Chicago Trip

This past weekend I took a vacation day and made the lengthy drive to Chicago for my friend Jessie's bachelorette weekend. The reason I drove was to pick up my friend Leann in St. Louis who had flown in from Canada. Then also to carpool with Wendy and Gayle. With traffic and construction we managed to make it from St. Louis to Chicago on Friday in 6 hours, which overall isn't that bad. Plus having 4 ladies in the truck made the time go by quickly with good conversation.


Here is our bacholorette Jessie with Allison - who was also attending her first bachelorette party. She spent the day with my brother Tony and his wife Colleen and had a great time too!


The bachelorette on the prowl! We did take the bear claw with us during the day. I was one of the few trusted Cub fans to keep an eye on it around all of the Cardinals fans.



We've finally made it to Wrigley Field - it was good to see it again!


Jessie with The Bull. There was this whole running of the bull bar crawl thing going on. You can see random "runners" in the background, the Medic, and there were also Flaminco dancers and matadors. Then random Roller Derby girls - Bernie's was a happening place to be!


Here is our GBS photo from the day. This group of girls have been friends since 1995 when we were all at UMR and we still remain close friends and get together a couple of times a year, even with the distance we all live apart. These ladies are the best!

Couldn't help but put a photo in of the newest Papke animal. This is Finn - and he is ADORABLE! Tony and Colleen rescued him from a shelter in IN. He is so mild mannered and lovable! One of the perks of having the bachelorette party in Chicago was that I got to visit with them on Friday and Saturday. This dog is such a conversational piece. Everywhere they walk him he gets mauled by people who want to pet him. He's going to be quite the social butterfly. He was also wonderful with Allison which added to the great time she had with them during the festivities. He reminds me a lot of our dog Buddy, but that is a good thing to see that in Finn.

Just a photo of Jessie opening some girlie presents at the brunch at Meagan's house.

It was a great weekend of friends and family, and a whole lot of walking! We'd all be healthier people if we lived in Chicago and had good public transportation to utilize. That's my theory at least. We hit the road by 7:30 on Sunday and I was back in Columbia by 3 pm. Conveniently Tim and the girls did not get back home until about 7:45 and I got a very nice (and needed) nap in.