St. Patrick's Smorgasbord

We got up early today, got ready and headed downtown. Owen's sister Emily came with us downtown to see the coloring of the river in honor of St. Patrick's day. I'm glad she came because she did a better job driving than I could have downtown. We got to drive through the part of town where Dr. Pratt got shot on ER so that was pretty cool.

It was pretty crowded by the time we got there, but we had a good viewing spot. We thought they dumped the dye off of the bridge, but they actually had a boat that sprinkled powder into the river. It was pretty cool how bright green and how quickly it spread.

After that, we headed to Millennium Park and did some exploring before the parade began. They had a cool statute called The Bean.

Then we watched the parade. Dick Durbin was there. They had floats, marching bands and "Two Guys With a Banner." As Owen said, it doesn't really take much to get in that parade.

The best part of the parade was probably the Irish Dancers. They have the wigs and they really do a good job dancing.

After the parade we went to lunch at Gino's East. It came highly recommended from the Barnes' family as the best place to get Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. I agree. I had only had UNO Pizzeria's before, but this stuff was great. The pizza wasn't that greasy which was really nice. The crust was good and their homemade sauce was amazing. They also had deep fried ravioli which are really delicious. Plus visitors get to write their name on whatever they want!

Then we hiked over to Navy Pier. That was a really nice place. We really didn't do anything except enjoy the scenery. You get a really nice view of the skyline.

Then we hiked back to the L. Owen's parents picked us up, and we headed over to Las Fuentes, the preferred Mexican restaurant of the Barnes' household. It was really good. The Salsa was amazing and so was the food. I highly recommend it as well.