Enjoying some time with family

My sister (Laurel) and her husband (Justin) ventured to Chicago last weekend for their first trip to visit Stephen and I here in the big city.  While we didn't do anything crazy or what others might consider "super cool", we did eat our fair share of food!  Laurel and Justin arrived on Friday afternoon.  We didn't waste any time getting down to food business!  You see, Justin is a HUGE lover of the very gourmet pizza cuisine.  He loves it so much that we got him a book for his birthday that featured different pizzerias and types of pizzas in America.  You can imagine his excitement when we told him that we would be venturing for some scrumptious Chicago, deep-dish pizza as his first meal here.  We headed to our favorite Chicago pizza joint: Giradano's. After the waitress did her part of trying to convince us not to, we proceeded to order 2 large pizzas.  Because the waitress was "challenging" our capabilities (at least this is how Stephen saw it), we "had to" finish all the pizza.  Do I need to remind you that this pizza was DEEP DISH?  Stephen and Justin did their share of inhaling at least 6 pieces of pizza each.  (side note: when we arrived at home Stephen was offering everyone cupcakes that he had brought home from Crumbs....ugh!) Can we say human vacuum???

Here they are, ready to take on that deep-dish pizza!  Justin's 6'5" and Laurel's 5'2" and it makes for great pictures!

After the food was finished and our food comas wore off, we started our Saturday with a nice home cooked breakfast (yes, we actually were hungry again at this point).  We were then ready to take on the city (and a bag of Garrett's popcorn!)!  We hit up State Street, walked around Millennium Park, made sure not to miss The Bean all before our little bellies began to remind us of their existence (I know, how could we possibly be hungry for more???).  We anxiously hopped on the CTA blue line and headed towards Greektown to partake in an amazing gyro lunch from Greektown Gyros - and as Justin would say it, those gy-ros were good! :).

They've got this public transportation thing down!

Laurel's little feet hanging from the seat on the bus :).  She's in good company, after I took this picture, I sat in one of these seats and my feet didn't touch the ground either.  

And for good measure: more proof that Stephen can sleep anywhere...as if you ever doubted it after reading this!

I wish I could actually remember what we did in between lunch and dinner but I think at this point I was beginning to lose my mind to my stomach.  The food had set in and there was a haze in my brain.  All I remember is somehow finding myself sitting in Chinatown ready to enjoy my favorite, Joy Yees.  It's really funny to think that at the time, all these food choices seemed like a good idea; now when I look back on it, I begin to feel sick to my stomach!
On Sunday, we managed to lug our growing bodies out of bed to head to church and hear another fabulous sermon given by Dr. Lutzer.  (side note: if you've never heard him preach, I highly suggest you going to Moody's website and listening to one of his sermons - he's great!)  I'll give you one guess to try and figure out what we did after church...you guessed it!  We ate some more food (I'm sensing a pattern...)!  We hit up mine and Stephen's favorite Italian restaurant that is right down the street from our apartment: The Basil Leaf Cafe.  They have such amazing tomato basil soup and their hot out of the oven rolls are to die for (especially when dipping them in that great olive oil!)...I'm beginning to feel my arteries harden just by writing this!  Again, my memory gets foggy between lunch and dinner, although I do know that we made a staple stop at Pocket Puppies in Lincoln Park to hold smaller than average puppies and gawk at their thousand dollar price tags.  Stephen had small group at our apartment on Sunday night so I headed out to enjoy MORE Chicago-style pizza with Laurel and Justin.  This time, we went to Lou Malnati's where we didn't eat half as much pizza as we had the previous night.  After we paid the bill and had the waitress roll us out the door, we found ourselves groaning and wondering why we had put ourselves in as much food misery as we did.  You would think that with that mindset we would've fasted or only eaten bread on Monday afternoon.  Instead, we foolishly made the decision to enjoy Portillo's for lunch.  Like I said, at the time these all seemed like great decisions.  Now, my jeans are mad at me and my clothes cuss me out as I try to squeeze them on!
Laurel and Justin managed to make it out of Chicago on Monday, right in time before the crazy weather came our way and altered our universe.  I was sad to see them go, but my thighs breathed a sigh of relief.  Maybe I would start to treat them better now that I wasn't smothering them with mozzarella cheese and Italian beef!
What about you?  What's your favorite thing to eat in Chicago?  I'd love to hear of some new places to take my guests when they come to visit.  I think my pants just ripped....