First off, thanks for all your sweet comments on Hannah’s homecoming and Joe’s departure – so sweet! 😀

It’s not very often that my brother Charlie, and my twin sister Jennifer are all together in one place!   Charlie lives in Austin, Texas and while my sister only lives an hour away from me, we still find it hard to get together that often.

We met at my Mom’s house – perfect opportunity to get a picture of all the grandkids!  Hannah is the oldest at 18, then comes Charlie’s kids Sarah 17, and Rachel 14.  Jenn’s kids: Paul is 14, Mark is 11 and Claire is 8.

And then the crazy picture:

All the girls:

Getting 11 people to get to one place takes forever!  We finally made it down to Millennium Park.

Of course no trip to the park would be complete without a picture at The Bean!

As luck would have it, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was rehearsing for their 4th of July concert 😀

I love my brother!

All three! Me, Charlie and Jenn

Our crazy picture!

Then it was time for the Taste!

There were so many people!

We just walked and when someone wanted something we would stop.  Hannah and I first stopped at Star of Siam and got the taste size of vegetable potstickers and pad thai.  Both spicy and very good!

Then a slice of Lou Malnati’s Pizza.  I know everyone thinks Gino’s East or Uno’s has the best pizza, but the crust of Lou Malnati’s is hands down the best.  The first time I had it was when I was working at a bar in Chicago called Bottom’s Up (not a strip joint!) and one of the owners was the grandson of the founder.  It was love at first bite!

Then we split a shrimp and vegetable tempura plate from Guey Lon Restaurant – I had a couple sweet potatoes, it was kind of greasy.

So basically walking around it quickly became apparent that there were hardly any healthy options with things like prime rib quesadillas, polish sausages, upside down caramel cupcakes!  So when I saw a fruit cup I wanted it!

It was hot, but you’ll be happy to know that I used 50 spf all day!  No sunburns for me!

My brother and his daughter saw an episode of City v. Chefs.  The Chicago addition had a place called iCream on it.  They hand craft and freeze your ice cream in a matter of minutes!  You can check it out here.

Since we had two cars, we got there first and had an opportunity to walk around the neighborhood.  I wasn’t exactly sure where we were, but asked the ice cream store and learned we were in Wicker Park.  Let me just say that Hannah loved the neighborhood and would love to live there!

There were tons of bars, restaurants, etc.  Lots of 20-somethings!

When we were all together, we ordered our i-Cream – I got a non-fat frozen yogurt with caramel flavor, nuts and cinnamon.  The yogurt was on the sour side, which I liked – I ate about 1/2 of it.

looks like a lab!

It was such a fun day!   Loved all the people watching too 😀

Have you ever been to the Taste of Chicago?