November's Surprise Guests

A few days before Thanksgiving break started, my sister's family came to Chicago. The kids loved having their cousins here and we loved having Jennifer and Josh here. We showed them around Illinois and took them to some of our favorite spots.

We drove up to Madison, WI one day to show them Ella's Animatronic Deli and the Unitarian church that Frank Lloyd Wright designed. 

The kids were way more into the snow than the cool architecture.

Next was Ella's. Their food is stuck in the 1970's, but the atmosphere is great. 

Just look at the kids looking at all of the crazy stuff moving around them.

They had little games that you could bring to the table. Those were a hit.

The next day it snowed and these California kids loved playing in it.

Sunday was our Thanksgiving since they were leaving in the morning Thanksgiving day. It was great to be with family for a holiday. Photo cred: Kate

Our spread. The Hill's are pros with Thanksgiving.

We thought the Field Museum would be cool to show them, but dang it's expensive. We always go on free days so we kind of got punked when we had to pay the real price. But it was still fun.

The kids wanted to show them the two-story McDonald's or Rock n Roll McDonald's in the city. This place gets talked about a lot whenever the city is mentioned.

The bummer about this trip was that we thought it would be warmer and that there would be a lot of walking around downtown, but it was freezing cold, so city walking cut down. Also, towards the end of the trip Millie started coming down with a bad cold, so we had to keep her indoors as much as possible.

The Bean

The difference between boys and girls.

We warmed up in Macy's and got to see Santa with the cousins. They thought it was pretty cool. It kicked off the holiday season a little early but the looks on their faces were the best. Sam was super serious and made sure to follow all instructions.

We had a great visit and were so glad that they come all this way out to see us.