Chicago Invasion

We're coming for you, Chicago!!!  (Our flight was late at night, so we traveled in our jammies!)

Mommy only likes the middle seat when we are on either side!

The view from our first hotel!

Catching snowflakes on my tongue!!  It was cold!

Our hotel had a small indoor pool!  It was nice to take a dip and not freeze!

Bundled up to walk the streets of Chicago!

Fun at the Children's Museum!

The children's museum had an area where you could create your own gadgets... we wanted to create safely, of course!

The lights were so beautiful!

Taking the edge off with some Tuxedo hot chocolates and a fake smile for Danni!

We walked right up to the star that they used for New Year's Eve.  The display was all messed up, but it was fun to watch them fix it.

The Bean at Millenium Park.  Super cool!

There was an awesome play park -- the cold didn't stop Danni and I from enjoying it!!

Swing seats at Molly's Cupcakes!

Danni's mother ship!  (Also known as the American Girl store!)

There were tons of places that sold fresh donuts.  Luckily, there was one right next door to our hotel!

Shopping sprees make her smile!

The store was all decorated for Christmas!

She cleaned the place out!  Her dolls will be so happy!

The streets were so clean!

We went to church at a "real" church.  It had stained glass windows, a pipe organ, and a choir.  We thought it was so cool!

Most complete T. Rex skeleton in the world!

We liked the dinosaur exhibit!

City view!

This was as close as we could get to the Chi-Town Rising Party on New Year's Eve!

Danni got cold and tired.... it only made her cry a couple of times!

The Bean at night!

We love taking selfies with Mommy!

NYE family selfie!

Watching the fireworks on New Year's Eve!

The view from Hancock Tower (It is now called Chicago360)

Such a pretty view at sunset! 

We went ice skating at the Chicago Zoo.

The rink was outdoors so that was cool!  Literally!

Cutest chickie!

Clowning around at the Science Museum!

Having a wheelie good time!

Where the Wild Things go boating!

Climber girl!

I was trying to figure out how they got a jet inside the building!

Skating on the Millenium Park Ice Ribbon

I had a rough start, but by the end, I had the hang of it!

It was raining and cold, but we still were all smiles!

First one to knock Daddy down wins!

The family who skates together.... has aching feet together!

Holding Mama up!

Danni enjoyed the statues in Chicago a little too much!

Cold little kitty!

Resting my feet!

Resting her eyes!

The aquarium had Beluga whales on display!

And sharks!

Surprised to find a red-eyed tree frog in these parts!

The lake had ice on it!  It was SUPER cold!

Movie time at the Planetarium!

Driving the space rover!

The view was so pretty!

It wasn't her birthday.  But the writing meant extra frosting!!

My favorite!

"Sharing" a cinnamon pretzle donut.

Chicago mouth feeder!

The mall had a super amazing Lego store!

Auntie Suz told us to try freezing bubbles, so we did! 

That is a frozen bubble.  If you touch it, it melts!

More frozen bubble blowing!

Riding the L to Wrigley Field

We couldn't go in because they were doing renovations, but we got a nice view of the outside!

It was like -14 when we visited.  Brrrr....

We loved our hotel! 

Prettiest girls I know!

The Bean!

We spent a lot of time at Millenium Park! 

Coolest play structure.  It was way cold because it was made out of metal!

Super slider!

Can you spot Danni?

Wheeee!

Climbing the "web"

All of our running around made us hot.  We begged to take off our sweatshirts too!  

A cupcake reward for all of the energy we left at the park!!

That's our ride home.

Still crazy after our time in Chicago!

Now that we are on a traditional calendar for school, we get a 3 week Christmas vacation!  That is pretty awesome because we have time to celebrate the holiday with our family, but we also have time to sneak in a quick trip!  Mommy and Daddy wanted to give us a taste of a big city New Year's Eve celebration, so we took a trip to Chicago!  There was SO much to do and see there!!!  We visited lots of museums and ate tons of good food.  My favorite was the yummy deep dish Chicago style pizza at Gino's East.  We ate there twice on our trip because we all liked it so much.  I also loved eating hot dogs at Portillo's (even though I picked off everything except the bun and the ketchup!!)  They also served us a chocolate cake milk shake that was so delicious - it had real pieces of chocolate cake inside!!  

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun... even though we did spend a long time walking the streets of Chicago trying to find a bathroom for Danni!  (We finally snuck into a hotel bathroom!)  We ended up watching the fireworks outside on a bridge, while we munched on some yummy Garrett's popcorn!!  It was so weird to see all of the crowds of people partying in the street!!  It was a fun scene and very different from our New Year's Eves at home!!

Danni and I had also never experienced real winter weather until we visited Chicago.  While we were there, it snowed and it was SUPER cold!  In fact, when we left, the weather outside was 0 degrees ... and with the wind chill, it felt like -14!!  Danni and I got used to wearing winter gear... jackets, scarves, hats, and gloves!!!  One of the highlights of the trip for all of us was ice skating outside!  In California, we have only ice skated at indoor ice rinks... it was so neat to be able to ice skate outside, even though it rained on us!!  I got a new watch for Christmas that tracks our steps and mileage... we walked over 98 miles on this trip! We needed the exercise to burn off all of the yummy pizza!