OK so now for the trip itself.... we got there Wednesday afternoon (Dec 19th) and checked into our hotel room, which ended up being HUGE! What a blessing when traveling with an energetic toddler :)... We must've been quite a site, because we had 2 large rolling suitcases, a rolling backpack, a laptop bag, and a small rolling suitcase lovingly referred to as "Elmo Bag", which contained Zoe's toys :) I think we did a great job of managing all that, and Zoe was very helpful (as usual) as she toted Elmo Bag around for herself (which was cool, because eventually I just made it her "diaper bag" for our outings so she actually rolled all of our stuff- my purse included- in that bag!).
Thursday morning Zoe & I walked to the GIGANTIC Harold Washington Library (one of the Chicago Public Libraries) and got a library card so we could check out some books for bedtime and general leisure. If you don't know much about Zoe, know that she LOVES books. She has gotten to the point now that she will shout "I READ IT" if she wants to just read on her own instead of having a book read to her :) ANYWAY- once we were at the library, Zoe decided that instead of looking at books we should spend 45 minutes going up and down the MULTIPLE FLOORS-worth of escalators. I think this was her 1st experience with them, and she thought they were absolutely amazing.
After the library, we trekked a couple more blocks to the Walgreens to get some milk and other snacks for the hotel room, then we hit the Subway for lunch, and then we finally made it all the way back to our room- it was a challenge to carry everything, but as I said earlier "Elmo Bag" made it all possible :) The only pitfall was that when Zoe got too tired to walk anymore, I had to carry her plus Elmo Bag, plus our Walgreens and Subway bags. I was happy though, because I got a workout out of it!
Once I finally got Zoe down for a nap, I sat in the closet cross-stitching because I was worried to try watching TV or anything like that because of the light/noise factor and I had left my book in my car because our bags were SO overstuffed already I just couldn't find the extra room for anything! Needless to say, I got a lot of cross-stitching done during this trip!
Thursday night was probably the most fun of all, because Leif took the night off from attending conference-related events and went with us to Navy Pier. The Chicago Children's Museum is there, and it was family free night, so we figured it was the perfect time to check it out. We had a great time..... we got to see exhibits plus we got free ice cream sundaes, watched a dancer perform, painted on walls, played house, built things with huge dominoes, and more!
We also saw the "Winter Wonderland" display at Navy Pier, which we would highly recommend to anyone! It's free to walk around and see everything, but you have to pay to participate in the activities (like bounce-houses, slides, ice skating, and more).
The rest of our trip was fun too- Zoe seemed to love the city as much as I do! Every time an el train would go by, we'd stop, she'd wave, and say "bye train!". I can't tell you the number of people who made comments about how adorable she was toting Elmo Bag around ;-) People probably thought I was making her pull that thing, but quite the opposite was true- she's get upset if I tried to help her with it! (well at least until she was totally exhausted). The weather was quite cooperative, and we were able to walk all around and have a great time being together. It was nice to be able to focus on her without being sidetracked with school or other obligations, too!!! :)
We got to meet up with some college friends and past coworkers, etc... Midwest Clinic is always good for that... we were going to see the Nutcracker Ballet, but unfortunately Zoe can't go 'til she's 5. Sad day! Something to look forward to....
When all was set and done we got back to my parents' house in time to hang out for a night and then we went back to our house Sunday afternoon to get ready for Christmas!!!
