Mom + Brynn Take Chicago 2024

Brynn and I were very excited to embark on our mother-daughter trip to Chicago this week. We had gifted Brynn part of the trip as her sweet 16 birthday gift.

We flew direct out of Fargo on Wednesday.

We stayed at the Grand Plaza apartments on State Street in a VRBO rental. We loved it there! The building had an outdoor rooftop pool, library, gaming/movie room and gym on the 9th floor. This was us looking down from our 50th floor balcony. I refused to go to the edge of the balcony. Blech. (Photo credit: Brynn on this one!)

Here are a few pics of inside the apartment that I hawked off of the VRBO listing.

We got our things settled and ran next door to a Jewel Osco grocery for a few things and then got ready for dinner at River Roast along the Chicago River.

It was very good and beautiful weather. I think Brynn said this was her favorite place that we ate at.

Our waiter Jorge brought Brynn a carrot cake when we said we were celebrating Brynn's birthday on the trip.

We came back to the apartment and planned what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go for the rest of our time here and took in the beautiful night time view from our balcony.

Thursday we had planned a lunch cruise on the lake. We headed down to the Navy Pier early so we could check that out before we were to board the boat. It had already been raining off and on all morning at that point. It was a chilly and rainy walk down the pier to find our ship, Spirit of Navy Pier.

Right before we were to leave dockside, our waiter informed us that due to the weather we wouldn't be going anywhere. Haha. We didn't mind. We felt like we were already getting a good view of the skyline and such just by traversing around on our own. The food was good and the DJ was playing 90s hip hop, so I was happy. :-D 

And another special birthday dessert.

After we got back to the apartment we took a bit longer-than-planned nap and got ready for dinner at Eataly.

NOT a special birthday dessert, but very delish nonetheless. ;-)

We walked back to the apartment again, got changed, and headed down to the Riverwalk.

We did see some rats and mice, but if that was the most rifraff we encountered, we were ok with that.

Friday morning we got going right away to Millennium Park to see the bean.

Brynn had found this French pastry shop called Paris Baguette that we went to for brunch after Millennium Park. It was great!

We were on our way to the apartment to drop some stuff off before heading back out to do some shopping when we came upon a really cool residence that looked like maybe you could go inside and tour it. We called the number that was posted on the gate and the operator directed us across the street to the Driehaus Museum as this residence was no longer such, and actually had been gutted on the inside we later found out.

At Driehaus they were having a Tiffany & Co. exhibit which was really neat.

You could see the house that originally caught our eye across from the museum.

After that we did some shopping along Michigan Ave.

Waiting for Brynn with LEGO Friends while she was in the store.

Brynn had been needing new tennis shoes and we found some cute ones at a good price at the Nike store. 

We had wanted to find a shake place that does them up big with the extras, so we hit up JoJo's not far from the apartment in the afternoon. It did not disappoint.

It was pretty warm on Friday and we wanted to go down by the pool at least once while we were here, so we loaded up all our stuff and headed down. We no sooner got under the cabana and it started pouring. So, Brynn closed up all the sides and she doodled and I read my book until the sun came back out again. And then by that time, it was time to get over to 360 Chicago.

360 Chicago is a skyscraper where you go up to the 94th floor and look out over the city. We wanted to try to go when the sun was setting, but with the rain again, there wasn't much for a sunset. It did start lightening when we were there and that was pretty cool.

We didn't have set plans for dinner and Brynn wanted to get Raising Canes while we were here since there isn't one anywhere close to home. So we picked that up on our way back to the apartment. She said it was really good.

Saturday was our last full day here. We had planned to visit the Titanic Exhibit in Skokie. It was pretty cool. We received a boarding pass when we arrived which described which passenger we were aboard the Titanic. At the end you see if you were one of the survivors.

Brynn checking to see if we survived. Sadly, we did not. We were both men in first class.

HAHHAHA

We had early lunch reservations at 3 Arts Cafe after the Titanic so we went there next. It is a beautiful cafe located within a high end furniture store of all places. 

I went up to the second floor to use the restroom and our food had already arrived by the time I came back. I had a lobster roll and sweet potato fries. They were so delish. Brynn said her burger was really good too.

After we got back to the apartment, we watched Clara in her swim meet at Foss via FaceTime (she won both races! So exciting), we rested up for a bit and went to Chinatown. Brynn wanted to check it out and do some shopping down there. It was raining off and on throughout the afternoon again.

There was a Paris Baguette in Chinatown too!

We came back and got ready for dinner at The Smith. 

Then we capped the night (and trip!) off with Ghirardelli. So good!

Amish Brynn strikes again. Hehe. She did actually look up her "Amish name," and she is really Mary Bieler. Lookin good, Mary!

I think we did most everything that we had been interested in doing....except for the fireworks at the pier, museum of ice cream and the photography museum. We sort of ended up changing our minds on those. We did also consider the Holocaust Museum, but instead opted for the Titanic. 

We had such a fun time together and both agreed it was nice to be able to walk to so many places and we could take in more of the views of the city that way. We had so many laughs and made lots of great memories. 

We fly back home in the (Sunday) morning!