Trip to Chicago

In our hunt for a semi-affordable summer vacation that was close enough to get to by car without us all going nuts, we settled on Chicago and off we went. The car ride was a bit rough, with Evan asking repeatedly if we were there yet before we'd even left St. Louis! Adrienne was hard to occupy, but thankfully they did both sleep some of the time. Even Evan, who "never sleeps", was caught in a photo doing just that!

We stayed in a condo in Chicago that is in an awesome location, had a full kitchen and two bedrooms & baths. One wall was all windows, which was fabulous for grownups, but not so good for the little people who were awakened (as were we soon after) at DAWN because so much light came through. Combine that with the kids having a hard time sharing a room, Adrienne having a hard time keeping still in her air mattress bed, and so much excitement that they didn't usually fall asleep until after 10, and you have some very sleep deprived people!

Check out this VIEW! We were on the 45th floor of a 46 story building.


We visited the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium (Evan is very into space right now), the Lincoln Park Zoo, Navy Pier, and rode a double decker tour bus.

Donna prepares to escape the madness into outer space!

Adrienne and Mom wearing 3D glasses for the movie at the Planetarium.

Evan enjoys the glasses most of all.

The Planetarium has 'circus' type mirrors (never did get to read WHY) and the kids enjoyed looking at their distorted images.




Each morning I took a photo of the kids before we set out on our adventure just in case they should get lost (heaven forbid) I would be able to show what they were wearing that day. Plus it was a good time to get a few photos of them being semi-cooperative, which was not going to happen through much of the day when I tried to photograph them.



For some reason riding the bus brought out the cuteness in them in ways that made it easier to live with the pre-dawn wakeups. Here they are in two separate occasions cuddling spontaneously on the bus.








The biggest hit, however, was the last day when we hit the 'beach' for some time there before heading out of town. The kids LOVED it. The water was so much clearer than I would have expected, but it was just as cold as I thought it would be. Despite that, we all hung out in the water the whole time and spent a good 3 hours there before heading out of town. Next visit we'll be spending more time at the beach!




Yes, that is SAND she is throwing.