A Visit From Mim!

The first week of May, my cousin from Thailand came to visit for a few days.  When we went to Thailand last year, we stayed at Mim's house with her family, so we were excited to see her again.

Mim has finished her third year of college and came to the U.S. during her "summer break."  She was in America for about 6 weeks and visited a lot of different places and family members around the country.  We were grateful that she was able to come see us in Chicago for a few days.

The girls were especially excited to see Mim again.  It was a lot of fun to have her stay with us.  We are hoping that next time she can stay even longer.

The last time Mim was in the USA she was very little and really doesn't have any memories, so we decided to do some sightseeing and give her the chance to see Chicago.

Of course, a big part of Chicago, is it's food.  Our first stop was for a Chicago Dog:



Later that evening, it was deep dish pizza for dinner:

We also took her to see the movie Thor in 3-D.  Dave felt that this would be a great addition to our all-American day of hot dogs and pizza.  The truth was probably closer to the fact that Dave really, really wanted to see this movie on opening day!  Can't complain though, it was a pretty fun movie and Mim seemed to enjoy it too.

The next day, poor Mim had to sit through the girls' early morning soccer games.  It was also a pretty chilly and somewhat rainy day---pretty tough for someone used to tropical climates, but she survived and we spent the afternoon in downtown Chicago.  As you can see, it was a pretty quiet drive into the city.  These pictures crack me up!

We intended to go to the Sears/Willis Tower and try out the Ledge, but when we got there the whole city was covered in clouds and the visibility was zero.  Instead we went to get something to eat and ended up at the Rain Forest Cafe.

After dinner we walked the Magnificient Mile and stopped for some hot chocolate at the Hershey Store



Another funny picture, Paige is mad because her hot chocolate is too hot





We also decided to make a stop at the "bean" aka the Cloud Gate.  I love this sculpture!

At this point we could have gone home, but we happened to notice that the sky had cleared which meant we could go to the Sears Tower!  It actually worked out great, because there were no crowds as most people had already given up and we happened to be up there at Sunset, so we got the view in daylight and evening.  The Ledge was also a big hit.  (The Ledge is a glass box that extends from the observation deck that you can step onto and look straight down, 103 stories.)



Ashley's feet





On the Ledge, in the box

We called it a day after this, but Mim and I did return to the city a couple days later to take an architecture boat tour on the Chicago River...another one of my favorite activities.