Only Child

I got a really special treat last week--my mom joined me in Chicago and I got to be an only child for five whole days! Okay, okay, I know I'm an adult now. But I'll take it when I can get it!

Here are some pictures from the trip.

At the John Hancock Center. Here's a tip (that we learned after our visit)--you can take the regular elevator up to the bar, which is actually higher than the skydeck, and enjoy the view for the price of a drink vs. the $15 ticket to the skydeck.

My aunt Mary, mom, and I before heading off for Wicked, possibly the best show ever. Mom got us AMAZING seats right up front. Now, I am a big reader. I don't get to read as much during school as I would like, but I did get to read the novel Wicked this past year. It doesn't even touch the musical. The story is somewhat different, and oh so good! If you get any chance at all, see this show. If you have an hours-long layover or are on several months bedrest, then you might (only might) want to consider reading the book.

We didn't have time to eat dinner before the show, so we had cocktails and appetizers afterward. Yum!

The big event of the week happened on Thursday. My sister Jennifer suggested we go on a Segway tour of the city. You know--that machine that Weird Al rides on in his video "White & Nerdy". No reflection on what we looked like, of course! Our tour started at 10 on Thursday morning, so we got there a few minutes early. They make you sign your life away, AND THEN they show you the scary video about all the ways that you can fall backward off the thing and smash your skull. Luckily, they are also handing out helmets around this time. Our group of about 10 people, plus the guide, wheeled our machines over to an open area to learn how to get on, off, and turn in circles. One lady decided right then that there was no way she would feel comfortable riding for three hours. She got off and left. Here's mom and Mary in the training area:

The closest you'll ever see me to my Segway.

Oh, okay, fine. Here's one for Megan and Jenn.

Mom and Mary doing great, taking a short break by Soldier Field...

And then...

Filling out their incident reports!

There was a bit of a collision while trying to cross a busy intersection crowded by ten Segways and lots of pedestrians. Mary wasn't quite able to make the ramp part of the sidewalk and tried to step foward off the Segway. These machines are kinda scary in that they don't turn off when you step off, so they will continue to go backward or forward onto your feet and legs if you aren't in complete control of the handles. So when Mary stepped off of hers, it continued forward, knocking her over and into Mom. Mom then fell off her machine, and one of them ended up on her leg, pinning her down. She also hit her head, but thanks to the trusty helmet, did not end up with a brain injury. Yay! There were maybe seven other random people in our group. One of those seven JUST HAPPENED to be an orthopedic surgeon. Divine intervention, maybe? Anyways, he checked Mom's leg out, talked to her about the possibility of getting a little lightheaded and sitting down before she passed out, and gave me some follow-up instructions. I can't wait to be able to do things like that!

One very unfortunate consequence, though, involved Mary. As you can see in the above pictures, she started off with a button-down shirt over her tank top. But the day got warm, the sun beat down, and the overshirt came off. When she stood up from her little spill, her tank top must have caught on something and twisted, and she had a bit of a, well, wardrobe malfunction. Not completely revealing, but certainly not how she would walk down the street! We actually tried to do a reenactment for my mom later on, but we couldn't for the life of us figure out how the top could get so twisted and expose so much. The moral of the story: always wear a pretty bra. :)