BYU vs Notre Dame, Police Chase, and Chicago

We went to the BYU vs Notre Dame game this last weekend. We flew into Chicago late Friday night, ate Chicago style pizza at Giordano's, and headed to South Bend first thing in the morning.

Famous stuffed crust pizza at  Giordano's.

We didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked  touring the Notre Dame campus before the game, but what we did see was amazing. What a beautiful campus! I'd like to go back there someday. On game day the street traffic is turned into a one-way circle around campus so we got stuck at the end of the circle, but that enabled us to have a long walking tour as we made our way to the campus bookstore. We sold our extra ticket (we found out we had to buy a ticket for Kaylyn the day before we left) and both got a Notre Dame hoodie before we made our way to the stadium.

We were impressed by how nice the fighting Irish were. Several Notre Dame fans went out of their way to tell us how cute our baby is not to mention giving us directions and being friendly and kind in general. Love those leprechauns:)

The game was so much fun! The Cougars put up a good fight and came close to beating the number 5th ranked team in the nation. I love a good football game. Kaylyn was so good the whole time. She'd give us high fives at every BYU touchdown and laughed and played until she fell asleep for the entire 4th quarter. Jeremiah was there with the Cougar Club and made the whole trip extra nice for us sharing his food and Montana hospitality. We sure love that guy.

After the game our trip got a little interesting. We searched for a hotel while battling internet problems on the road for a couple of hours. We started back toward Chicago and at about 10pm decided to stop in Gary, Indiana in hopes of finding a good deal on a hotel. Micah remembered hearing about Gary, Indiana in some musical so he figured it was probably a quaint little all american town. Turns out about every third house was boarded up and abandoned and we saw several police cars patrolling the town. Not a safe place. I had fallen asleep on the drive there, but my adrenaline woke me up as we drove around Gary searching for a hotel we had called a few minutes earlier. When we arrived at the place our GPS indicated there was no sign of any hotel. Just as we were about to call to ask for directions our laptop and both phones died. Needless to say we took that as a sign that we weren't supposed to be spending the night in sGary, Indiana.

But it gets better. We kept on driving and at about midnight we finally booked a hotel in Hammond, Indiana which was about 30 minutes from downtown Chicago. Micah paid for the room and we went down the street to McDonald's to get some food before we crashed in our hotel room. As we were pulling out of the drive-thru we saw a handful of police cars a block away. Just moments later they started speeding past us with their lights on. Micah counted 29 police cars and a helicopter! What on earth was this?

I told Micah that if all of those cops were going to our hotel then we couldn't stay there. Sure enough, as we neared our hotel we saw all of the cops parked on both sides of the hotel. Micah called the lobby from the safety of our car to ask what was going on. The receptionist said that there was a hit and run and the police were searching for the fugitives who had ditched their cars. This was like a scary movie. Despite my nervousness, we went to park in the back of the hotel. Kaylyn and I waited just inside while Micah parked the car. All sorts of things were running through my mind. Of course it seemed like forever as we waited for Micah to come back and here I was - four months pregnant and holding my little baby girl in the midst of this craziness - trying to think of what I would do if something happened to my husband. Micah returned safely and assured me that the odds of the criminals coming into our very room were almost none, but we were already one for one with our hotel choice so I was still scared. Funny enough, before we booked the hotel room the receptionist had suggested a couple of other options including a hotel in Lansing, but warned us that Lansing wasn't a very safe place. Micah then told her we had just come from Gary and she said that Lansing wasn't bad compared to Gary. Then here were in Hammond in the midst of a police chase. Here's a link to the news story of what was happening: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-police-car-crashes-on-eisenhower-during-pursuit-20121020,0,4307467.story

Needless to say we survived the night, but it made us so grateful to live in peaceful little Provo. We take for granted the safety and security that we live in. I'll take the quirky culture of happy valley any day. I love it here!

The police broke down this fence that lined the hotel lot where we parked our car. Scary!!

Despite the craziness outside of our hotel room, here is the cuteness that was inside our hotel room. She loves shampoo bottles:)

After a crazy night, we enjoyed a wonderful Sunday in Chicago. After church we went to the Sears Tower and walked to the end of Navy Pier. We found awesome parking spots - a feat for downtown Chicago - and enjoyed the cool sunny afternoon. Kaylyn was such a good little traveler as always. It was a great (and adventurous;) trip!

This is 103 floors up. It didn't even phase Kaylyn, but I was nervous to walk out on the glass.

Panoramic pic from the end of Navy Pier. I'm loving my new iPhone camera:)

At the airport I went to change out of my skirt before we got on the plane. I accidentally grabbed Micah's jeans AND went into the men's bathroom to change. I thought it was a little weird to see urinals in the women's restroom...I only scared a couple of dudes as I ran out wearing my husband's pants. It gave us all a good laugh:)