Day: June 23, 2015

Whirlwind morning in Chicago

I was so excited to be in Chicago that I only managed to sleep two hours. I tried to go swimming at 4 am, but the health club opened at 5. The hotel pool overlooked downtown Chicago, and I watched the fog burn off of the skyscrapers as I swam. It was so extremely enjoyable that I swam for an hour.

After that, we let the kids sleep in for another hour because they didn’t fall asleep until midnight last night. Abe woke them up in this funny video.  They had been sleeping like this:

IMG_0694After breakfast, we walked to Buckingham Fountain.

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Mary fell in love with this banana at breakfast and declared that it was special to God. She carried it like a lovey for the whole walk...until she dropped it in the street and watched, horrified, as a white car zoomed on top of her banana and it exploded in pieces. Her ensuing meltdown lasted until we bought her a replacement banana at the hotel bakery.
Mary fell in love with this banana at breakfast and declared that it was special to God. She carried it like a lovey for the whole walk…until she dropped it in the street and watched, horrified, as a white car zoomed on top of her banana and it exploded in pieces. Her ensuing meltdown lasted until we bought her a replacement banana at the hotel bakery.

Then we drove to Lincoln Park Zoo.

At the front of the zoo.
At the front of the zoo.
We rode the endangered species carousel. Mary declared that it was fun and reminded her of Disneyland.
We rode the endangered species carousel. Mary declared that it was fun and reminded her of Disneyland.

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The primates were extremely active today.
The primates were extremely active today.

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The girls also enjoyed the tiger.
The girls also enjoyed the tiger.
In the gorilla house.
In the gorilla house.
Watching flamingos.
Watching flamingos.
In the shuttle on the way back to O'Hare from our car rental place.
In the shuttle on the way back to O’Hare from our car rental place.

And now we are home. We had a wonderful trip, and the only issue we faced involved temperature control. Aside from the fact that all of our hotels had in-room air conditioning problems, I found the humidity of Illinois to be oppressive. Basically, I discovered that I belong in Utah. However, when we got home we discovered…our air conditioner is not working. Tomorrow I am taking the girls to the air conditioned movies to kill the time until the AC guy comes over.