Our Big Trip to "Avocado"

Sorry for the blogging break! We were out of town for a week, and since we've been back the garden has been EXPLODING and I've been spending most of my free time freezing and canning things. :)

A couple of weeks ago we went to Chicago so LL could attend a veterinary conference. Collette, who has never heard of Chicago, kept calling it "Avocado," which I guess is the word she knows that sounds most similar to "Chicago." :)  Today she was playing with her baby doll and told me I needed to watch her because "I'm going to Avocado for twenty days." Ha!

Anyway, since LL needed to attend the conference for Continuing Education (CE) and I needed to get 58 hours of CE for my certification this fall, we decided to have a kid-free time and both get our stuff done and have a little vacation on the side! My parents were AWESOME and kept the kids here at our house. I have attempted to edit the pictures so we just hit the highlights of the trip. (You're welcome.)

We actually left the night before our flight, since it left out of Delaware at 6:00am.  Instead of just staying at a dumpy motel near the air port, my sweet hubby surprised me and we stayed at a super cute inn, which is featured in the 1,000 Places to See Before you Die in the USA and Canada (side note: we have both the original and the USA & Canada version of this book, and they are so. fun. Seriously, go check them out. I'm not doing so great on the brevity, am I?) Anyway, we stayed at The Inn at Montchanin Village, and had dinner at their amazing restaurant, Krazy Kat's. So. Good.

Then it was off to Chicago! Our first day there we didn't have any plans, so LL talked me into doing a tour of the city on a Segway.  I thought for sure I'd hate it or crash or something, and all I couldn't think of was Paul Blart, Mall Cop, but we did it, and it was so much fun!! LL was right, once again. :)

Ready to ride!

 

At the Buckingham Memorial Fountain:

The next day was also a free day for us, so we decided to hit up a place called Yolk for breakfast, which was recommended by the locals. It was incredible.  We went back several mornings. :)

Posing by Yolk's appropriately colored walls.

We left Yolk and walked to The Field Museum, where we proceeded to stay until it closed and they kicked us out.  No lie.  And there was still a bunch of stuff we didn't see! The museum is enormous.

To give you an idea of scale, we took this from the third floor.  That is a full sized T-Rex and Woolly Mammoth on display and they don't even look big. 

 

This is "Sue," named after the fossil hunter who found it.

It's "the largest, most complete, and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found,"

according to the Museum.  Very cool.

 

We even saw a 3-D movie about Sue. :)

 

They had a ton of other fun stuff, too.  The exhibit on Egypt was one of our favorites, too.

 

That night, LL had another surprise for me- a dinner cruise, complete with fireworks! It was beautiful and so great to just have an adult dinner-- no cutting up food and feeding little people, no saying 25 times, "Use your fork. Turn around. Sit down. Don't eat with your fingers." I ate my entire meal while it was hot! :)

 

The next night we had dinner on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Observatory, with the Vets from LL's district.  It was definitely one of the fanciest places we have every eaten! It was gorgeous watching the sun set over Chicago and Lake Michigan.  Pictures don't do it justice.

 

The next few days LL did his CE at his meetings, I stayed at the hotel and did my CE, and then we did fun things in the evenings.  Mostly, we did a lot of this:

 

 

Eating, eating, and more eating of fancy foods. 

Have you met my husband? He was in his foodie glory!

And since LL knows tons of people, we got to reconnect with friends we rarely see.

 

 

One night we did dinner at the Shedd Aquarium:

 

LL and one of his mentors form MSU-CVM goofing off by the Sting Ray touch exhibit:

   

I got to touch one!

 

Another night the AVMA hosted a Family Fun Night at the Lincoln Park Zoo:

 

 

They even sponsored a crazy photo booth. We're such wild and crazy kids.

 

It was an amazing week! We both got all of the CE we needed and had a great time reconnecting as people, not just as parents.  Of course, it's hard to leave that parenting role behind. 

Here was LL as we left Chicago:

His carry-on items included one T-Rex Pillow Pet in it's own backpack, and one Bitty Baby from the American Girl Store. :) Both of which will be birthday or Christmas presents. :)