We left at about 6:45 on Saturday morning and drove straight to the Lincoln Park Zoo. We got there around 10 am and lucked out and got free street parking. Spencer's favorites were the gorillas, my favorite was the hippo, Jack's favorite was the dwarf crocodile and the sand boa, and David's favorites were the gibbons and chasing the birds during our picnic lunch ;)
We love the Lincoln Park Zoo and seriously can't believe that admission is free! And you can't beat the Chicago skyline in the background.
After four hours at the zoo, we were exhausted so we headed to a big grassy area to relax for a bit. After six months of cold weather, just sitting in the grass under the warm sun felt like heaven. This seems to happen every year, but when spring finally comes I feel like I come back to life even though I didn't even realize that I was dead. haha It's like my body says, "See?! This is what happiness feels like." #thewinterbluesisnojoke
At around 2 or so, we headed back to the van and got our bikes out to ride on the Lakefront trail.
Jack and David were excited :)
David fell asleep about one minute after we started biking! haha We wore him out!
This was my favorite part of the day - we had never biked Chicago yet and it was my favorite way to tour by far. There is just something about leisurely biking that makes me feel so alive!
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(Side note: In between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I went on a 6 week study abroad to Italy and England. By some stroke of luck, my dad happened to have an international business trip in London when I was in London, and he was in London the ONLY weekend that I had off, so we went to Paris for the weekend! We were there for three days, and we spent TWO of the days in Versailles riding bikes around the palace (because we had so much fun the first day!) Sometimes I look back and can't believe that we chose to go to Versailles again over seeing the Louvre and that we didn't even go INSIDE the Palace of Versailles (because we were having so much fun biking) but then I remember that riding bikes around the palace grounds (twice!) with my dad was one of the highlights of my entire 6 weeks in Europe :) Long story short, biking is the way to sight-see :) At least for me.)
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Now back to Chicago! We rode to Museum Campus then stopped for a minute to order Spencer's pizza since deep dish pizza takes about an hour to cook. Then we really debated about whether to ride into the heart of downtown (the Magnificent Mile area) because we thought it would be really tricky riding through all of the crowds but we decided to go for it! Turns out, it wasn't bad at all (we did avoid the Magnificent Mile though). Spencer said it was much easier pulling the boys through the crowds on a bike than pushing them through crowds in a stroller. We finally got to Costa Vida (at this point I was salivating and SO EXCITED for a sweet pork salad) and it turns out IT IS CLOSED ON WEEKENDS!!!! I have never heard of a restaurant that is closed on weekends and I was so so soooooo sad. I know we were in Chicago, home of the deep dish pizza and other amazing restaurants, but all I wanted was that darn Utah chain food. haha
We went from Costa Vida to Uno's Pizza to the original McDonalds (because Jack and David didn't like the pizza even though they ate it just fine last time we went to Chicago!) then to Magnolia Bakery (to get Spencer's favorite banana pudding) and then to Sprinkles cupcakes. The line at Sprinkles was out the door and took over a half an hour to get our Red Velvet Cupcakes but it was worth it!!! Jack and David did amazing the entire day and we surprisingly had no meltdowns! They were even happy waiting in line!
We got back to our car around 7 pm and then headed back home. It was such a perfect day and Chicago is way more fun (and easier!) when Spencer can play with us instead of sit in meetings!
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Chicago October 2015
Chicago March 2015
Chicago June 2014 with my mom and siblings was unfortunately not documented because I was taking a blogging break at the time
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