Chicago!

The girls and I got daddy out of the office for a day and half (the half was actually Sunday so that shouldn't count :) ) and headed to see some of the exciting things Chicago has to offer. The girls (mostly Shelby) get excited about Chicago because that is the city in the movie Everyone's Hero the little boy ends up in. It is also the place their daddy spends a lot of time recruiting. Sunday after church we headed up and spent the afternoon at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The weather that day was perfect, but we must have hit some of the animals at supper time as they were not outside. This was the case for the bears mostly so it was a little disappointing. The girls were asleep 2 minutes after we left the parking lot and headed for our hotel. They missed our drive down Michigan Avenue and past the American Girl store. That was probably just as well since I am taking them up there on the train in August just to go to the doll store. That will be our last fun thing to do before Shelby starts school. Our hotel was a couple blocks off of Michigan Avenue and the girls loved the idea of staying there. After getting settled, we headed out on a short walk for Chicago Pizza at Gino's East. Thankfully the hotel gave us a VIP seating ticket so we got right in. Otherwise we would have waited at least 30 minutes and it takes about 40 minutes to get a thin crust pizza to your table once you have ordered! Nate really wanted the deep dish pizza but that takes at least 1 hour and we didn't know if the girls could sit that long! Something to do without kids I guess. After pizza the girls and I headed to the pool for awhile. Next was a bath for them and then on to tackle sleeping in the same room! It took awhile but we got it done. Between Morgan and Nate they switched beds a few times and I found out Morgan is horrible to sleep with! She never sits still when she is awake. Well she doesn't lay still when she is asleep either! She kicked me more times than I could count, was grinding her teeth a little bit & I finally had to straighten her out when she kicked the lamp on the side table. The next morning they were up early and ready to go. We checked out of our hotel and headed to the Navy Pier. We rode the Ferris Wheel, took a 30 minute boat ride along the shore line and the girls had fun making a new friend at Build-A-Bear. They had been waiting to do this after they saw the puppy dog a friend from church had made on her trip to Chicago. Shelby picked out a pink bear she named Rosebud and dressed her like a ballerina. She had the outfit picked before she knew who she was putting it on! She changed her mind about 3 times before settling on the bear. Morgan on the other hand, set her eyes on Hello Kitty and never changed. We tried to convince her since Hello Kitty was the most expensive thing you could pick! She did change her mind about 4 times on the outfit and shoes. She finally settled on a pair of white pants with a green flowered tank top. I suggested Hello Kitty go without shoes because she looked cute that way and Morgan was fine with that. Daddy helped her pick a name because Morgan just wanted it to be Hello Kitty. He named her Hitty. Combining Hello & Kitty and relating it to baseball. Our final stop on the Pier was some good but expensive ice cream and then we headed for home. The girls were both upset that we were going to sleep in our own beds that night and not at a hotel!