There's No Place Like Home: Chicago and Saratoga Springs

Travel is a huge part of who we are as a family and I love getting to know people with similar experiences so I'm thrilled to collaborate on a little 'tale of our two cities' with travel expert Kendra Thornton. Read on and we'll each tell you why our hometowns are not to be missed!

There's No Place Like Chicago - by Kendra Thornton

I consider myself to be a travel enthusiast. I have been all around the world and I travel quite often. However, when it comes to great places to see, nothing beats my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Chicago is not only one of the most exciting cities in the United States, it is a vacation destination for people all over the world. No matter what you like to do, no matter what your interests are, there is a good chance that you will find numerous ways to entertain yourself while visiting Chicago. Since it is the third largest city in the country, the number of places to visit is enormous. 

Enjoying the Chicago Skyline

You will never run out of things to do, regardless of how long your trip is. They are so many places to enjoy entertainment and so many amazing restaurants in Chicago, I could never list them all. However, here are 4 of my Chicago favorites:

1. Shopping

If you love to shop or you are traveling with someone who has been bitten by the shopping bug, I know a place that you must visit while you are in Chicago. It is Southport Avenue, located in Lakeview. If you are looking for a place that is not extremely trendy and mainstream, Southport Avenue is a place that you must visit while you are here. The legendary Wrigley Field is just a few blocks away. Since the Chicago Cubs usually play in the afternoon, you can take in game and do some shopping afterwards. If you enjoy fashion, you will be able to find all of the most chic trends on Southport Avenue. Local Chicago designers sell their products at the Cerato Boutique, and many others. There are also a wide variety of other stores and boutiques to choose from, such as Tula and Krista K. Have fun, and shop until you drop!

2. Millennium Park

Millennium Park is considered by many to be one of the top attractions in the Windy City, and with good reason. It is interesting to note that Millennium Park used to be apiece of wasteland that was nothing more than an eyesore, but all of that changed in 1997. The Mayor of Chicago at that time, Richard Daley, originally came up with the idea to turn the land into a beautiful public park near the heart of the city. It took a few years for the idea to get off the ground, but by the early 2000s, Daley's dream had become a reality. The park offers activities for families, including tours and exhibitions. The architecture and artwork are sure to impress you enough to pull out your camera and take pictures (something that hasn’t always been as easy in the past!)

Source: bestourism.com

3. The City

The Chicago skyline ranks right up there with New York and Hong Kong as being one of the most beautiful skylines in the world. It is truly a magical sight, and an image that you will surely remember long after your trip to Chicago. The downtown area also has some of the best dining you will find anywhere. If you are planning a trip to Chicago, you should take advantage of the beauty of the skyline and the activities offered in the downtown area. You can find a wonderful hotel in the city by using Gogobot. This is a site that allows you to  search for hotels that have the best prices in downtown Chicago. Gogobot allows you to search by average price per night, hotel class, hotel type and average user rating. 

4. Food

Most people are familiar with Ralph Lauren's fashions, such as his world famous Polo line of clothes. However, many visitors to the Chicago area are surprised to find out that Ralph Lauren is also in the restaurant business. Simply called RL, Ralph Lauren's restaurant is located close to the flagship Polo store on North Michigan Avenue, which is also the largest Polo store in the world. It is in the heart of downtown, so after you grab a bite to eat, you can explore all the other things that downtown Chicago has to offer.

Enjoying a Cubs game!

Chicago might be called the Second City, but it will always be number one in my heart. I am certain that after you visit this Midwest metropolis, you will see why I am so enthusiastic about the city on the shores of Lake Michigan. Whether you have a taste for food, fashion, sports, shopping, art, music or theater, Chicago has all of these things in abundance, and so much more. 

Thanks for sharing some of your favorite things about Chicago, Kendra! Now I'll tell you why-

There's no place like Saratoga Springs:

Although we're currently getting settled in our seventh temporary 'new' home in Georgia, my hometown and favorite place to live is Saratoga Springs, NY. I was born and raised there and was lucky enough to spend the last few years living there for my husband's military assignment.

A Beautiful Congress Park afternoon

Saratoga Springs may be most well known for its summer horse racing but there is so much more to the city:

Downtown Saratoga Springs- Traveling along downtown Saratoga's main street, Broadway, you can enjoy shopping, dining, and people watching on par with more metropolitan areas, without the traffic and with twice the charm.
Downtown Saratoga is home to the beautiful Congress Park, where little ones can ride the historic carousel, families can picnic and watch the ducks, and visitors can stroll or just take a breather from shopping on Broadway.

Historic Congress Park Carousel

Each December, Broadway is closed to traffic for a night and transformed for the Victorian Streetwalk, complete with carolers in period costumes, Santa and Mrs. Claus, ballerinas performing the Nutcracker in store windows, reindeer and so much more. It's an event not to be missed that really shows the character of our wonderful city.

For Children- The Children's Museum at Saratoga at 69 Caroline St. is a fantastic way to spend the day with your little ones and has so much to offer not only with clever hands on exhibits but also with the weekly programs hosted there including Silly Science, Wiggle and Giggle, Tuesdays for Tots, and the new Busy Bees baby and toddler program. 

Playing at the Children's Museum

Food- Downtown Saratoga is just packed with options for dining with everything from brew pubs to fine dining. My favorite place to send visitors is Hattie's at 45 Phila St. for their always delicious southern food. Hattie's has been open since 1938 and Chef Jasper Alexander's fried chicken, mac and cheese, and hushpuppies are worth our drive home from Georgia for.

The most exciting thing on the horizon for the Saratoga fine dining scene, 15 Church, is set to open in December 2013. The modern, French/American concept coupled with the amazing style and creativity of Chef Jason Baker, 15 Church is sure to be the Saratoga Springs dinner reservation worth fighting over.

Saratoga Springs is a city with a genuine small town feel to it. There is no shortage of activities, shopping, food, and family friendly fun. The natural beauty and charm, history, sense of community, and energy of the city make it a great place to visit and a wonderful place to call home.

Thanks for taking this little tour of our two cities. Be sure to follow @KendraThornton to get her latest and greatest tips for travel!

DIY Printed Masterpiece on Canvas

When we lived in Switzerland we took a trip to Paris to celebrate our anniversary. Looking back through photos from the trip is always a treat because the whole city is just a photo waiting to be taken.

Everywhere you turn there is beauty and quite often, too many other people trying to capture it on film. I always think the following photo is hilarious because the man photographing the ceiling is standing smack in the middle of a crowd viewing the painting behind him.

One of the highlights of any trip to Paris is visiting the museums and being able to see breathtaking works of art up close. I took many photos of the beautiful paintings in the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay.
Here is a photo I took in the Louvre of Monet's oil painting, The Bridge at Argenteuil (1874)

And another photo I snapped of Monet's Regate a Argenteuil, (1872) from the Musee d'Orsay

I love both of these paintings and wanted to frame and hang my photographs of them to curate a little fine art collection of my own at home. Rather than print them on regular photo paper, I used canvas photo paper and created mini Monet paintings from my photographs of the originals. I printed these at home on canvas photo paper sheets. (A printing service may hesitate but there is no copyright issue. Because of the age of the Monet paintings, they are considered public domain and no longer protected by any copyright that may have protected them at one time.)

The photos hang on the wall in our blue powder room and bring a nice warmth to it, reminding me of a wonderful trip.
The texture of the canvas photo paper is perfect for capturing more of the sense of seeing the painting up close and through my camera's lens than a store bought or poster print could.

I'll close with one of my favorite photos of  Le Penseur from the Musee Rodin.

Military Spouse Appreciation Day

In honor of Military Spouse Appreciation Day, local parenting resource, SaratogaMama, allowed me to share some of my thoughts about the not so normal lifestyle of a military family. I'm so excited to be featured on SaratogaMama after learning of so many area opportunities for families during our time here through their site. Check out my feature on SaratogaMama here!

To all of my fellow military spouses, I hope that someone did something to make you feel special, loved, and appreciated today!

I'm grateful for how often our life as a military family has included traveling to and experiencing beautiful places and look forward to filling our lives and photo albums with many more great memories.

Not So Buried Treasure Hunting in Switzerland

The aspect of military life that I've enjoyed the most has been the opportunity to travel. Besides taking trips all over the world for my husband's job, we spent an amazing two years living in Bern, Switzerland. I'm not kidding when I say that I've been trying to figure out how to move back there ever since we left. Here is a photo from one of our favorite hikes from First to Bachalpsee.

I used to hunt for furniture, art, and other Swiss mementos in nearby brocantes. If you haven't heard of a brocante, it's somewhat the same as a thrift store here in the U.S.

Source: MySwitzerland.com

One of the brocantes I visited often was Interbrocken Haus in Thun. I found beautiful furniture, colorful pitchers, unique baskets, and wooden shoes on my many trips there. When driving up to the store, there were usually paintings and other items for sale on display outside to draw people in. My best 'find' was sitting out in the sun for everyone driving by to spot but somehow it waited patiently for me. The price was written in marker right on the glass and was the equivalent of ten dollars.

I didn't pay attention to the signature but was happy to have found a piece painted in 1924.

This is a photo of the label on the back of the painting:

The title written on the back of the frame on the label reads, "Der Kleine Bernina- See" which I believe translates to The Little Bernina Lake and displays the artist's name, Hans Beat Wieland.

This painting immediately reminded me of the beautiful view pictured at the beginning of this post, from one of our favorite hikes in the Swiss Alps. Because of that I brought it home, completely unaware it was painted by a renowned Swiss artist. We went into the store and passed by this painting as it sat outside on the side of the busy road. On the way to the car to leave, I looked at it again and decided to buy it.  It's amazing to me that photographs I took of alpine scenery, no matter how breathtaking, don't capture the essence of the mountains and the way the sky seems to meet them as the brushstrokes on this canvas do. Here is a closer look:

After we had the painting for a month or so, one of our friends from the embassy in Bern noticed it in our house and asked if he could bring one of his Swiss friends by to see the painting. She was completely taken aback when she saw what I had found at what is essentially a Swiss thrift store. She told me about the artist,  and was a mix of astounded and disappointed to hear what I'd paid for my painting. She told me to take care of it as it was something special and made it clear that she wasn't happy it had been put out on the curb at a brocante! I've never had it appraised but it would be very hard for me to part with regardless of what it may be worth. Since it reminds me of one of the most beautiful views I was lucky enough to lay eyes on and sat in plain sight at the brocante for anyone to notice but went untouched, I feel like it was meant to be mine.

I'm a little embarrassed that I hung the painting in my house and went on my way without thinking to research the name signed on the canvas or displayed on the label on the back of the frame. I like to think I'm a more seasoned thrifter now and that I'm more careful to notice, at the very least, details like the artist's name! Although lucky for me it appears I'm not the only one that wasn't paying attention to that.
What about you? What treasure hunt find means the most to you?

Our House in Yemen

Some would say that the riskiest thing I have ever done was spend a year living in Yemen. I'm not sure I can really catalogue my life choices in a way that one particular thing stands out as the riskiest but I'm not about to claim that living in Yemen was safe either.
We lived in the bottom two floors of the house pictured above. We had an enormous amount of space for just the two of us. It was crazy trying to clean it. For a time we had a local woman help us with housekeeping but it was too difficult for me to communicate with her and she did things like use my gallon Shout stain remover, that I'd meant to last me 2 years, in one week. (She cleaned our floors with it!) It was such a hard decision to let her go because we knew the poverty experienced by so many in Yemen. I then struggled for our remaining time there to clean a house full of marble, always covered in the thick dust that only someone that has lived there can comprehend.

I felt more at risk at some times than others. For the most part we worked during the day and watched satellite television shows at night. Our house was on a walled compound and we had two guards that stayed in a little house at our gate. I never had the courage to host any of our family members in our huge house. I guess I felt that the risk was worth the experience for me but wasn't willing to extend an invitation to take the same risk to my family.

 I wish I could have shared with them the view from our rooftop of local children playing soccer on a dusty, trash covered field at sunset. As the sun went down and they were backlit by it in a way that was blinding to look at, you could squint and forget for a minute where you were. The sounds of children playing are the same everywhere and their happy noise kicking a ball was calming to me especially after days that I was out and about in the noisy city, trying so hard not to draw too much attention to myself.
I took many pictures of children while we lived in Yemen. I look back on them every so often and can't help but wonder where they are and who they became.

 

As many photos as I have of children smiling and happy in a way only children can be like the photos of the boys above, I have photos with faces that haunt me as much today as they did 8 years ago. 

  

 It's difficult to consider that living in Yemen is the riskiest thing I have ever done when I try to imagine the path that some of these lives might have taken.

If You're Lucky

What is the greatest reward that can come from risk? I'm sure the answer is different for each and every one of us. Is it life after facing death? Someone needing surgery might think so. Is it having a lot of money after making a financial decision? Ask a wise investor. Is it freedom and prosperity after fleeing a bad situation? Our country is full of people who would say yes. Or is it nothing more than the knowledge that a personal choice in life led to a greater life? For those who are fortunate and carefully weigh their options when taking a risk, there are rewards.

Of course there is also the possibility that great risk leads to misfortune, undesirable circumstances, or even tragedy and lives are cut short all too often from risky behaviors whether it's not wearing a seat belt, using drugs, eating a terrible diet, or smoking.
For me the choice to take a risk must be accompanied by the likelihood of a great reward of some type. Buying homes must promise a good chance of being able to sell it when the military tells us we have to move. Deciding what my family will do is always based on what will be best in what we like to think of as the long run. (Even if the longest "run" we have had anywhere is three years!)

My husband is a Marine. The life of someone in the military is so full of risk yet the rewards are often nothing more than pride in a mission completed. There are times when the reward after a long day's work is survival. It seems unfair sometimes for me to consider the day to day risks I choose to take in order to achieve or obtain something knowing how different the risks are for some.

Tour guides at Shahara, Yemen

One of the best hiking experiences we ever had when we lived in Yemen was a hike to Shahara Bridge. We climbed an enormous mountain with a group of American friends, Yemeni guides, and a group of armed Yemeni military guards. It was so remote, so incredibly rugged that it is difficult for me to believe I have been there. The danger facing hikers to the bridge is first and foremost falling to their death and I believe that in the photo above where I'm sitting on the edge of a canyon above the bridge, I have my arm braced on the rocks behind me as though I was aware of that then.

After reaching the bridge at Shahara, Yemen

There was also the distinct possibility that as Americans we might not have received a warm welcome by the locals. Terrible things could have happened to our group on that hike but fortunately nothing did. We had a great adventure that I'm sure none of us will ever forget. Did friends that stayed home feel the risk was too great to take the hike with us but then regret their decision, having missed such an experience? I don't blame anyone who believed the reward was not enough to risk taking the trip. We all exhausted ourselves with the climb and then slept on the floor in one room and shared a bathroom with a hole in the floor for a toilet. I'm grateful that my 2005 self felt that the reward was worth the risk because I don't think my 2013 self would.
Risk is as unique to each person as rewards are. Do I believe the saying that with great risks come great rewards? The only answer I can think of is, if you're lucky.

It's Safe to Say, I'm a Risk Taker

Socotra, Yemen

Is it better to play it safe or take risks?

Our world is so full of incredible things to see. Life is way too short. Without taking risks, lives just pass by and a person can end theirs having been just a little speck on a map that never moved very far from its starting point, never made a mark, and never made any waves.

We are a military family and are fortunate enough to have traveled the world more than most people. I took the photos in this post when we lived in Sana'a, Yemen in 2005. For one year, we were able to see sights that most people will never see other than in pictures, including some places that I'm sure not many Americans have been able to visit since. Without our willingness to take risks, and be uncomfortable and even scared at times, the amazing memories I have would belong to someone else more willing to step away from what was familiar and comfortable.

If we played it safe, the years we spent exploring overseas may have instead been spent on a military base, in a military town, shopping at familiar markets, eating out at restaurants, going to the movies, and shopping. Although we missed those comforts, making the gutsy decision to give them up was the best decision we ever made. There is no better way to learn how brave you are than to force yourself to try something new. There is no better way to learn to appreciate what you have as an American than to give it up for a life somewhere else where people have so little.

Sana'a Yemen

When I first asked myself the question is it better to play it safe or take risks, I thought my answer without hesitation was to take the risks. For a second I forgot about the one area of my life that I play it so safe it's almost funny at times. When it comes to my son, even as he approaches his second birthday, I play it safe to the point that I still watch him sleep on a monitor, still refuse to allow stuffed animals in his crib for fear he'll suffocate, and just in general still feel like I could make some mistake at any moment that would hurt him. I wouldn't let him try solid food until he was six months for fear that he would choke or stop nursing. I closely checked the temperature in his room so that the risk of SIDS was lessened after reading that it may be caused by overheating and I really wanted a digital thermometer in his room.

Looking back on this photo I took of the children in the back of that car in Yemen for the first time as a parent, I almost feel sorry that I took it. As a mother, the photo means more to me than what, at the time, was just some adult taking a ridiculous risk with those little ones. There is nothing more precious to me than my child. Even if it seems silly and I know that I can't protect him from everything, I will let my parenting continue to be a place that my rule is to play it safe. Even though I thought nothing of walking through a bazaar in a Muslim country without covering my face or my bright red hair, I still have trouble letting go of the video baby monitor, the parenting manuals, and the homemade baby food maker.

Have you ever seen a beautiful beach with nothing but a camel on it? If not, do something about that! Make the brave choices instead of the safe choices sometimes.