Day Three

Are you having fun yet?  I know I am.  Reliving our fabulous time.  Last night the big girls, daddy and I went through the two blog posts and looked at the pictures again.  It is crazy to me that we left two weeks ago today.

Anyway, on to day three!

The girls in our hotel room before their big American Girl shopping trip.  They each had a gift card that they got for Christmas.  The store was about 5 blocks away.  And, of course, we walked.  It turned out to be another balmy winter day in downtown Chicago.  Much to our advantage.  (Have I mentioned how great our trip was and how well the kids did?)

NG had her picture taken in front of the Molly display.  Unfortunately, because Samantha is retired, they didn't have a display for her so LM opted not to have her picture taken.

The biggest reason we traveled so far.  In the beginning of January.  Up north.  Was to see family.  Sometimes it can be hard living so far away from people you care about.  And it takes a lot of time, effort, money, patience, perseverance and drive to make it happen.  But, it is always, always, worth it.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my mom's cousins' girls.  Of course, as we grew up and our parents moved and life happened, college and marriage and families, we didn't really get to see each other all that much.  One of those "cousins" just happens to live in Chicago and, even though we didn't have a lot of time in the city, it was important to me to reach out to her and see if we could get together.  She is my age and has girls the exact same age as NG and LM.

So, we arranged to meet at the American Girl store.  Turns out her girls LOVE American Girl too.  So, not only did my girls get to go to their very first AG store, they got to do it with family they had never met before.  And, I got to catch up with my cousin who I hadn't seen in almost 15 years!

These are her girls (and my girls).  And, they all got along like they had been friends for years!  My girls have promised to write and are trying to find away to see them again in the future.

Each of my girls made hair appointments for their dolls, which the dolls desperately needed.  Here is Samantha in the salon.  She even got her ears pierced!

And this is Molly.  It was cute, you actually had to make an appointment.  We looked around and at our appointed time we went back and watched the dolls have their hair done.

These are the after pictures.  I should have taken before pictures!!  The dolls looked so nice!

We spent a considerable amount of time in the store.  Just soaking it all in and shopping.  The girls spent their money on outfits and accessories.  They had a bake shop, hospital and tea room, which we peaked at.  The even had a coat check room.  When we first arrived at 10, it wasn't very busy.  But, by the time we left, the place was packed!

The boys (and EG) spent all that time at the Lego Store.  Boop was in heaven!!  They had all kinds of characters and animals made out of Legos on display.  They has demonstrations and places to build your own Legos and computer games.  Along the back wall were drawers and drawers of replacement Legos.  And Boop and daddy filled up a container of Legos they thought they might need in the future.

After we were done at the AG store, all of the girls wanted to go to the Lego store as well.

On display in the  front window were downtown Chicago buildings made out of Legos.  It was crazy cool!!  The red Lego sign was made out of all Lego people.  The tall black building is the Sears Tower.

This backward "L" shaped building is the building we were in.  It is a mall of sorts.  Also, made out of Legos.  Who says Legos are just for kids?

We couldn't decide where to go for lunch.  Unfortunately we had to get back to the hotel to check out.  We had hoped to spend a little more time in the city visiting but we had no where to park the car.  (Parking is big time expensive in downtown Chicago!)  So, my cousin had a great idea to go to Ghirardelli's for an ice cream lunch!!  We love ice cream lunches!!

Me and my cousin.  I only wish we would have had more time to spend together!

As we walked back to our hotel, we passed by the Old Chicago Water Tower.  It was the only building left standing after the great Chicago Fire.

And what trip would not be complete without a picture of a huge Marilyn Monroe statute?!  I am still trying to figure out what connection she has to downtown Chicago.  But, here she is.

I wish we would have had more time in Chicago.  There was SOOOO much to do.  But, we had to check out by two and we were making our way to Milwaukee to spend the weekend with more family. Thankfully it was only about an hour and a half away.  More on that tomorrow . .