Chicago in the Summer

While we were in Chicago for Uncle Bruce's wedding, we enjoyed the many things the city had to offer - we had no idea that Chicago could be that much fun!

We stayed near Bruce's apartment, at a place called Ray's Bucktown Bed & Breakfast. This place was very homey and ecclectically decorated, with a fantastic breakfast made to order. Grandma and Grandpa were even able to join us for free for a few mornings! Of course, the first night we were there, we had pushed Cecilia's bed up against a wall so she couldn't fall out of it, and the best thing to her was jumping from bed to bed. She kept that up for an hour.



In Chicago, we also discovered the Chicago Zoo and Lincoln Park. We went to the zoo with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Pattie, Uncle Rochester, Uncle Dick, and cousin Ethan. Here is a video composite of the zoo trip:



Cecilia had a fantastic time, and spent some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa:

Lincoln Park was pretty amazing, and we went back a second time later in the week. Immediately adjacent to the park, or perhaps part of it, is a really great beach, perfect for little kids as it is very shallow and has mild waves. Cecilia has never been one to turn down a beach.

New York Grandma went with us the second time, and we also went to a museum just outside of Lincoln Park, which had an awesome butterfly room.

 
That same week, we also visited the famous Millenium Park in Chicago. It was way to big to fully explore, but we spent quite a lot of time at the water fountains.

There is also a "Kids Fair" that goes on during the summer there, and there were tons of activities inside a big tent, including music and shows, hula hoops, building blocks, art projects, etc. Cecilia really enjoyed the blocks.



There are also lots of fantastic sculptures, etc in the park, including this huge reflecting sculpture. There are a lot of weird surfaces and curves as part of this sculpture, and you can stare at yourself from various angles.

And finally, we passed by one of the large jet fountains on our way back to the car. Cecilia was running in her flip flops toward this fountain and fell and scraped her knees pretty badly. But she was a trooper and still smiled and posed for the camera for this great shot of the family. What a good girl.

One of the last days we were there, we visited Uncle Dick, Auntie Sarah, and Ethan at their new house in Evanston. It was truly an impressive house, and Cecilia had a great time playing with Ethan's toys and the other adults. Quite a lot of time was spent chasing Grandma around!



And finally, here is a random video of Cecilia singing with Grandma:



We like Chicago so much, that it's made our short list of top 5 places to live. Of course, we only saw the summer... :)  The full set of pictures can be found here.