Krista actually stayed with us for 9 days, so her 2nd weekend here overlapped with my parents staying with us. Thankfully the Sunday they were all here turned out the be the warmest day we'd had yet - mid-50's and sunny. So we packed up a picnic lunch and took off for the city, to spend some time at Lincoln Park Zoo and stroll Wicker Park for dinner. We drove in two cars to the zoo, and it was a calatmaty of events, to say the least, in finding parking and meeting up at the zoo. Let's just say it took us well over an hour once we got to the zoo to find parking and meet up together - thank goodness everyone was willing to laugh it off!
So by the time we all met up, it was lunch time and we set up shop for a picnic. Chicago has two zoos, and the Lincoln Park Zoo is free. It's AWESOME! The other zoo is bigger, with more animals, but this zoo is still pretty top-notch - Lions, tigers, gorillas, monkeys, zebras - the whole gamut. And it's location is hard to beat - a beautiful view of the city and a quick walk down to the beach. After basking in the spring sunshine for our picnic, we set out to see the animals.
First we checked out the tiger, who was just taking a nap:
Then we hit up the monkey house - monkeys are always so funny to watch! Madeline wasn't quite sure what to make of some of these monkeys - they really fly around!
And she really wasn't sure what to make of the gorillas - they are HUGE! I love how this guy was just taking a little snooze, kicking his feet up.
And the Lion is always impressive, of course.
One of Madeline's favorites (based on her two times at the zoo!) is watching the seals. You can watch them from under water, and they love to swim laps. It is really fun to watch them swim right by you in the water tank.
After we saw some animals, Madeline caught sight of the Carousal and we had to check it out. The first and only movie that Madeline has been into is Mary Poppins, and she loves the Carousal scene. So we waited in the long line to get on this Carousal, and she was chomping at the bit to get on it. Then we got on it, however, and that's when the melt down happened. (also, at this point, we had cruised right through her nap time and she was rather exhausted). A big siren goes off to let you know the Carousal is about to start up, and then these huge Carousal animals start bobbing up and down, and it totally freaked her out! It was kind of hilarious, and she was not about to be put on an animal. Eventually she calmed down and just clung to Nana. But Krista was a good sport and showed Madeline how this works. Maybe next time Madeline will brave riding an animal on the Carousal!
We ended our day in Wicker Park, and fun and trendy neighborhood of Chicago that we've never brought our parents to. Once again, it was a calamity of errors walking around trying to find the restaurants we'd scoped out on Yelp, so we ended up just eating at an Italian place we found. But the food was good and we were all glad to sit down for awhile after walking all day. All in all it was a great day in the city!
After Krista left, my parents stayed on for another week and watched the girls for us. My goodness, we were lucky to have family come watch our girls for three weeks this spring! Madeline and Isabel had a great time with Nana and Grandpa, and for the most part I think they enjoyed hanging with their granddaughters as well. Madeline, as always, gave Nana a run for her money. But they had some fun times, baked some cookies, went to a music class on Wheaton's campus, read lots of books, and went for walks. It would have been nice to have had some warmer days, but c'est la vie. On thier last night here, we took them out to Meson Sabika, our favorite Spanish tapas restaurant in the area, and thanked them for helping us out. It's so fun to get to have a "double date" with them - wish we could do it more often! But we had a great time with them - thanks Nana and Grandpa for coming!
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