For the last couple of days I have been in Chicago to celebrate my grandmothers 70th birthday with my dad’s side of the family. My mom, brother, and I drove down to Chicago and we met the rest of our family there. We stayed right downtown and it was really nice but ridiculously hot and humid out. So here is the recap of our days happenings.

The first day after we arrived we walked around downtown Chicago after a few interesting incidents…. like Gabe humping the entering Wisconsin sign. Yes my little brother is strange.

The first thing we did in Chicago was an architectural design river tour on the Chicago River. It was very interesting to travel through Chicago by river and then go out into Lake Michigan to see the Chicago skyline. We also went along the navy pier.

It was nice hanging out with our Philadelphia cousins and seeing all of our family in such a cool setting. The heat was not very enjoyable though, especially walking blocks after blocks in the boiling heat and humidity. We met my grandmother’s brother and sister-in-law at a nice restaurant right on the river. They gave us about four free desserts because they thought they took a long time to get our food out but I thought it was really normal. The desserts were amazing, like one which was a mint ice cream cake coated in a marshmallow cream that had chocolate drizzled on it. So good!

After that we walked around some more and headed over to Millennium Park. By that time we are running from one shady spot to another trying desperately to escape the sun. So we were hiding in the shade while I was trying to get pictures. Meanwhile Aunt Eileen was having fun with a cow sculpture…

We had a brief visit to the Art Institute of Chicago after a long day but we were so tired that we bailed out quickly to go back to the hotel room for resting time.

The next day my family went to Gino’s East a famous pizza place in downtown Chicago. It was featured on Man v.s. Food, my family are big fans of that show and try to go to the places on the show any time we can. Like when we visited the Crab Pot in Seattle. We got to Gino’s and the decorations were amazing. The entire building was graffiti up and covered in writing and pictures. Not to mention the food. I never had deep dish pizza before so Chicago’s Gino’s was the best place to start I figured. I was totally right. I was worried I wouldn’t like it but it was so good. It had an amazing cornmeal crust that just blew us away.

We also went to Al’s Italian Beef restaurant which was also featured on Man v.s Food. We had it catered to my uncle’s home for my grandma’s birthday dinner. We got to make it ourselves which was quite the experience. It was so good and you got to dip your sandwich in the sauce and it was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had.

Over all we had a lot of fun and it was really nice to hang out with my whole family. There were a lot of laughs and very strange things but it was so great to see all of my family that I normally don’t see.

Grandma’s birthday party was a lot of fun and I can’t wait for another little re-union like this one to get to see everyone together again. Happy Birthday Grandma!!