Chicago: Day 2 (Zoo, Michigan Avenue, Hancock Observatory)

On Tuesday, we started off the day by visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo. It takes about 45 minutes to get into the city, so we didn't arrive there until late morning.  The zoo has free admission, but you have to pay for parking, which is kind of backwards, to me.  It wasn't a large zoo, but we got to see plenty of animals.  Next, we headed to Michigan Avenue where there are tons of stores down several city blocks.  Brielle really wanted to go to the American Girl Doll store, where she purchased a cute swimming outfit for her doll.  That store had two floors and a place you can even get your doll's ears pierced! We browsed through other stores after that until we got hungry for dinner.  We ate at the Rainforest Cafe since we don't have one at home and the girls loved it!  They each bought a stuffed animal from their gift shop to add to their collection.  We also visited the Rock N Roll McDonald's.  It had 2 floors and a bunch of memorabilia from McDonald's throughout the years. Before we headed back to the hotel, we went to the top of the Hancock Observatory.  It looked so cool at night!  It is the 4th tallest building in Chicago--over 100 stories!  It was a very fun day and pretty exhausting!

Chicago: Day 1 (Arrival)

This month was exciting for our family because my younger brother was getting married--in Chicago--and our whole family was going!  I was really excited to see a new city and since my brother had lived there awhile, he could show us all the great places to see.  We flew out early on a Monday morning and the girls loved flying on an airplane.  They did really well for the long flight.  Once we reached Chicago, it was about a 30-45 minute drive to where my brother lived and our hotel was located.  We got checked in to our hotel (which was having a "Christmas Convention" of all things!) and then relaxed at my brother's apartment.  He had a pool in his complex which made the girls happy, too!

First Piano Recital

Even though my girls have taken piano for awhile, this was their first official recital.  They were pretty nervous about it, but they practiced really hard and did a great job!

St George: The Quinta Year

Last year started the yearly tradition of going to St George as a family.  This year my girls were determined to catch a lizard and keep it as a pet! We would see a lot of lizards crawling around the swimming pool area each day and they thought with Nick's help, they could catch one.  (Nick has told the girls of many lizard catching adventures when he was a kid).  One day during our trip, they kept seeing lizards on the walls.  Nick grabbed a take-out box from our car and helped them trap one in the box (you can see it sticking its head out of the box in one picture).  Once they caught it, they named it Quinta (for the hotel we were staying at). They made a trip to the store to buy an official cage for him (don't know how they decided it was a boy) and spent some time making a "natural" environment for him.  They fed him ants, which were surprisingly not very plentiful in St. George. He ended up living for almost a month though after we brought him home.  It was quite the adventure! We still swam every day, Brielle and I saw The Little Mermaid, we went to movie, but Quinta was definitely the highlight of our trip!

Spa Day

 

Brielle and her friend, Brylee, decided they wanted to have a Spa Day. They used a facial mask recipe from a Fancy Nancy book.  It looked easy for them to make, but I didn't consider how banana and honey might not be good if it dripped into their hair!  All that matters is that they had fun though, right? And they looked younger, too!

Fourth Grade Rendezvous

Nick always seems to be the one available to go on field trips and I am jealous he got to go to the 4th grade rendezvous at Fort Buenaventura this year.  It sounded like so much fun!  Nick was in charge of loading kids into the canoes where they could row across a pond.  They also did a tug-of-war, watched a mountain man load a black-powder rifle, participated in a hatchet throw, shot taffy out of a cannon, and ate fry bread.  How cool is that?  This was a perfect field trip for a dad to go on though.  I can't wait until Brielle gets to go and hopefully Nick can go again.

Raising Butterflies

Every year for the last couple years, my mom has given my girls caterpillars to grow and turn into butterflies.  We keep them in a net basket on our bar and watch them go through all the stages from caterpillar to butterfly.  After they have hatched out of their chrysalis, we feed them oranges and let them get their wings stronger for about a week.  On a non-windy day, my girls take them to a big open space and let them go.  They took a few friends with them this year to release the butterflies and the butterflies started landing on their hands and shirts!  They love this amazing tradition!