Wheaton and the Windy City

I had to go to Chicago this week for work...

Katie wanted to go to Chicago to visit Wheaton...

So we decided to go together and make a road-trip out of it!

I will say that things did not go exactly as we planned, but all-in-all, we had a great time. Our adventure began at 5am on Wednesday morning when we flew out of Knoxville with a connecting flight in Charlotte. We got to Charlotte only to find out that our flight to Chicago had been cancelled due to some bad weather in the Windy City. This definitely threw a wrench in our plans as we scrambled to re-schedule meetings at Wheaton that were suppose to take place later that day and also tried to see what our possibilities of getting to Chicago were because my conference started that night at 5pm. Katie got her meetings re-scheduled for Thursday and we got a flight at 11:50am which put us in Chicago with time to take a quick trip to Wheaton and for me to also make my work meeting, whew! Wheaton has a beautiful campus!

Katie is considering going there in the fall to get a Masters in Biblical Studies. This would be a part-time program for the next 3 years which is a big deal! We didn't have as much time as we wanted to explore due to our flight delay, but the campus isn't that big so we were able to see a good portion of it.

On Thursday, I went to my conference during the day and Katie went back to Wheaton for her meetings and an "official" campus tour. That afternoon we took the train into the city. This was something that Katie and I were both a little nervous about doing but pleasantly surprised with how easy it was! We also took the train up to Wrigleyville where we met some girls that Katie may live with and saw their cute apartment. This is the outside:

We then went downtown where we had dinner at Gino's East (the best deep dish pizza in Chicago!) and then back to our hotel for a good night's sleep. Check out the great view from our room at the Hyatt Regency...thank you Priceline!

Friday morning we hit the ground running with our first stop at Navy Pier. It was a little cold but not rainy so we were super thankful for clear skies!

I will say that not much can contend with the Chicago skyline from Navy Pier

Our next stop was Millennium Park. There were flowers blooming everywhere!

Of course, I had to take Katie to the "Bean" :)

Katie seemed a bit confused over what all the fuss of this "Bean" was about, but once she saw it up close, I think was a little more impressed.

We then met up with a high-school friend of mine, Brittany, who went to Wheaton and still lives in Chicago and it was great to re-connect with her and listen to her advice and experiences in the city. Our trip was not as long as we would have liked, but having Katie there and exploring the city with her definitely made my work trip more fun and I think she enjoyed seeing Chicago for the first time too!