Lucie--Saturday, June 25

Lucie and I met up with my friend Doug to go out to Oak Park on Saturday to see the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio.  Because Frank Lloyd Wright lived in the area, there were many homes designed by him.  I have loved this style of architecture especially since I spent lots of time in the Dana Thomas house designed by him in Springfield as service hours during my mission.  We stopped by Greek town for lunch on our way back, then after dropping a few things off, we walked through a neighborhood festival near my house, went to the Magnificent Mile and explored, did some souvenir shopping and went to a free classical concert at Millennium Park.  It was finally a nicer day weather wise for Lucie.  We finished the day at the Hancock Tower Signature Lounge.  It has a great view of the city, and instead of paying for the view, you buy dessert for less than tickets cost for the Sears Tower.

Lucie--Friday, June 24

Lucie was such a great sport being there with me during my last week too.  We had lots of fun, I had to take care of moving business as well.  On Friday morning we went out to breakfast in Skokie with Kath Van de Graaff, the 1st counselor in our branch presidency's wife.  We got to see some of the damage from the tornados that came through on Tuesday night.  I had a last minute change of plans when I found out that my friend Jay, who was letting me borrow his large vehicle to move my bed found out that his sister needed to borrow his truck for the next three weeks as she drove to Maine, so this was my only day to move the bed.  I made lots of phone calls between Jay and the girls where I was moving my bed, and another girls who needed her bed moved too, and we finally figured it out.  Lucie and I had enough time to go to Chinatown and to do a little architecture tour in the loop and get Chicago dogs before my moving fiasco that afternoon evening.  What was supposed to take two hours turned into a 6+ hour ordeal.  But, I got my bed moved, and I was happy about that. (I did sleep on the couch for the next week though.)

More Rain, More Museums, More Adventures

It continued to threaten to rain on Thursday, so we decided to go to the Art Institute.  Because we had the library pass we could go in and out, so we walked around Millennium Park and went to Giordano's Pizza (the location I couldn't find when Natalie and David were here) in between different wings of the art museum.  It rained like crazy while we were eating, and we ran back to the museum under my umbrella.  It probably rained other times throughout the day, but because we were inside most of the time we didn't know.  We finished the evening by heading to Navy Pier.  It's a huge tourist attraction in Chicago.  I'd never been, and it was fun to explore with Lucie.  She loved it!

Chicago with Lucie--Day 1

Lucie came to visit me for a week in Chicago.  She is heading back to France in a little while.  She has been such a great friend, and I'm so glad we had a chance to spend time together before she heads back to teach in France.  The weather wasn't exactly cooperative, but we did have a little bit of good weather and a fun time despite the weather complications. Our first night after I picked her up from the airport, there were tornado warnings, so we stayed inside instead of going to an outdoor adventure.  Then, with rain and thunderstorms threatening, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry on Wednesday.  I called probably 20 different library branches trying to find  passes to any of the museums.  I finally was able to find a pass to the Art Institute, but it was at a branch in south Chicago, so instead of going that day, we went and checked out the card, then decided to go to the Museum of Science and Industry since we were already down there.  We spent the entire day at the museum and still didn't see everything thoroughly.  I think this is my favorite museum in Chicago.