Chicago Weekend

 Andrew had to spend the week in Chicago for work so we decided to join him for the weekend prior.

We started the weekend by going to the Brookfield Zoo.  I hadn't been there since I was in elementary school.  Turns out, they have dinosaurs there now.  How did they pull that off? ;-)

 We brought the stroller.  We needed it.  They never would have walked all that way.

 First stop, CATS.  Big ones! You can kind of see him in the far back left of the picture.

 Then we HAD to visit the Dinosaur exhibit.  First we learned about lizards and dragons.  Plus a lego statue of a dragon was there so that was cool.

 Then we got to see all the life size dinosaurs too.  Tommy was elated.  Charlotte was scared. :)

 They had a dragon or two from folklore along with the dinosaurs.  Interesting.

 We saw the primates in exhibit.  That was pretty cool.  Actually no, it was SUPER HOT.  The family next to us was hot too.  They were getting short with each other and the mom was saying, "Zephen, move so your brother Zaniel can see."  Yes that happened.  Hmm...

 Had to snap a pic in the water exhibit!

 We pushed the stroller all the back over to the dolphin show and got there just in time.

 Yay dolphin show! The dolphins were no stranger to getting the audience wet. We sat up high and we almost got wet.  It was amazing.

 We got to do Charlotte's favorite thing- the carousel!

 Photobombed by an ostrich!!

 We went to Rain Forest Cafe for dinner.  The kids got these overpriced souvenir cups.  Neither of them drank hardly any of their drink.  But look how cool the cup is!! It came with a removable bottom cup that holds snacks.  It came with a tiny frog in the snack cup part.  So cool!

 You can see Charlotte's elephant that was in her snack cup.  So cute! Worth the overpriced price. :)
 

 After dinner, we dragged the kids to Whole Foods for dessert.  DELISH!! I had chocolate cake and Tommy had vegan chocolate cake. YUM!

 We put the kids to bed but had a hard time sleeping since the people next door were partying for a wedding.  We finally called the front desk and they sent security to bang on their door.  We were THOSE people. :) Oops.  We asked to be moved the next day because that was just rehearsal dinner night! Yikes!  We didn't sleep well but luckily the kids slept right through it.

 Our new room was probably the most private and secluded room in the entire hotel.  It was AWESOME.  This was our door and this was down a weird hallway away from all the other rooms.  Too funny.

 The next day, we decided to head downtown.

 We went to the Watertower Mall.  Charlotte, the Cubs first basewoman, got photobombed by Tommy.

 We walked down to Navy Pier but not without stopping for a selfie.

 We took a shoreline boat ride.  It was fun!

 The kids were a little bored of hearing about Chicago architecture but we enjoyed it.

 Photocred goes to Dada for this one.

 Dada took Charlotte to Build A Bear.  He didn't not realize what he was getting into with that until he got the bill.  YIKES. Lesson learned. But WOW, Charlotte loves that Princess Unicorn.

 We were so tired after all that city-ing, that we came back to our private hotel room and settled in with twizzlers and popcorn and watched Despicable Me.  It was a perfect ending to our little weekend with Dada before he had to stay in Chicago for the week.

 So much fun snuggling and movie watching.  What more could you want for your weekend in Chicago? :)

 More stuffed animals maybe?

 The next day we headed home and stopped at the most fabulous gas station I've ever seen.  Not only because of the fab gas station attendant but because of this cool kid's car.  Sweet!

We stopped at Grandma's on the way home for watermelon with Uncle Adam.

The weather was beyond gorgeous.  It was a perfect weekend getaway.  Ahhh the memories. :)