Mom! and Chicago

My mom got to come up and visit again. It was such a blessing to have my family visit just before Logan was born and I'm so glad my mom got to come up again to meet him. Ryan and I decided that since my mom was with us we should brave a trip up to Chicago so we could go to the temple and while we were there check out the city. Here was the plan: go to Chicago (check), go to the temple, go to the aquarium, and go to church there on Sunday. Pretty simple plan, apparently we aimed to high. We accomplished 1 of the 4 things on the agenda. At least we made it home safely and are a little more wiser for the ware for next time.
So we got checked in to our hotel Friday night and Saturday morning the girls slept in. Normally this would be GREAT news, they have been waking up at 6 am pretty consistently lately and are ALWAYS up by 7. So I didn't even think of setting an alarm. Well by the time we got up and dressed we would have made the 10 session, which meant the kids and mom would have been coped up in a hotel tell after noon. I didn't want to do that to the kids or my mom, so we came up with plan B. Go to the aquarium first and get back in time to make the 3 o'clock session. Plenty of time I thought. So we drive to the CTA (Chicago Transit something)-the bus system. We get on the subway and things are going great. This was my first time on a subway and I thought it was pretty cool. Well turns out they were working on the rail that weekend. Our trip downtown ended taking like an hour and a half! It was crazy and VERY stressful. We wouldn't have made it with out my mom. We needed someone to carry the stroller up and down the stairs (what happened to ADA requirements?) Someone to hold the baby and someone to chase the girls. We went from subway to bus to subway to getting out and having to walk to the next point-which totally sucked cause we got lost and it took forever to find, to getting back on the subway to getting on to another bus... you get the point. By the time we finally made it to the last stop, (well there was one more bus you could catch that would have taken us to the aquarium-but it just wasn't worth it) we realised there was no way we could make it to the aquarium and back before the temple closed. It had been such a stressful trip there and there was a chance we wouldn't have even made it so we continued onto the aquarium. Along the way we saw this cool art park-I don't know what else to call it-and decided to stop there and eat lunch. This was a GREAT idea because things always look brighter with a full stomach :). Logan decided it was time to eat too, so while I feed him the girls and Ryan and my mom checked out the art.





The girls were checking out some birds so Ryan decided to give them a treat-his words (I thought it was cute) and he got the rolls we were eating and feed the birds and let the girls feed the birds. They LOVED it. It was so cute and they had such a great time.




Oh, random experience. There was a bench near the one we were sitting at that had a bunch of stuff on it. I thought it was probably a homeless persons things but didn't see anyone around. Just before we left the pile started moving! Someone had been sleeping there the whole time and I didn't even know it.

So after everyone finished eating and feeding the birds we walked the rest of the way to the aquarium. So when we got there we saw this beautiful view.




After checking out the view we went to go inside. Um, yeah there was a HUGE line just to check into the aquarium. So we moved on to plan probably D by now. There was an advertiser there for a water taxi to the Navy Pier. I didn't know what was there, but I did think the girls would love the boat ride. I was right they did! This was the one thing that worked perfectly. We walked up and bought the tickets and the taxi showed up just then. It was wonderful.

Here's us inside the taxi and checking out the views.





One shining moment amongst the ciaos was a great mother daughter moment I had with Kaitlyn. She is talking really well now, but what I usually get from her are demands and wants for the day. But while we were on the taxi I took Kaitlyn out to the open part and we enjoyed the breeze in our hair and on our faces while she pointed out things she saw to me and we talked about it. It was really sweet and a great pleasure. One funny thing she kept talking about was the white water. She thought the wake was really cool because the water turns white. We also enjoyed looking at all the other boaters out and there was this really cool yellow speed boat that drove by. It looked like a really fancy car. I really enjoyed that moment and just tried to focus on that to help with all the stress of the day.


Me and my Mom at the Navy Pier


While we were enjoying resting and checking out the view we found some more birds to feed, and watched a jet skier show off for the crowds.



After that we went inside to check out the mall. They had a little stage and we saw a performance. Afterwards Em and Kaitlyn got on stage so my mom could take some pictures of them. I was nursing so I didn’t get any pics. All of a sudden the girls were surrounded by tourist paparotsi! There were at least 10 people taking their pictures and telling my mom how cute they were. Now I am a proud mom and I like it when people adore my girls as much as I do, but this made me pretty nervous! My mom handled it really well and no one touched the girls so they were ok. They were all telling mom they looked like perfect American girls. Too funny.

After that we rode some more public transit back to the hotel. While this went MUCH smother it still took 45 mins. with all the transfers. By the end of the day we had traveled on all most all types of transportation: bus, train, subway, boat, taxi (water), trolley, of course walking, our van and probably others I can’t remember. It was crazy. There were times I was terrified for my girls safety (mostly Kaitlyn) because she wanted to run around while waiting for the next train/bus. There were usually lots of people around and we were in Chicago, not exactly the best place to roam free. So of coarse since mom and dad were under a lot of stress and her safety was in danger she decided it was a GRAND day to acert her independence. Grrrrr. Oh I love that child, but sometimes she has WAY more will power than I can deal with. This of coarse raised my stress level even more. We were all glad to make it back to the hotel and take a much needed nap! Then dinner and then back to bed. Sunday we got up and read for church and left to arrive in plenty of time. Well the address we had was a second address for the temple not a chapel near the temple. I was very disappointed. After such a stressful day and not making it to the temple, I was really looking forward to attending church. No such luck. And Chicago is not a city that you could just drive around until you stumble upon a chapel so we headed home.
On the ride home we got some frosty’s for the girls. I assumed when we ordered that they’d give us straws, no such luck. Oh well. So the girls ate ice cream, in their car seats, in their Sunday dresses. Lol, here’s the result:




And Logan looking like a super stud in his church clothes Grammy brought for him



Baby Logan and his favorite Grammy



So a few lessons I learned from this trip:
• Don’t count 100% on public transit
• Check the website for updates on if and where work is occurring (I’m sure they have one)
• COMMUNICATE, communicate, communicate. If I had told Ryan that we needed to go to an 8 or at the latest 9 o clock session we would not have missed it
• Don’t assume people can read my mind. (see above)
• Expect delays
• Find a chapel online BEFORE you leave. When you get there your laptops wireless may suddenly stop working
• What is obvious to me is not always to others and visa versa. Again the communication thing
• Expect to be on plan Z by the time you make it home.
• One thing we planned well- food. It saved us many times! Having tons of healthy snacks on hand was a huge blessing.
• Concentrate on the small shining moments.
• Learn to roll with the punches and enjoy it.

Next time will go much better, however that won’t be for quite a while. If you ask Ryan not until our youngest is 5. Lol, I think we could attempt it again before then.