Day 1 (Chicago Trip)

On the train.

This was a live statue. It was amazing. We stood there for a good ten minutes and he didn't move at all. You couldn't even see him breathing. And we were standing pretty close to him.

Here is a couple videos of some street performers. I had to take videos so Hailey could see it.

This morning we got up at 5:00 and quickly got dressed and packed the van. We left at 5:30 to get to the train station by 6:00. We are going to Chicago because Bruce's team won the state championship for the Operations Challenge. The national competition is held at the WEFTEC annual conference which was in Chicago this year. The train was about an hour delayed. It gave us a chance to introduce ourselves to each other while we waited. All the other guys on the team brought their wives too, so there were four couples in our group. We boarded the train at 7:05. The train ride was alot of fun. I sure wished the kids were with us. Max would have just loved it. I thought about him the whole way. We saw so many things out the window that he would have really liked -tractors, cement mixer trucks, and dump trucks. They were all very close to the tracks as they were digging and dumping. I could just imagine what Max would have been saying and how excited he would be. He would have been glued to the window the entire time. I would love to take the kids on the train someday, maybe a shorter trip. Jack slept just about the whole time. He only woke up once to eat and then fell right back to sleep. We went to the dining car and got breakfast. We sat at the tables to eat. Another couple that was with our group came and joined us. We visited for a while before heading back to our seats. Bruce and I fell asleep for a short while. We got to Chicago around 12:00 (Chicago time). We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and then met all the other couples in the lobby so we could go get lunch together. We went to Gino's East (a famous pizza place) and it was very good. The lady that was sitting next to me held Jack for awhile. He was giving her lots of smiles. Everybody was commenting on what a good baby he was. He slept the whole train ride, and he was very happy and smiley at the restaurant. We came back to the hotel after eating and called the kids. Hailey was really excited and talked alot. I can tell she's having tons of fun at Nana's house. Max liked hearing all about the train ride. I told him that I saw tractors and he said "On da choo choo twain?" I guess he didn't know I meant out the window. We decided to go for a walk. We got a mocha at Starbucks and then went to some stores. We went to the American Girl doll store, which was really neat. Hailey would have loved it. We also went to the bookstore so I could get something to read while Bruce was at the competitions. As we headed back to the hotel, we saw some street performers. There was a live statue. It was amazing how still he could hold. We also stopped and watched a band playing and a tap dancer. It was really neat. I took videos so I could show Hailey. Then we noticed that there was a huge Gap store (three stories) on the same block as our hotel. We had fun trying some cute outfits on Jack. We bought a couple outfits that were on clearance and I also found a really cute hat for him. Then we went to Dunkin Donuts, which was right across from our hotel, and had a bagel for dinner. We were too full for anything else. We also got some donuts to take back to the hotel for later. I fed Jack and then layed him down in his crib for the night. It was about 10:00. We had our donuts before going to bed.