final catch up: Chicago and other randoms

I've decided to shove the last bit of our vacation into one big post because I'm tired of 'catching up'! On the Tuesday after Christmas we went to Chicago. Lance's brother Lincoln and his wife Tracey are right outside of the city doing medical school. Our plan was to spend the night at Lincoln's and then head to Shedd aquarium the next day.

We all crammed into their little apartment and froze all night long...well at least I did. Because they have electric heating they keep their thermostat in the 50's. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much and in the morning when Lance got up with Z I stole all the covers and relished being warm again!
We ate a quick breakfast and headed to the city. Here is our first glimpse. I realized as we arrived that our camera battery was almost gone. I was so mad at myself for not thinking to charge it, but we ended up having enough.
We headed straight to the aquarium and it was a nightmare from the start. We went to park in the lot next door and waited FOREVER. The really annoying thing was that people kept butting in line and then when we finally got to the lot the person before us (who had butted) got in, but they told us they were full. We ended up parking about a 1/2 mile away and walking.


Once we arrived at the aquarium they told us the line was an hour and a half! I was already grumpy from the lack of sleep + the parking mess and was not happy! Fortunately a nice worker told us to go to a family line because Z is too little to stand out in the cold (it was VERY cold!). We went over to the other line and they told us that we couldn't be there because we didn't have a stroller (our stroller got lost on the airplane ride out...). We told them that the other lady sent us and they said that me, Lance and Z could stay but everyone else would have to wait in the other line.

Well, the others decided to go check out some other sites and we decided to meet up later. Later ended up being sooner though after we waited in line for twenty minutes and only moved a few feet. It was just too cold and we do not have a toddler who is capable of waiting in line. We decided to bag the aquarium. The grouchy workers and rude people in line added to that decision. In a few short hours I developed a very low opinion of "Chicagoans".

We called the others and headed over to the shore of lake Michigan to meet them. All of the other museums were way too expensive to do with Z because we knew his attention span wouldn't be long enough to get our money's worth. On the way to meet our group we snapped a few pics of the city skyline.Lance and Z went down on a very slippery dock. It made me nervous just watching them!
Lake Michigan was so pretty, but at this point Z literally had a meltdown. He wouldn't leave his gloves on and his hands got so cold he screamed the whole mile walk back to the car. I felt awful. I was really worried he would get frostbite because they were so red and he would not let us do anything to help warm them up. Frankly, I was quite happy to see the city in the rearview mirror after that! We've decided that next time we go we need to be better organized, go when it's warm, and Z needs to be older so that it's worth the money.

Luckily he has a short memory and after we got him to the car and warm he was his happy little self again!

We headed back to Springfield, resolved to stay close for the rest of our vacation. The rest of our trip felt very relaxing! We had a blast soaking up family time.



We were really sad to leave and even now Z is missing his grandparents (and all the attention) like crazy, but after an hour+ delay on our flight home, we were VERY happy to be done with traveling for a while!Time to start planning our next vacation I guess! :)