Chicago You're My Kind of City...

I have three words to describe our trip to Chicago. FUN! FUN! FUN! For those of you in need of the back story as to why we chose Chicago as our spring break destination, here it is...my childhood friend (and the girls' godmother) Mara has lived right down in the city for over two years. She is moving (as of today) to Dayton, OH to be with her honey Mike and to start a new fabulous job. I figured I better squeeze in one last visit to Chicago before said move (I have gone two other times without kids) because I wasn't sure if I would be as inclined to jet it to Dayton. However, in Dayton's defense, I haven't ever been there so maybe it holds something totally awesome that I have yet to discover. I do know that it is not the home of the Daytona 500 as I was once led to believe and did believe for quite some time (thanks Mike...in Mike's defense he says he doesn't remember telling me that, but I totally remember being told)!

Anyway...the trip was awesome, we got to do everything we planned and then some, it was still quite relaxing as we were always home and in our pjs by 8pm, and the girls are at the perfect traveling age...old enough to be very flexible, but young enough to be very excited about everything we did! I shudder to think of the impending vacation where they complain of boredom and wanting to stay home with their friends. Mara even commented how she could really get into this kid thing because it was so much fun and easy (we bought umbrella strollers and pushed the girls all over the city...no whining about tired legs and no barking at for walking too slow). I made sure to not mention those oh so fun traveling years between zero and four!

Now, without further ado, get ready for an onslaught of photos. The next few days will be a virtual blow by blow of our windy city adventures. Don't worry...I have carefully selected only the premium photos. I will not make you sit through a slide show of the 211+ shots that were captured. And away we go...

The little ladies waiting in line at the Seattle airport security. Their carry on bags were packed to the gills with all the traveling essentials...
All plugged in and ready for the 4 hour flight. Momma even squeezed in some reading and a nap...

Sisterly love at 30,000 feet. High Altitudes = Good Attitudes...

The first three days of our trip we stayed in Mara's aunt's high rise condo on the lake (she was out of town). We were on the 25th floor and the views were quite amazing. I especially loved spying in the neighboring condos. One couple had red walls and a toddler and another had a bit of a hording problem...

Another shot from Aunt Mary's balcony. If you look closely you will see the train running in the middle of the photo and just in front of and below the tracks is a green square. The green square is the play area (AstroTurf) for an elementary school. A much different school experience than our girls will probably ever have...

Looking out Aunt Mary's bedroom balcony you can see Lake Michigan. It is so "great" one might mistake it for an ocean...

Thursday morning we woke to sun and decided it was a perfect zoo day with a stop first at Mara's favorite sandwich shop Potbelly Sandwich Works. At Potbelly's the wall are adorned with "graffiti". The girls decided to leave their mark. Who knows, maybe some day we'll come back and find it still there...

Or maybe not...since you can hardly see the names now...

Outside the original Potbelly Sandwich Works. It is yum, yum, yummy. Not only do they have traditional sandwiches, but they have a great big scoop of ice cream sandwiched between two even bigger warm chocolate chip cookies. Even though the shop is named after an antique stove, one might get a pot belly if they were a frequent frequenter...

Not only does the lion sleep at night, but he sleeps all day long too. For some reason I got a crink (or crick depending on who you ask) in my neck and I had to move like (in Mara's words) Kermit the Frog for a whole day. Apparently I also had to do the exaggerated lean for all pictures. If you look real hard you will see a sleeping lion in the background, thus making my "lion sleeps tonight" remark make sense...

There are a few really cool things about the Lincoln Park Zoo. #1...it is FREE. #2...it is really good even though it is free. #3...it is really quite large. And #4...the animals are really close to the people. Yes the giraffe is as close as it looks and by golly, giraffes are really tall...

You can take the girls out of Montana, but you can't take the Montana out of the girls...

Hip Hip Hipporay another photo op...

This big daddy was pretty much ignoring everyone and everything that was going on around him. However, at one point he turned very slowly and I swear he made eye contact with my little monkeys...

Where ever there is a carousel our girls must go carouseling. They totally love those things...

One last picture for the day. One of the many things I like about Chicago is there are parks throughout the city. Amongst the high rises you will find long green areas to run your dog or lounge on a sunny day. There are also little playgrounds sprinkled throughout. Very nice...

On tomorrow's installment of "Windy City Wonders" Lena and Annika experience nirvana at the American Girl Doll store (and we're not talkin' the early 90's Seattle grunge band). Stay tuned...