Chicago numero tres

Today was Mommy's day so we went to Long Grove and The Second City. Long Grove is a place that's like a little restored village and it has lots of shopping, similar to down town St. Charles, although Long Grove has a lot more quality! The Second City is a comedy place which is a stepping stone to Saturday Night Live with a team of comedians who specialize in improv!

We went to Long Grove in the morning, and the first store we went to was the confectionery. They were making their own special chocolate dipped strawberries (which were AMAZING!) and a lot of their truffles and candies were specialties of their store. When we went in the first time (we had to go back to buy stuff so it wouldn't melt) I was pretty much hypnotized by all of their yummies, especially anything that was chocolate dipped and their truffles! We each had a little sample (I got a strawberry and a truffle :) ) and then we headed to the next store.

The next place we went was called the Mill Pong Shop (I think!) and it was definitely my favorite of all of the stores! They has such unique pieces of art like teacups that almost looked like birds and wire creations that looked like real animals. My favorite however was the jewelry station where there were necklaces and pendants that actually looked like berries, leaves, and vines. Mommy liked a necklace that had a raspberries pendant, and I fell in love with a necklace that had a pea pod pendant with two pearl peas in it :) I thought about that necklace all day long!

There was a really cool antique store that had lots of stuff that reminded me of the things Grandma Maupin has in a display case in her bedroom. Lots of special china, figurines, jewelry, and paintings covered the store! As soon as I walked in I was on a mission to find a quatrefoil plate (my dancers had broken one we had at the house and I still feel guilty that we can't replace it!) so I looked for quatrefoils in every nook and cranny I could find! Unfortunately I found a lot of "almosts" but nothing that was a true Phi Mu quatrefoil...I decided to search for quatrefoils at every store we went to from that point on!

We went to an Irish store next, and we did find lots of quatrefoils! The only problem was that they were Celtic symbol quatrefoils and tended to be surrounded by clovers and whatnot. Although I love an Irish symbol here and there, they just wouldn't fit with the decor of the house!

For dinner we went to a restaurant recommended by one of Mommy's coworkers that we thought was going to be like a 40's diner, along the lines of Steak n Shake. Turns out it ended up being a 40's restaurant (we even had a water server!) and so we might have been a little under dressed in our jeans, but they didn't turn us away! Yay! The skirt steak that Mommy and I shared was delicious, and I was also thankful they split our au gratin potatoes in half, they were very courteous!

At nighttime we went to go see The Second City comedy club. Incidentally, the name of the club came from a nickname for Chicago itself, the first city is New York. The comedians were absolutely hilarious, and it reminded me a lot of "Whose Line" which we all really enjoy watching! Some of their alumnae include Steven Colbert from Comedy Central and Tina Fey who is famous for doing Sarah Palin impressions for Saturday Night Live. The show was a surprising 2 hours long and in it there were many sketches (rehearsed comedy scenes) and even lots of sections where it was completely improvisation! I've always been amazed by people who are creative enough to be that funny on a moment's notice, they must be extremely intelligent people! At one point they did an entire song about an audience member's occupation as a "Hospital Supplies Orderer" and even had set parts they repeated together, like a formula where they just needed words to fill! I was amazed :) I think it takes real talent to be funny without being overly vulgar. At the end of the show one of the comedians said "If you think what we're doing is something you think you could do...stop being so arrogant because this shit is hard! But seriously, we do offer classes to see if you've got what it takes! :)" So so funny, they definitely kept us on our toes!

Overall it was a very fun day!