July 4th in Chicago

Over July 4th weekend, we took a family trip to visit my sister, who's doing her first internship away from home in Chicago! What should have been a quick 1.5 hour flight to the Windy City turned into a 10 hour ordeal when we learned our flight had been cancelled due to "thunderstorms" (it never even rained). But we weren't about to leave J out in the cold, so we hightailed out of the airport and drove all through the night to meet up with her the next morning. 

We started off by taking in the sights from the John Hancock Tower, which was just 2 blocks from our hotel.

Then we walked all the way downtown to Millenium Park. 

 Happy parents

 Touristy bean pic

 For deep dish pizza!

 That night, we camped out in front of Pritzer Pavillion to watch the July 4th concert with the rest of the city. 

 Yeah, we are not patriotic at all.

 Cherries

 Garrett's "famous" popcorn

 Before we set out for fireworks! 

The next morning, we set out for J's favorite brunch spot in the city, which had 1.5 hour wait! So we wandered around to kill time. Thankfully Chicago has a lot to offer downtown.

 And got a nice photographer to take our picture in Grant Park.

 And then scurried back to make our brunch reservation at Wildberry Pancakes cafe. Worth it!

Even though we did hit a snafu with our flight (and hit 13 hours of traffic on the way home), the whole trip was still worth it to reunite with the whole fam again. I don't have a lot of family, but we are really close. As me and J get older, we get less and less time to see each other, so we have to cherish the time we do spend together. Which reminds me that I haven't seen any of my family since this trip! I've been working every weekend and working like a real intern during my sub-I in medicine this month, so no time to go home. Might get more common as I'm currently researching residencies across the country, yikes....