Those words have never meant so much. While I have loved living in Seattle (and still do!), going back to where I spent the majority of my life felt like going home. Seattle is of course a great city, but Chicago is colossal. The buildings are aged and weathered beautifully, monstrous – not only height in the downtown areas, but also in their weight and stature in all the major areas. It feels like what you imagine a city to feel like.

While we didn’t get the chance to see any of the art museums or stationery stores or designers we really wanted to (sorry Emily, we really wanted to meet you and see your studio – next trip), we did soak in as much Chicago as we could.

Besides just loving seeing Chicago again, here are a few highlights of our trip:

• Seeing and staying with my sister for ten days.
• Seeing and getting to spend time with old friends (arrested development, anyone?).
• Seeing the “touristy” sites of Chicago with people who have never been there before.
• Eating at Frontera Grill for dinner (mmm!) and seeing Rick Bayless actually coming in at 10pm, sitting down and eating in his own restaurant just a couple tables away from us.
• Eating lunch at Penny’s Noodle Shop (mmm!!…Man! I missed that place.)
• Standing up for a friends wedding and meeting his lovely new wife.
• Eating a friend’s homemade risotto and his incredible lasagna (fortunately this was on two separate nights). We can thank his 13 year stint in Italy for such good food.
• Spending Monday doing nothing but laying by a pool and drinking good summer drinks.

There is much more I could go on about, but we’ve got a lot of work to catch up on. Sorry to all those who follow our blog for the lack of posts this past week. We have a lot to write about, so there should be a flurry of activity here soon!