Chicago or Bust – Part 1

All my insta-friends know that a couple weeks ago, we had the great pleasure of going to the Windy City for a very fun and inspiring event with Delta Faucet.  If you have ever been to Chicago, you will know that it is a really gorgeous city….with a lovely river that flows right through the middle of it and some of the most beautiful buildings that I have ever seen.

Delta Faucet invited us there for a day of inspiration – a tour of the city and a challenge with a slew of other bloggers to gather inspiration from around town and use it to design a kitchen or bathroom during a moodboard show-down.  They also treated us to some of the best food and a couple super awesome guest speakers 🙂

Here is my official part 1 of the recap and it’s a doozy!  You will want to break out a snack for this one folks – it’s got two parts and over 120 photos!  What can I say?  When I don’t have kiddos in tow, I tend to take pictures of EVERYTHING.

So it should be noted that this was our first out-of-town trip without kids. (!!!!!!!!)  ALL of them stayed back in Georgia and we split them up into pairs and had family watch over the little munchkins.  It was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.  I mean…what do we do with all this free time?!  what do you mean we can order meals and not think of a teething one-year-old?  It was pretty outstanding and we really REALLY enjoyed the fact that we could focus on the city and each other.

Documenting the entire thing was pretty amazing too and it brought me back to the days pre kids when we would blog about trips and have a million photos to choose from 🙂

Planes without kids!

Ubers without kids!   (yes, this might be the most embarrassing sleeping in a strangers car photo ever because forehead-vein but hey…reality.)

Kicking without kids!

We got there a little early and were able to visit our favorite spray paint brand headquarters and try out a new-to-us place called Uncle Julio’s.

Let me just tell you about this woman and her magic avocados….

And delicious cocktails.  Let me just say…holy guacamole batman.  It was so good.

And fajitas on fleek 🙂 (did I use that properly?  I don’t think I did but whatever.)

The interior was really cool.  Just check out that light fixture and the sliding door of veggies and fruits.  SO FUN.

It almost looks too pretty to cook in there!

And yes, someone can totally make this sliding door thing.  Send me the link when you do.  Here are some closeups.

The rest of the place was equally fun….I loved the fact that each section had different light fixtures 🙂

 

After we were done, we said our goodbyes and headed to downtown Chicago to check into our hotel.

We did get caught in traffic which was kinda a bummer but all of our UBER drivers were super nice and so nothing got awkward. You know…except the forehead vein 🙂

Once we arrived, the hotel didn’t have our rooms quite ready so we decided to stash our luggage with the concierge and do a little bit of exploring ourselves.

The hotel was only a short walk away from some of the city’s coolest sites.

 

Our first stop was the bean.  And yes, it is so much cooler in person.

  

Somebody (I won’t name names) made fun of me when I did this pose….

And that same somebody then blatantly copied me.

       

My sister asked me if it was dirty….um….this is the shot from the bottom :\

After we took seventeen thousand selfies, we simply walked around the city.  It had such pretty weather….cooler than the 80’s that we have been getting here in Georgia and I welcomed the change.

I loved the fact that so many buildings were pretty stone.  In Atlanta we don’t have as much of that.  At least not right next to one another.

And we found some really cool ‘tire’ sculptures that looked so amazing.

    

Eventually it was time to head back and the city seemed to become even more alive.  I love the Burberry building so much it HURTS.

And right before we walked into the hotel, we made one quick pit stop to get this mural of Chicago.  OK ok….it was actually a wall inside of a TJMaxx but it was a good thing we stopped because I completely underestimated the windy city weather and I found the cutest black sweater dress that is super flattering.

FINALLY we made our way back to the hotel and it was so nice.  It had it’s own tanning bed light above the bed and everything 🙂

Seriously though, we loved that it was so swanky and felt like we were high rollers.

It even had it’s only little mini bar area and lounge tv watching area.

The Hotel pampered us right from the get-go with snacks!  Also – yes that looks like a uterus picture behind me.  Maybe I’ve seen too many OBGYN office posters 🙂

We were not really that hungry at this point (what with a belly full of guac!  that sounds grosser than I meant for it to!) but we decided to not pass up the opportunity to find a food gem in the city so we hit up a very Chicago-sounding joint named Mike Ditka’s steakhouse.

Jeremy ordered the meatloaf and it was IMPRESSIVE.  That is fried onions on mashed potatoes on meatloaf on cornbread.  Way to go Coach 🙂

Da Bears!

We ordered some desserts to go and headed back to the hotel.

We waited in the lobby and I could not be more excited to see our friends John & Sherry.  They were flying in from Richmond to be the next day’s special speakers about design and of course we got to catch up, laugh over absolutely everything and gorge ourselves on cheesecake and pie.  And of course Johnny had us rolling….as he usually does 🙂

The next day we had a bright and early morning full of events that I can’t wait to share with you.  Stay tuned!