Four Winds Casino/Chicago Post #1

What a great trip we had to the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, MI and Chicago!!! We got to the casino around 5:00 Thursday night. We checked in to our beautiful hotel rooms- the best I have ever stayed in. They had granite counter tops, tile floors and showers, gorgeous accents, plush sheets and towels, flatscreen tvs, many more complimentary items than usual (bottles of water, Starbucks coffees, USA Today paper delivered to your door in the a.m.). I could have stayed in the room the whole time! Then we headed down to walk around, check out the stores, casino, etc. We had dinner and then we all headed to the arcade room to let the kids play some games. They had a blast! There were tons of games and they won a lot of tickets they redeemed for prizes. My mom went back to the her room and put them to bed so Ryan and I could go to the casino. What a joke that was! I played the slots and Wheel of Fortune for about 10 minutes and realized that the arcade games were way more fun. Ryan lost a quick 30 bucks and I lost a quick $10, so we left and went back to the arcade without the kids. We stayed there for a few hours- spent $30 bucks and came out of there with enough toys for the kids that they thought it was Christmas morning! They had video games like Deal or No Deal that I played over and over. We were winning tickets like crazy. We had over 1500 to redeem by the end of the night. We felt much better "gambling" in the arcade b/c we knew we'd end up with something at least by the end of the night! Haha

We got up this morning pretty early to meet my great uncle for breakfast. We had a great breakfast and enjoyed our conversation with him- very interesting job he has! We then headed off to the train station- caught the 10:29 to Shy-town and had about an hour and 40 minute train ride. We went to Bennigen's for lunch right when we got there- it was 1:00 their time, but 2:00 our time so everyone was starving. We walked all the way down Michigan Avenue stopping at different stores on the way to the American Girl Doll Store. It was a long hike, but we stopped to shop some. My mom got Sadie her first American Girl Doll- the Bitty Baby and Starter Set (a chest with 3 outfits, bottles, rattles, etc.) in it. Sadie was sawing logs and missed that entire experience! What luck! We hit a few stores on the walk back as well, caught the 5:10 train home, and I slept once we got to the car on the drive home from the train station. I was whipped. The weather turned out to be outstanding for a day like today- around 60 degrees and it never rained the whole time we were in Chicago (the forecast had called for rain all day!) We really did have a great 2 day mini-vacation! Check out the pictures below (3 total posts).



Ryan and his dolly on her birthday at the casino.
Sis and Brooks playing arcade games. Brooks became hooked on the driving/motorcycle racing games.
Cobe trying his fortune on the wheel of luck.
Sadie liked to watch all the games, watch all the lights, and hear all of the loud noises. I thought she would be hard to manage in a place like that, but she was enthralled with the whole experience.
A shot of a very small portion of the casino from the table where we ate dinner. The place was HUGE- I got lost and never figured out the setup (shock!).