Road Trip Part 3 - Chicago

On Monday morning we walked a couple of blocks to rent bikes for the day. We biked the lakefront trail around Lake Michigan all the way up to Lincoln Park. It was a beautiful ride! 

Keegan rode with Jeff and Ava pedaled on tandem with me. 

Ready for the day!

Heading into Lincoln Park....It is such a pretty park. We only saw half off it but the bike trail sent us straight to the zoo entrance. We enjoyed a couple of hours at the Lincoln Park Zoo but it was hot!  

The gorilla habitat was incredible.  This guy came right up to Ava at the window!

And there were several little ones to watch. 

Heading into the tiger exhibit.. The buildings are so old and beautiful. But of course all the cats were sleeping. 

We rode back to the beach around 1 and it was so hot! The boys pulled over and waited while Ava and I jumped into the Lake to cool off.

Hello cold and deep Lake Michigan! We're jumping in!

We spent a couple of hours on Oak Street beach and let the kids play...

We returned our bikes and walked to our hotel, stopping of course for free slurpees at 7-11 on 7/11 :)

That evening we decided to try Lou Malnatis' for dinner on our way to Willis Tower. These girls were dressed and ready for an evening out :)

Jeff had deep dish again. (When in Rome....) The kids had chicken and I tried a pasta dish. It was really good. We agreed Malnatis was better than Giordano's. 

We shared a Cookie Monster for desert. 

I'm not sure Keegan liked it ;)

We took the train over to Willis Tower. This was really fun! We were going to take a cab but saw the station near the restaurant and took it on a whim. It only took a few minutes. 

We took the 'skydeck experience' elevator to the 103rd floor of Willis Tower. The views were amazing. 

We walked out on the glass ledge! 103 stories above the city. 

Not scared.

We took a cab back to the hotel to swim and relax. 

Ava was so excited to ride in a taxi for the first time! We walked past several on the street to get to this one because it was yellow. It had to be a 'real' yellow cab. Ha! The driver was so nice and told her to get a picture in front of his cab :)

We were tired from the day! But so thankful for a fun day of adventures. 

Road Trip Part 2- Chicago!

We spent three amazing days in the beautiful city of Chicago! We had a long list of everything we wanted to see and do! We spent Saturday night 30 minutes outside the city in Itasca. The kids swam for a bit then we went to bed early so we could hit the city early! We checked our bags and parked the car at our hotel downtown and took off for Michigan Avenue at 10am Sunday morning!

Ready to walk the city!

Michigan avenue was so beautiful. The mix of high end stores with old architecture was so neat. 

The Wrigley building 

Chicago Riverwalk 

First stop - Fannie May chocolates! A friend of Jeff's told him it's one of the things he misses about living in Chicago so we grabbed him (and us) a box. 

The kids had a hard time choosing! They were not disappointed :-)

Second stop - Millennium Park!

We walked through the park over to Maggie Daley Park. 

It was a really neat urban park! The kids ran around and played for an hour. 

We walked over to Crown Fountain to cool off and have lunch...

Checking out the L Train at lunch...

Shopping on Magnificent Mile! Disney store.....

Then onto American Girl...

Me and my girl walking down Michigan Ave

A very happy Ava! She named her new doll Angela :)

We checked out a few other places in the water tower place...

Harry Caray's

Then we headed back to the hotel for some afternoon swimming

We walked a few blocks over to Giordano's for some Chicago deep dish. It was really good pizza! 

We ended the day at Oak Street Beach after dinner. We walked and played and just enjoyed the beautiful way Lake Michigan borders the city. 

Photo bombed by the lifeguard! Ha!

It was the perfect ending to our first day in Chicago! We walked back to our hotel for the night to rest up for the next day.

Two tired girls ready for bed :)