not register and waste my money. Well, turns out I got it scheduled off anyway for the leadership conference that I was no longer planning to attend. Chris got is off as one of the mandatory "days with out pay". So that is how we both ended up with the Friday off.

The day before Kristina says they are planning to go to Chicago to get some American Girl Dolls, and do some "Geo-ing". So I ask Chris if he wants to do some "geo-ing" in Chicago, and he says yes. So it's Friday morning and we're excited about going to Chicago. I call Kristina about 8:15ish and wake her up... oops, sorry.... I thought they were leaving early. Looking at the finances, I think hmm.... let's see about Blue Man Group! I have been dieing to see them again, and Chris REALLY wanted to see them. So, I asked what he thought, and he was all for it. I thought there would be only back row seats left, if any at all for that afternoon. Low and behold - PONCHO SECTION SEATS! ROCK ON! So we bought them and got two free tickets to the Sears Sky Deck, which we will use another trip.

Now we walk to the train stop, and jump on the South Shore to Chicago. We walk to our favorite eating spot Chipotle Mexican Grill. Then we call Kristina because they had arrived at the doll store. Chris and I decided we will meet them at the doll shop. Using the map on his phone, we walk 45 minutes up the PACKED street, then another 15 minutes down another street only to find the map took us to the OLD American Doll Place! And the new one is the other direction, way past where we started at. So we walk to the nearest purple line CTA stop, and buy our transit pass. We decide there is not really a whole lot of time left to meet up with the girls and go geocaching. We go to the theater, doors don't open till 3:30, so we dunk in dunkin' donuts and get some fruit blasts and sit for an hour. We watched the BOOT get locked on some cars in the parking lot, and got to see one lady return and throw a fit. (Free Entertainment, love it)

Then we enjoyed the Blue Man Group, it was awesome! We even got a picture after the show, and I had him "sign" my playbill. (blue man signature: a Kiss,) so I'll put that one with the one I got when I went with the drama club in high school. If you ever get a chance to check out the Blue Man Group out, you should! We rushed to the CTA to take us back to the loop. We had a short walk to the south shore station where we had about 10 minutes to spare, so we got some pizza and ate on the train. Where we were very good citizens and gave up our seats on the VERY packed train, to a mom carrying a baby seat and holding the hand of her 2 year old daughter. We stood for about 45 minutes before seats finally started opening up in our train car.

The South Shore has gotten fancy and upgraded to Double Decker trains!