This past weekend, we took a little road trip to Chicago for Campus Catalyst, a training conference for public campus ministry sponsored by the NAD and hosted by North Shore Seventh-day Adventist Church.  It was great to spend time with old friends and to make new ones too.  It is such a blessing to be involved in ministry.

During most of the meetings, I hung out with the kids and Bentley.  It was Bentley’s first time in Chicago.  He loved the squirrels the best.  We walked to a park nearby to help the kids release some energy. On Saturday, we wanted to do something special for the kids so we ordered Chicago pizza from Pequods while they swam in the hotel pool.  No joke people – it was the most disgusting pizza I’ve ever had in my life.  The crust was thick, dry, crumbly, and stale.  There was hardly any cheese.  The tomato sauce was watery and bland.  And the edges of the crust were burned black.  It made Pizza Hut taste like a Michelin 3 starred restaurant.  Worse yet, each pie cost over $20!  We each managed to scrap off the top layer of one piece, but we couldn’t do much more than that.  We called to get our money back.  We’re going to have to give Chicago pizza another go next time…definitely at a different pizza place.  Pequods, you let us down!

We were able to spend time with Jukes & Aileen and the kids while we were there.  It was nice that they were only a few miles away from the conference!  We enjoyed talking and catching up.  On Sunday, we ate at Native Foods, an amazing vegan restaurant.  Here, Chicago redeemed itself after our Pequods incident.  I had the best vegan sandwich I’ve ever eaten.  It was the crispy chicken, bacon and avocado sandwich.  Amazing!  Then we spent our final hours there at the Shedd Aquarium.

Making fishy faces with cousins in front of the fishes!

We had a great weekend and hope we can come back again soon!