last weekend, we drove to the chicago area for my friend tori's wedding. it was around 11 hours, and chris drove the entire way. (i promise i offered to help, but he doesn't mind driving and i don't prefer it!) we passed the time by listening to a lot of brad paisley music (we're getting ready to go to his concert next month in charlotte!), listening to my mom's favorite book, to kill a mockingbird (which is a lot funnier than i remember it being in 9th grade), and talking about our dreams for the future and life in general. i feel like we have some of our best conversations riding in the car together.so we arrived in naperville (a suburb where tori lives & where all the wedding activities were held) on thursday night. on friday, i enjoyed a fun day with the bridesmaids getting manicures & pedicures and having a delicious lunch of tortellini soup and apricot/apple salad.
these menu items were courtesy of the bride's sister, catherine, who is a regular martha stewart! (she was also the one behind the yummy dishes at the bachelorette weekend.) friday night we of course had the rehearsal followed by the rehearsal dinner, in which tori & ron rented out their favorite tapas restaurant. the bacon wrapped dates and the goat cheese balls were my favorite dishes.
on saturday morning, we started getting ready at the hotel. then we moved to wedding & reception location, arrowhead golf club, to continue getting ready for the ceremony at 5pm. here's the gorgeous bride with her sister catherine and mother debby before the ceremony. 
their ceremony was held at a beautiful arbor outdoors, and the reception was a lot of fun. they had several meal courses, my favorite of which was the cold stone ice cream bar. there was also a photo booth & funny props (hats, sunglasses, etc.) to make silly pictures. we danced until nearly midnight, when they served a late-night snack. then we sent the bride & groom off with sparklers. today is actually tori's 26th birthday, and they are currently enjoying a two-week honeymoon in scotland, france, & italy.
chris & i spent the fourth of july sunday exploring downtown chicago with carrie and her husband eric, who were also there for the wedding. (carrie was a good friend from middle & high school. she & eric met in college at mercer and now live in lawrenceville.) here we are enjoying deep dish pizza at gino's east. 
my favorite attraction was going to the skydeck at the top of sears tower. 
103 stories up, they have The Ledge where you can walk into a glass box and see the city below.
we also walked along the magnificent mile, and chris picked out an adorable dress for me at h&m. it's white and gold- he has of course already got his mind on football season! chris' favorite thing we did was a river boat tour of the architecture of chicago. 
at the end of the day, we watched fireworks shot off of navy pier. using the walking directions feature on google maps, i calculated how far we walked on sunday: 6.6 miles! no wonder my calves were aching for two days afterward! all in all, this was simultaneously one of the most fun and exhausting trips i've taken in quite a while.
