At the end of November my friends and I left Kansas City bound for Chicago for a wonderful girls getaway. We had such a great time
last year, that we decided we had to go back for round two and this time Katie joined us!
It is safe to say that the shenanigans started as soon as we got to the airport. After the issue from Black Betty getting lost last year, we had to give her a stern talking so that it would not happen again.
Michelle and Jill lecturing Black Betty that if she got lost this time, we were all officially done with her. Spoiler alert: She made it to Chicago! Whew!
Sparkling wine on the plane is the best! Katie flew on a different airline, so we met up with her at the hotel.
After we got situated at the hotel, we headed out to the
Chicago Christkindlmarkt! We decided that it is best visited right before it gets dark and definitely on a Thursday instead of Friday night because it gets so crowded.
Willkommen (Welcome) to the land of gluhwein!
Obviously getting gluhwein was the first order of business. We were all very excited about the cute little mugs this year.
Cheers for gluhwein!
These three ladies are some of the best girlfriends out there. I am so grateful that I get to call them my friends.
Michelle said that the gluhwein tasted better this year. She did not care for it last year, but it redeemed itself this year. I think she had the taste of bitter in her mouth when Black Betty bailed on the flight last year.
Michelle chose the apple cinnamon gluhwein, which is white wine instead of red. I need to try to recreate it at home because it was delicious!
Celebrating 13 years of friendship right here.
One of my favorite stahls at the market
The girls enjoyed their gluhwein and I shopped around a bit.
I ended up buying a beautiful Christmas arch from this vendor. It looks so pretty displayed in our house.
We enjoyed two rounds of gluhwein and laughing and talking before stopping off to buy snacks and wine at Walgreens.
Jill with enough snacks to feed 8 people.
We dropped all the snacks off at the hotel and enjoyed a drink from the hotel bar before deciding to make our way to
the Purple Pig for dinner. On the way, we spotted a beautiful Christmas tree in Millennium Park, so we decided to go over for a picture. I believe this is where the wheels started to fall off.
We tried so hard to get a selfie with us and the tree. So hard. We tried so hard that people that did not even speak English started coming up to us asking if they could take our picture. I am surprised any of us were standing after the amount of laughter that ensued.
I may have peed a little when this picture was taken. You might be wondering where Michelle is? She is laughing so hard that she is bent over behind my head. We looked like such a mess trying to get a picture.
We finally got this one. I have no idea why the two people that are under 5'0 are in the back. Call that a first.
Thanks to the kind stranger that saved us from ourselves and took this picture. Someone was bound to take a header all in the name of a selfie with the Christmas Tree.
The Purple Pig does not take reservations, so we put our name in and wandered away to find a place for a drink.
We ended up at
Pops for Champagne, which is just around the corner from the Purple Pig. We settled on a delicious bottle of sparkling rose while we waited. We had a lot of laughs sitting there sipping on our bubbly.
This was some of the best sparkling rose I have ever tasted and I have tasted a lot.
Katie was such a trooper putting up with all of the shenanigans out of us three.
We had our dinner at the Purple Pig, which may have included more wine. We had a small issue where the waiter did not bring us one of our items and then tried to box it up for us to take it to go after all of our plates had been cleared. It was odd. We made it clear that to go salmon was not something we were into and after a little bit of a discussion, it was taken care of. This was my third time there and the first time I did not have the best experience. Our food was delicious though!
We left the restaurant and stopped at a tree on Michigan Avenue for a picture. Once again, it was such a shit show that someone offered to take our picture. We insisted we were fine, but they would not leave us alone so we let them take our picture.
I could no longer keep a straight face with us taking selfies with the trees.
The picture the stranger took might possibly be the worst picture ever. This is made even funnier by the fact that they made Katie take about five different pictures of them. Yeah, it was funny.
We walked on and apparently I thought the sidewalk was taking me to a bridge, when in fact it was just taking me straight to the wall by the river.
I wish I could explain what was going on in this picture, but I cannot.
We decided it was time to make our way back toward our hotel when we stumbled across a bull that was just asking for us to stop and take a picture.
Once again, I cannot explain what is going on in this picture.
We were lining up for a selfie with the bull when this man came up to take our picture. We insisted we enjoyed the challenge of fitting us on in a selfie, but alas, he would not take no for an answer. We agreed and he insisted I mount the bull for the photo.
I kept request that the polizei not be called and the man asked me what language I was speaking. I climbed on top of the bull and the guy had a friend appear out of nowhere to take the picture while the guy joined us in the photo.
This might be our funniest picture of the trip. Jill said that she felt the man touch her purse (the next day she said he caressed her thigh) and she felt like something was up. We laughed that Jill was saying "WHOA" in this picture.
We parted with the strangers and went back to the hotel. Thankfully one of us had the good sense to not stop in the bar for a cocktail, but we did stop for pictures with the tree as part of the Hobby Lobby challenge.
Jill, looking stunning in a Christmas tree
Katie, looking up to the Angels
Me, apparently getting a good smell of the tree
Michelle, after I asked her to pose. My goodness I love her.
We ended the night laughing hysterically. That is what girlfriends are for.
We were a little slow moving on Friday. I went for a quick run in the hotel fitness center before we got ready and headed out for the day. We planned on doing a little shopping and our first stop was Macy's. It was a zoo. We went up to the Christmas area to look at ornaments. Our day may have started with more of the Hobby Lobby challenge.
Jill recreating her senior picture with a Christmas tree outside of the Macy's bathroom. Real life here folks.
It took every fiber of my being to keep a straight face for this picture.
We enjoyed lunch at Lou Malnati's, our favorite Chicago pizza, and wanted to find a place for a drink. We saw a place across from Lou's that was called the Bottled Blonde and we thought that we should go there. We entered and decided to walk right back out. That does not mean the blondes did not get a picture in front of the place.
The three blondes
We wandered into a place across the street and enjoyed some sparkling rose. We laughed so much in this bar that I am surprised we did not get kicked out. This is where Jill told us that the guy from last night first touched her purse and then that he caressed her thigh. This led to all kinds of commentary about the photo with mom (Jill) saying Whoa!
This also may have been when Jill broke out her selfie stick that she did not have with her the night before. We may have tried to get a selfie with it, but it was an utter fail.
Do not mess with mom and the selfie stick
After burning off our pizza from laughing so hard, we walked to
CH Distillery for a craft cocktail. Ken and I visited this place a few years ago and the girls were really wanting to go. They were having their Christmas menu, which is all themed off of A Christmas Story.
Such a fun idea!
Katie and Jill with their specialty cocktails. Katie had Uncle Eddie's eggnog and Jill had some gluhwein. I loved the mug Katie's came in!
After our drinks we started walking back toward our hotel. Katie had VIP tickets to Miss Saigon and the theatre was near our hotel. On the way, we stopped off for a few pictures of the beautiful city views.
Chicago is such a beautiful city
We were hoping a selfie stick would improve our ability. Not really. We still were about to pee our pants taking selfies.
Since Jill had her selfie stick, we planned on walking back by the Chriskindlmarkt to get a selfie with the sign. Michelle was not excited about this, but I promised to buy her some candy nuts, so she obliged. We got one block from the market when Jill pulled our her stick and broke it. Not kidding.
I thought Michelle might kill Jill but Jill assured us she would find someone to get our picture with the sign. That she did. It ended up being a great picture.
Besties taking on Chicago
The market at night. I held true and bought some nuts to share with Michelle. I seriously think candied nuts are the best treat ever.
We went to see Miss Saigon, which was amazing complete with champagne with our VIP tickets. It was a great way to end a great trip. The next morning we all traveled back to Kansas City with our laughter meters at an all time high. We had so much fun.
Once we arrived to Kansas City, we saw this on the highway on our drive home:
And it was pouring down rain.
Thanks for such a fun trip girls!!!
