illinois illuminated.

Happy day! As I told you I was doing before, 

I took a trip to Chicago this last weekend. 

And, as with most of my blog posts, 

I included lots of pictures!

The main reason that my friend Kiersten and I were going on this trip 

was to see our good friend Emily Jaster get married! 

She has lived in Bloomington, Illinois for the last 5 or so years. 

She met an awesome guy named Eddy 

and now they start their journey as husband and wife!

Emily and her dad walking down the aisle. 

The kiss! <3

Haha! I like this picture. 

We were helping her fix her eye makeup.

Best friends don't let friends eye makeup look bad.

Especially when they are having to be in so many pictures!

She would do the same for me.

High school friends!

So! 

After the wedding we went downtown to eat for my birthday.

Oh yea, That's the reason that Staci decided to join in on the roattrip fun and go on to Chicago with us!

We then hit the road for another 2 1/2 hours and ended up here:

It was dark when we got there! But it was still beautiful!

We stayed with a friend of a friend named Sadie.

She and her husband and 1 year old son live here with 7 other adults and 4 other kiddos.

It's a Quaker church that they all live in community in.

They also get extremely cheap rent!

As a stay at home mother, its perfect for Sadie because she never has to be alone much,

and Dustin works right down the street!

Wish we would have gotten a picture with them!

In the morning we took the bus and train to The Loop down town.

Here we are, a fresh mess, wishing the art museum was open!

We ended up coming back and still not going because it was so expensive!

We walked to Millennium Park and saw this dome thing...

Then we saw THE BEAN! 

Staci has nick-named me LindseyBean, 

so it was fun to get a picture with it haha!

A panoramic from a bridge crossing the river.

Ha! My panoramic kind of tilted and repeated some of the buildings..

We were on our way to Navy Pier!

Which we walked all the way to the end of... 

It was long!

Here is about the point that I got tired of walking.. 

And it wasn't even lunch time yet!

A view of the city from the pier.

We then walked to Portillo's for some yummy Italian Beef dipped sandwhiches.

And then we did some shopping.

Here's some street performers. 

So good at the robot haha!

They danced and took pictures for tips!

We were about to get on the bus home when!

Kiersten spotted the Dick Blick store!

Which of course we had to check out!

She didn't end up getting anything, but I got some new pens!

Then we made our way back to the house and rested before dinner.

Sadie and Dustin invited us to their community dinner.

Which had about 20 people around one table,

passing around curry and wine. Yum.

We were so exhausted that we even had to deny sitting around the campfire.

We slept well that night for sure!

And then.. for the 12 hour drive home.

Whew.

<3