chi-town

another fun excersion to chicago was had this past sun-tues. it was actually rather un-expected. i hadn't planned on going this year. mostly because i didn't really have vacation days and didn't want to borrow them from next year, like i did last year. (that was a mouthful) But, Scott bargained with me, and it was a good offer so I took it and was in! it's always a great trip, aside from sleeping on the floor with an air mattress that looses air during the night. AND this year we had the pleasure of a few girls feeling the need to gab and giggle until 2am... i was the lucky one who couldn't fall asleep! oh, the joys of leading the youth.... tee hee...
seriously though... i LOVE Six Flags... I think I described the two best rides EVER last year in my account of this trip, so if you'd like another explanation here's a link to that post.

A couple fun stories are as follows...

Every year we make an annual stop at Gino's East pizza... it's the pizza with the sauce on the top and cheese on the inside. They have a fun environment for a group of highschoolers... they encourage writing on walls, chairs, table cloths and whatever else you find to write on.
Just after we got our pizza, Dan (another leader) asked for some of that pizza pepper stuff, so I grabbed one off the next table and gave it to him. I was looking for the Parmesean cheese when I heard laughing, I turned around and the WHOLE jar of pepper junk was ALL OVER his plate. It looked like someone had douced it with red/orange/yellow confetti! I laughed so hard as he tried to play it cool and say he'd still eat it... He ended up not eating it, realizing he could probably get really sick with all of that in his stomach. Instead, he dared another kid, Sean, to put a bunch in his mouth for 30seconds... but then spit it out. That was less funny, but still entertaining... those guys will do anything for attention! :)
I so wish I had a picture of that pizza, it still makes me laugh!

The next story comes from our day at Six Flags. It was about mid-day/afternoon and most of the group I was with wanted to go to the waterpark. Diane and I didn't bring our suits in, and had to wait until the bus came back at around 5 to get them, so we went on Superman. It didn't take too long to get through the line, and I had already been on the rides I was really excited for, so we walked leisurely through the park to kill some time. While walking, Diane mentioned that she wondered why we were really needed on the trip in times like these. I agreed that sometimes leaders on this senior high trip seem pointless during the day. Just a few minutes later we found a girl who had "lost" her group or they lost her, unfortunately I'm still not sure which is more true. Let's just say, she's got a lot of energy... and tagged along with us for pretty much the rest of the day. We did end up hooking up with Scott and a few others to mix things up a bit for the evening. It was just so funny the timing of Diane's comment and our little friend joining up with us.

Before we left the Chicago area on Tuesday, we took a jaunt into the city and camped out at Navy Pier. In years past, the tradition has been to walk the shops of Michigan Ave., but we thought it would be fun to shake things up and go to the pier instead. In my opinion, it was a great change and felt more relaxing. (though i'm sure we would've walked just as much, if we had gone to Mich. Ave.) Here are a couple pix from Navy Pier... one is of the Ferris Wheel that I opted not to spend $5 on, and another pic of water jumping fountains in the arboretum.