chicago feels more like home with visitors // weekend recap

momma barfuss came to visit us. she came to watch spence in his white coat ceremony but really i think she came just to play (or at least i like to think so). we loved having her here with us. it made me feel like i was not on a vacation and that i really lived in chicago. it was fun showing her around "our" places and neighborhood.

mom rented a car (lifesaver really) and on friday ran a few errands for me. we've been surviving well without a car but it was nice to have one for a few small out of way type of things. we spent the rest of the morning driving around and seeing fun neighborhoods. then was spencers white coat followed by a night out. we wanted to give mom the true chicago experience (even though she has been here before). we of course had to have deep dish pizza. pizzeria uno it was. we have been told that was the best place to go but to be honest it wasn't our favorite. still good though!

mom and spence. after we ate our life away in pizza....

sadly this is a typical picture for me. i try not to post too many of these but i couldn't resist this time. 

saturday we slept in (so heavenly) and went grocery shopping. again so much nicer with a car. our sweet mom loaded us up on all the important items including ice cream. how nice it was to not have to budget our groceries this ones. she was so nice to really take care of us!

we spent too long at the grocery store that we almost missed our architecture tour. luckily we made it with about 30 seconds to spare. sadly we couldn't sit by each other. thank goodness for little kids who were more interested in the treats downstairs that we finally got to sit together for the last half of the cruise.

welcome to our beautiful  city. we are in love.

it was so blasted hot on saturday...oh wow! i thought i was going to die. it was one of those days where we should have gone to the beach instead. it was still fun on the cruise seeing all the city.

my cute husband. this was towards the end of the cruise where we were all sweating to death. i'm impressed he looks so happy still :-)

again...i can't get enough of our city!

we had a blast learning some of the history of chicago and playing tourist. though i think we'll be playing tourist for a bit longer still. i'm still walking around wide-eyed as i slowly explore the city.

we spent the rest of the day shopping. again thanks mom for all you did for us. she loaded us up on birthday goodness (for the mr.) and some kitchen gadgets that we couldn't have afforded (for the mrs.). we headed home, took a nap and of course played games. like i said i feel so much more at home with mom visiting. just playing games made me less homesick.

on sunday after church we decided to get out of the city and go find the temple. you can read more about temples here.

we look the long way to explore some more. on our way we found this gem. oh wow was all i could say. yes those are glowing red eyes. and yes they had a line out the door (even with it raining). and yes we will be back to visit when it's not a sunday!

keeping myself entertained taking pictures. again i can't say how nice it was to have a car. yay for cars.

oh how i love to see the temple. this was one other place that really made me feel at home. too bad the gates were shut and we weren't able to walk around. it was just nice seeing the temple and knowing it wasn't so far away.

it really was an incredible weekend. mom really took care of us! she made us meals, stocked our kitchen, cleaned the place, taught us new games and really made us feel special and loved. our first visitor was a success. after this weekend it was officially decided we love visitors. so please if you would like to come stay we have a room for you! yay!

thanks mom for everything!