In honor of Ben's 6th Birthday (which hasn't even taken place yet but has been celebrated for an entire week now) and also just because we wanted to and a birthday surprise was a good excuse, Dean and I surprised Benny on Thursday morning with a trip to Chicago to see his first Cubs game. Having a work-at-home mom means that my boys are lucky enough to almost never have to be awoken from sleep in the morning. They wake up whenever they are ready (which I am still guessing is earlier than many kids). Ben was, therefore, really confused when Dean woke him up at 7:15 a.m. and told him that we needed to get up and get ready to go pick up a birthday present for him. Always up for a good time, Joey was thrilled to go along for the ride and we headed to my parents house where Joey was more than willing to ditch us and hang out with Bampaw, Uncle Craig and Aunt Mallory. Ben, on the other hand, was more than a little dissapointed to have to leave with us when it seemed that Joe was going to have such a great time at Bampaw's. He was even more distraught when he realized we weren't going shopping but were, in fact, heading up to Chicago for the day. Not quite the reaction we had anticipated/hoped for! We laughed at his dissapointment and assured him that he was getting the better deal and would be really excited once he realized how cool Chicago was and how thrilling an afternoon spent at Wrigley can be. Our hotel, the Ambassador East, was beautiful and tucked just off Michigan Avenue. Dean and Ben were overjoyed when I whipped out my camera to document the beginning of our mini-vacation!
Benny thought it was pretty cool to walk to the subway station and was excited to "ride a train." His excitement ended, however, when we walked down the stairs to the "EL" and he looked around and said "when are we getting lunch? " To which we responded, "we're headed there now." Ben looked around again and said "but aren't we there? Subway? Eat fresh?" You might not be a city kid when you associate "subway" with a sandwich shop and not a means of public transportation!Benny's trip on the train was pretty typical with lots of overcrowding, foul odors, and a crazy guy singing to himself while drinking a canned beverage out of a brown paper bag. Ben was less than impressed and spent the majority of the trip holding his nose!!
The final surprise for the day for Benny was that one of my college roomates who lives in Chicago and whom Ben ADORES, came to the game with us. His face lit up when she came walking up to him in the bottom of the third inning. He was so pumped. In fact, when he first heard we were driving up to Chicago Ben had asked "can we call Ang? She lives in Chicago and I want her to come see us." 
After the game we endured the crowds of people and another trip on the EL south to Navy Pier where we met up with another one of my college roomates (I lived with eight girls and yes they were all gorgeous), Holly or "hottie" as Benny likes to call her! 
After saying goodbye to Holly, who lives on the river just across Lake Shore Drive from Navy Pier (it's a rough life), we had another "first" for Benny as we split a cab with Ang north to our hotel. Ben thought the cab was really cool but couldn't understand why the driver gunned it with every green light ("why does he keep doing that?" benny would giggle as he was thrown back into the seat and held onto me for dear life...yes mom, he was wearing a seatbelt). We made it to our hotel in one piece and hugged and kissed Ang goodbye as she continued on to her apartment by Lincoln Park.
The three of us got cleaned up and into jammies in record time and snuggled into our cozy king-size bed. I was the first one asleep but I'm pretty sure none of us saw 9 p.m.!
The drive home was uneventful and we were all so happy to see our little Joe Bug. I was really worried about leaving him and thought he would think we were abandoning him. Joe, it turns out, had an amazing time while we were gone and got to spend time with some of his favorite people. Bampaw watched hours of Monsters, Inc with him, Abby and Uncle Craig spent the entire day with him and took him out to eat and to the park, he was able to play with Aunt Sissy and Brookie, and even got to go night-night with Nana. Today he played with Lorian, his usual and favorite babysitter and was rescued by Oma when Lorian accidently locked them out of the house. Joe then spent a few hours with Bampaw and Uncle Craig while he awaited our return. Joey was spoiled rotten and in no way missed his mom, dad, and big brother. Just as it should be. We are so grateful to everyone who was more than willing to hang with Joe in order to make our Chicago trip possible.
Our first stop upon exiting the El was to hit up a souvenier stand for a new Cubbies shirt and ball cap for Benny; a cool $50, gotta love Chicago.
Ben was super overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds. I don't think he spoke 20 words while we walked around Wrigley. We had a quick bite to eat at the McDonalds across from Wrigley and then headed into our seats. Holy cow our seats. You know you're headed to a good place when you pick your tickets up from will call (player will call no less) and they say Dugout 19 row B. We had a bit of a hookup to say the least and our seats were in the second row behind homeplate. Not too shabby.
The final surprise for the day for Benny was that one of my college roomates who lives in Chicago and whom Ben ADORES, came to the game with us. His face lit up when she came walking up to him in the bottom of the third inning. He was so pumped. In fact, when he first heard we were driving up to Chicago Ben had asked "can we call Ang? She lives in Chicago and I want her to come see us." After the game we endured the crowds of people and another trip on the EL south to Navy Pier where we met up with another one of my college roomates (I lived with eight girls and yes they were all gorgeous), Holly or "hottie" as Benny likes to call her!
Holly joined us for dinner on the Pier at Harry Carey's restaurant were we sat outside overlooking beautiful Lake Michigan and Holly treated us to ice cream cones as we walked up and down the Pier after dinner. The highlight for Benny, other than the mint chocolate chunk ice cream, was the funhouse mirror exhibit that we found that distorted our bodies and cracked Benny up!
After saying goodbye to Holly, who lives on the river just across Lake Shore Drive from Navy Pier (it's a rough life), we had another "first" for Benny as we split a cab with Ang north to our hotel. Ben thought the cab was really cool but couldn't understand why the driver gunned it with every green light ("why does he keep doing that?" benny would giggle as he was thrown back into the seat and held onto me for dear life...yes mom, he was wearing a seatbelt). We made it to our hotel in one piece and hugged and kissed Ang goodbye as she continued on to her apartment by Lincoln Park.The three of us got cleaned up and into jammies in record time and snuggled into our cozy king-size bed. I was the first one asleep but I'm pretty sure none of us saw 9 p.m.!
The next morning we all awoke after nearly 10 hours of sleep, which felt like heaven. I can't tell you the last time I got 8 hours of sleep let alone 10! We walked to Starbucks, had some breakfast, and then checked out of our hotel and headed south on Lakeshore Drive to the final stop on our surprise trip, the Museum of Science and Industry. We all agreed, this was the coolest museum EVER. We loved every minute of our time spent checking out the many amazing exhibits. Benny's favorites were probaby the Idea Factory, Submarine, Transportation, and weather exhibits. I loved the anatomy exhibit and asked Ben if he would "please go to med school someday and become a doctor so that I could study with him and learn all about the human body." Ben wasn't overly interested until Dean told him that doctors make a lot of money. Ben was on board then.
The drive home was uneventful and we were all so happy to see our little Joe Bug. I was really worried about leaving him and thought he would think we were abandoning him. Joe, it turns out, had an amazing time while we were gone and got to spend time with some of his favorite people. Bampaw watched hours of Monsters, Inc with him, Abby and Uncle Craig spent the entire day with him and took him out to eat and to the park, he was able to play with Aunt Sissy and Brookie, and even got to go night-night with Nana. Today he played with Lorian, his usual and favorite babysitter and was rescued by Oma when Lorian accidently locked them out of the house. Joe then spent a few hours with Bampaw and Uncle Craig while he awaited our return. Joey was spoiled rotten and in no way missed his mom, dad, and big brother. Just as it should be. We are so grateful to everyone who was more than willing to hang with Joe in order to make our Chicago trip possible. We are all tired and happy to be reunited and relaxing at home for the evening. Ben is already fired up for the next surprise trip and declared as we pulled out of the hotel parking lot "I want to go to New York City next. I want to see that big torcher lady." After several moments of quiet as Dean and I tried to figure out what on earth he was talking about I said "Um, Ben, do you mean the Statue of Liberty?" "Yes, that's it!"
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