Happy 30th birthday, Jonathan!

Jonathan turned 30 on Monday and we celebrated with a weekend in Chicago. It was great that Jim and Debbie were able to join us for the weekend! We got to Chicago on Friday morning, and spent the afternoon with Grampa Cetin. Cael loved playing with the Barrel of Monkey's and playing with bubbles in the backyard!! We went to the mausoleum where Grammie is buried...it is absolutely beautiful! We met up with the Pilipiszyn's at Cheesecake Factory for supper and to celebrate Jonathan's birthday with a big slice of cheesecake...Yum!!

Yes, that is Cael running.

Not sure who was more excited about the cheesecake!

We stayed at a hotel in Evanston to be close to the "L". This was going to make it much easier to get downtown on Saturday for Jonathan and Jim to meet up with Paul Rea for a Cubs game. Unfortunately, the Cubs lost, but it was at least a good game, according to the guys.


In the meantime, Debbie and I took Cael further downtown to Navy Pier for the day. Sounds easy, right? Well..not quite. We got off the train where Jonathan said would be the closest to Navy Pier. Come to find out...there was no elevator to get out of subway! (Guess we weren't observant on the train when looking at the map...there was no handicap accessible sign next to this stop). So, anyway, we carried the stroller, with Cael in it, and all our stuff for the day!! We did learn that there are some nice people who did help us out! Not sure if it was my belly that encouraged them to help, or what, but we took them up on it! There were probably at least 50 steps to get to the street level. When we did reach the street, we thought for sure we would know exactly which way to go. Well, we were disoriented and turned around. We thought we were heading the right way, and we came upon a section in the sidewalk where there were only stairs...what is this? Apparently people in Chicago don't need to be handicap accessible, or else we just really didn't know where we were going. Finally, we saw some signs that led us the right direction (we thought). Finally, I saw the ferris wheel sticking out of a building in the distance, which led us in the right direction (about 2 miles later). Needless to say, when we finally got to Navy Pier and when Jim called to see how we were doing, we strongly encouraged them to come to Navy Pier after the game and meet up with us (and to help us find the L station again and help on the stairs if we need to). Come to find out, the next station over did have an elevator, but we weren't that observant the first time around. I guess we live and learn!

Before the fiasco!

While we spent our day on Navy Pier, we did a lot of walking up and down, watching the boats, but the highlight was playing at the Children's Museum! Cael loved it, and it was perfect to let him down on the ground and run!

When we got back to the hotel, we decided to go out and eat at a cajun restaurant, which was delicious. Notice the drinks Jim and Jonathan have.
We went back to the hotel and went swimming for a little while and let the food settle before we ate a "baseball cake".
Yes, that is a hand print. Cael thought it was an actual ball and reached to grab the "ball".
Cael was not too happy that his hands had frosting all over them. He wouldn't eat the frosting, so we had to wipe his hands off.
It turned into a pajama party!

We had a great trip, and a fantastic time in Chicago! We wish we could have spent a couple extra days there, but I guess we needed to get back to the real world of working!

Hope everyone is doing well! We are getting ready for our first camping trip this weekend with Cael. It will be interesting what he thinks of sleeping in a tent! Watch for the update!