Our Chicago Trip and Finds: Part 2

Hi, everyone!

Last time I shared with you the first part of Keith and my vacay to Chicago, here.

The second part of our trip we stayed right downtown on Michigan Avenue.  We love the hustle and bustle of city life!

Our hotel overlooked this gorgeous park.

The city was all dressed up for fall.  Here we are in front of a really pretty display set up outside of a department store (I forget which one!)

One night we waited with thousands of others by the river to celebrate their Great Chicago Fire Festival.

The city is so beautiful at night!

The festival turned out to be a bust due to technical difficulties, and it was a wee bit chilly, but we had fun with our surrounding 'neighbors' anyway!

(The festival did have a choir singing on a boat floating down the river, and that was both haunting and beautiful.)

(Side note: can you believe this pic of us isn't a 'selfie'?  We had a lady take it and she got so close!! We tried to back up, but there was nowhere to go with all the people around. We laughed about it later :)

One day we hit the fun town of Andersonville.  They have lots of fun shops...

...and we had the BEST brunch at a tiny bakery that we found!  I had French toast where they use brioche bread and add a peach compote on top...oh, and a 'little' of their home made whipped cream, too...yum!

Now on to the good stuff...my finds!

I know this is gonna make all of you jealous, but I got to shop Kris's house when we stayed there!

These are some of the goodies that I got from her:  these 2 gorgeous pillows...

...and this charming banner!

Look at the beautiful detail!  I'm not sure where it's gonna end up yet, but it'll look fabulous anywhere!

Many of you know how generous Kris is.  When we arrived at her house she had some special gifts waiting for us!  One is this amazing pillow...

She said she wanted something for us to remember our trip by...I LOVE how meaningful this is!

The other thing that she got me is this embellished stack of books.  I didn't get a good picture of it, but you can kind of see the tag on top with my favorite no. 3 on it!

She had another gift for me which was from Carol at Art and Sand! (Carol was sending something to Kris, and she knew I was going to be at Kris's so she just sent my gift there, too.)
What a nice surprise!

This banner is SO cute!

Carol knew that I've always wanted something with 'nest' on it, so she made this for me!  This will look perfect in my sunroom where there are touches of blue!

She had it wrapped in this adorable little bag, with my initial on the drawstring.  Love these sweet bloggers!

Some of the other things that I found with Kris while we were out junkin: this huge nest...

...this cool tall architectural column (which Kris found for me)...

(got this pumpkin last year)

...this shabby lunch box and wooden tote (which Kris also found for me)...

...notice a theme here? Ha!

And I'm always drawn to vintage signs, so I bought this cool one...

 Most of these pics were taken in our office, where I'm changing things up. I'll show you a full reveal at some point, hopefully soon!

Well, that's all my finds I'll show you for now.  I bought a few other things, but I'll share them later.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Have a wonderful day :)