Our Days Downtown

Here are a few more fabulous outings we enjoyed while staying with the fam in Chicago-- two different trips downtown!

Our first trip was a whole family affair.  We took the train and walked to Millenium and Maggie Daley Parks.  At Millenium Park we posed with The Bean.

And ate our picnic lunch while listening to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Open Pracitce in the bandshell.  It was so lovely!

(The Originals, as they like to call themselves!)

Then we headed over to Maggie Daley Park, where the kids and Dave rented roller blades for an hour on the famous Skating Ribbon that wound around the skyscrapers.  My girls looooove to skate!  This was a memorable place to do it!

Dave loved teaching Miles and Cole to skate on this day.  It is a lot of hard work and they did great, they did end up switching to scooters, though, which was fun too.

Maggie Daley has one cool playground after the next.  We let the kids run around while we adults found a shady hiding spot from which to spy on and startle them! ;)

The train ride home was full of rounds of Telephone and goofy texts across the train car.  A dinner of Giordano's capped it all off.  This was a great day!

Another night we were all sitting around the fire pit talking about what would be fun to do on our last full day in town.  We mentioned the Willis Tower Skydeck and our brother-in-law Chris said, "Just let me know if you want to do that!  Tonight I'm signing our multi-million dollar contract with the Willis Group!  I can request tickets before I sign!"  Um, yes please!  Once again, Chris and his connections hooking us up on this trip!  So, a group of us headed downtown again to check out the city from 103 stories above it.

(Did you know the Sears Tower is 262 Michael Jordans tall? ;)

The bad news is that this was our one shot to go, so we could do nothing about the fact that this was a zero visibility day.  We got to the top and saw nothing but the white clouds we were suspended in.  The good news is that no one else was on the Skydeck because of this so we had it practically to ourselves and could take as many silly pictures on The Ledge (glass rooms that hang off the side of the building) as we wanted!

Even though you couldn't see a thing, it was still freaky!  It took some people in our group a long time to work up the nerve to step out on that see-through floor.

Every now and then the clouds would break and we'd catch a glimpse of the city.  Years ago we actually saw this when the visibility was phenomenal, so we didn't feel like we were missing too much.  Especially since the tickets were free!

Between the Cubs game and two downtown days, in a mere week, we were excited to have crossed so much off our "Chicago Bucket List"...mostly thanks to Chris!

VM Family Game Day

Even with all the amazing outings and adventures, one of my other favorite things that we did on our vacation was intentionally stay home for a day of grand competition!  The VM Family Game Day had...

Board games

(Have to include this hilarious drawing of one of Ella's Telestrations rounds.  It had us rolling!  "Jerk Chicken"!   Not quite as funny as the "skinny dipping" that became "Jesus calling his disciples", though! GET THIS GAME if you don't already have it!)

Rock Band

A fishing competition, where every kid broke exactly even with one catch each, all fish the same size!

And a bocce ball tournament.

The grand finale was a little trip to the laser tag place where we adults teamed up and promised our children a good beating!  As we were loading up the cars, I snagged the above picture of an impromptu cousin conga line.  Kris cracked us up by quipping, "Nooooo!  Their team is already synchronized!"

Laser Tag was at the top of the "Most Fun Things We Did" list!  Though we parents had the utmost confidence, the kid team had 2 secret weapons: Miles, who is so tiny he'd sneak up on you and tag you every time, and Calvin, who is so tall he looks like an adult in the dark and would give us all pause every time we tried to shoot him!

As you can see, the Kid Team (red) did end up creaming their old folks.  I won't revel my alias, but just say it is not one of the blue ones at the top.  Already planning a rematch in 2019! ;)

Go Cubs Go!

And now the post chronicling one of our favorite Chicago memories from this trip!  Months ago when we were tossing around ideas for what to do on our visit, I mentioned that a Cubs game would be fun.  It's been years since we've been to Wrigley and the girls understand and care so much more about the sport and its players now.  Our brother-in-law Chris, who "knows a guy", secured us some tickets and told us with a wink that we'd like our seats.

To prepare for the game, Auntie Karen helped Ella bring her vision of "a Cubs sign that would get her on TV" to life.  So cute to watch them consulting and creating together!

We knew our seats would be good, but our jaws dropped when we got to Wrigley and saw that we were RIGHT ON THE FIELD off the first base line!

We got there early and were able to wander around enjoying the sights of the park a bit.  Dave met and shook hands with Wayne Messmer (singer of the Star Spangled Banner at every Blackhawks game Dave ever watched growing up).  Mr. Messmer was wearing his HUGE 2016 Cubs World Series ring so Dave and Delia got to see that right up close too.  We also watched David Ross being interviewed by ESPN.  We were excited to see the World Series trophy, but because the game was being broadcast by ESPN, it had been moved to their studio and was not on display.

We had our Chicago-style ball park hot dogs for dinner.

And then we had THE BEST night cheering on our Cubs!  Sitting so close made the game so exciting!  Players would run right in front of us!  Our section was so fun too!  We joked around and exchanged stories about where we were from and then we'd high-five the people around us after home runs. Our seat neighbors kept offering to take our family's picture too.

Ella and her sign were highly visible, so she made it on the jumbo tron!

And when the first base coach strolled over with a game ball, he made eye contact with Ella and tossed it right to her!  Our new BFFs in our section cheered with her.

To top off an incredible night, the Cubs secured the W and we got to fly our flag while singing "Go Cubs Go" with 41,000 other joyous Cubs fans in Wrigley!

This night was a Cubs Fantasy come true for my life-long fan hubby!  And even though we know the Cubs can be unpredictable and the temptation to give up on them can be great, the girls had such an amazing time at this game that I think we've secured their fandom for life!

Pool Party and a Sleepover

Dave's parents live in a condo complex with a fantastic pool.  One day was spent BBQing and beating the heat in the water.

Something I loved most about this trip was watching again how great all these cousins play together!  Everyone is getting a little older, so I wondered what moving into the pre-teen/teenager stage of life would do to their friendship.  The answer I quickly witnessed was "Nothing!"  They are a kind, funny, playful, adventurous, creative bunch and they had the best week in each other's company!

#gogglesquad

On the day of this pool party, we actually left our kids with Grandma and Grandpa for a sleepover!  The girls went to a fun Chinese restaurant and watched movies with Gma and Gpa.  Dave and I took advantage of the free babysitting and spent a night at the ritzy hotel we stayed in the night we got married.  This was SO FUN!  We joked about the gorgeous grounds and fabulous amenities we never even noticed the last time we stayed here.  Our overnight date was quite nostalgic.  Though the restaurant Dave took me to for our first date is no longer there, we enjoyed a fancy dinner at a new one right next to where it used to be.  We then wandered around the outdoor shopping center we'd always go to in high school.

Zoo Crew

After our wonderful week in Michigan, it was off to the second half of our vacation with our Chicago side of the family.  First order of business in Chicago?  Visiting the world-class Brookfield Zoo with all the aunties, cousins and Grandma!  This is not only the zoo Dave and I grew up going to, it is one the kids have come to expect a visit to whenever we visit Illinois.  New this year at the zoo: the opportunity to hand feed giraffes leafy kale bunches!  This was the coolest thing we've ever done at a zoo!  How amazing to be so close to these favorite animals!

We saw so many different animals on this day!  It was a hot and humid one, so my memories will be more of surviving the sticky day.  But, wandering around the zoo also launched the week of playing with cousins and catching up with siblings.

Wing-span comparisons.

Deep discussions with a polar bear chilling in the background.  No big deal. :)

Mold-O-Ramas and dolphin viewing.

In the children's zoo we had two memorable animal encounters-- petting a snake and helping distribute handfuls of lady bugs to the zoo's beautiful gardens.

As you will see in the next several posts, our week in Chicago was marked with one awesome outing after the next. This first day at the zoo was a fun kick-off!