A Great Chicago Weekend

Had a blast this weekend with my lovely wife in Chicago. Our new small group that I lead on Monday nights gave Kristi and I a getaway weekend in which we were instructed to go somewhere overnight, and they were to take care of our kids. Hard to argue with that!
We went into the city on Saturday morning and picked up our tickets for our entertainment/church for the weekend. Went to hottix (they open at 10am) to pick up cheap tix to see ART at the Steppenwolf Theatre. I'll review the piece in another post. It was a great show.
Afterwards, one of our friends who is a part-owner/investor in a wonderful restaurant called in a reservation for us at MK Restaurant on Franklin. Wow. We had a great table and the meal was absolutely brilliant. Funny part was how out of place we felt, as we were walking all across Chicago all day and were comfortable in our jeans and tennis shoes. They didn't kick us out. I told Kristi that we must have seemed like we were REALLY wealthy, since the wealthy dress up, but the REALLY wealthy don't even have to do that. I'm not sure if it worked, but we had a great time, and like I said, the meal was ridiculously good.
We stayed at the Affinia Hotel, and it was similarly swanky. They had a rooftop bar that had a great view of the city, and we hung out there until the cold got to us.
We slept in in the morning, and then made our way to the House of Blues Gospel Brunch to get our church on. It was great. Very affordable for an all-you-can-eat brunch, good food, and the gospel music was excellent. It was a lot of fun.
Right after the service/show/meal, I instinctively knew that 1) I didn't have internet access where I was, and 2) the Arizona Wildcats were playing to try and get into the Sweet 16. So we quickly plugged the meter and went to Mother Hubbards to watch the first half. We tried to book it home during halftime and were met with some gapers traffic opposition, but I still got home in time to watch MOST of the second half on my computer. Good times, and Arizona is in the Sweet 16! Pretty good for not supposed to be in the tournament in the first place...
And it was a great weekend. Kids did great, and we had a great time. All thanks to my small group!!