The Five-Year-Old Vacation, Day One: Chicago

In November of 2009, our family (which consisted of just Craig, Julia, Savanna and myself at the time) went on a vacation to the mid-West to visit Craig's extended family (both on his mom and his dad's sides.) Probably because I was very pregnant at the time, attending school, and because it was right before the madness of the holidays, I never wrote anything about it on the blog, except for this convenient list of things to consider while traveling with children. (Apparently we were pretty traumatized by the experience because we have not flown with our children again since then. Take that, family-unfriendly airlines.)

So, when I was going through old pictures looking for something, and I came across the, as yet, undocumented Double-Thanksgiving Extravaganza of 2009, I thought, what the hey? There's no statute of limitations on posting old vacation photos, right? And, since I am trying to post every day this month (both because it's National Blog-Posting Month and also because I'm a little bit crazy), it's quite a convenient place to insert this wealth of pictures from five years ago.

Two birds. One stone.

Enjoy.

First, we flew to Chicago

The first stop was for Chicago-style pizza. The girls were so hungry at this point, and the pizza took so long after we ordered it that they were eating Parmesan cheese out of the jar while we waited. Mmmmm.

The next day we visited some steamy indoor botanical gardens 

which were a perfect break from the cold Chicago fall.

 On our way downtown, we saw some funny sights...

...and then visited "The Bean" at Millennium Park.

We followed up with a late lunch on the millionth floor of the Hancock Tower...

...had a blast at the Chicago Children's Museum,

enjoyed the night-time view,

and crashed into a dead sleep.

Good grief, Craig must have planned this vacation. I'm tired just looking at the pictures.

And this was only the first day.

Stay tuned for more, if you dare.