New and ...Improving?: Chicago: Thursday and Friday

What an incredible weekend we ended up having! (not that I expected any different) Chicago is truly such an amazing city, and we took full advantage it!
Emily flew into town at 4:30, but Terry and weren't able to even get on the road until 6:15 from St. Louis. The drive was uneventful, hit some bad construction work about 30 minutes outside of the city, and almost wanted to strangle each other by the time we arrived to the hotel (we always love each other....sleep deprivation seems to always cause a rucous and stir the mood between us though), but at 11pm when we were out of the car and with Em, all was much better.
We threw our stuff down and proceeded down to the hotel skyline restaurant for the beautiful views....and a martini. Right when we sat down though they told us it was last call so we would have to leave in a little bit. Well we stayed for the little bit, and then went out for a casual stroll around the city; and by casual I mean we walked all over the city pit-stopping at downtown hole-in-the-walls until 3am. Sleep deprivation didn't seem to go away after this night.

We got up relatively early but were a very lazy crowd. Terry went and got us breakfast and while he was gone, we proceeded to change up the order of events for the weekend. We decided on the Cubs/Braves game for the afternoon and then Billy Elliot in the evening. The Cubs game was a great time. We had nosebleed seats, but thank goodness we snuck into these seats for the better view. Wrigley field is such a great stadium!

After the game, we headed back towards the Loop so that Em and I could go and buy our discount tickets for Billy Elliott. We got a little turned around with where the discount venue was located, but ended up walking right past the theater so we swung in to see what prices they have available. $25 tickets in the section closest to the stage, on the right side. Score!! The seats were technically called "partial view" because we were not sitting center, but we figured we would chance it.

We left and grabbed some food at The Tilted Kilt (which was funny for Terry and me because there was one right down from our house in Texas). Great food, but all the waiters have Hooter-esque outfits on just in plaid. Veeerrrrry Irish....whatever.

We went back to the hotel to change into our pretty outfits (pics are on Em's camera but will upload when I get them) and sprinted off to the show. The Oriental Theater is breath-taking. Absolutely gorgeous. I took a few inside, but not as many as I'd liked because even though they said no flash photography once the show has started, they apparently meant no photography at all. I snapped one shot and was almost instantly being berated by a rather unpleasant usher. It wasn't even a good shot but here it is none the less.

As for the show.......Phenomenal. Simply Phenomenal. It deserves all of it awards for best musical of the decade! We laughed a lot, we cried, we didn't want it to end.

My phone died half-way through the show so I had no idea what Terry was up to, but we decided to meet back up at the hotel after the show and then just go from there. When Terry walked in, so did Billy and Jordan and it was a surprise and very fun! I knew that we would see them at some point in the weekend, but it was still a nice surprise! ...And then we didn't end up leaving the hotel room :-) It was very nice on our budgets and it was still a great time to kick back.