Well it was that time again... We decided to make one more trip to Brazil with Lara before she turned 2 and we had to start paying full price for her plane ticket! ;-) We were set to leave Nashville on 11-11-11. Our flight was leaving around 8:00am, so we decided we would go up the night before and stay in a hotel, so we didn't have to get up ridiculously early to make our flight! We found a great deal on a hotel that was right next to the airport that we could leave our car at essentially for free for 18 days! Woohoo! They even took us and picked us back up in the shuttle.
Unfortunately none of us slept very well at the hotel, but oh well, at least we didn't have to get up at 4am! :-)
Our flight from Nashville to Chicago was uneventful, and Lara was not afraid of the plane at all. I had a few fears that she might be upset, because for some reason she had been telling me that "airplanes scary" for the few weeks before we left!
We had a 12 hour layover in Chicago (yes, we are crazy and planned it this way!) We figured that as much as we travel it would be nice to see some new places along the way! Once we arrived in Chicago, we headed off to find the Train that would take us to the city. We found it pretty easily, but had a bit of a hard time trying to figure out which of the 30 machines we needed to use to buy our tickets... Apparently they do not sell the unlimited train/bus pass at the airport... makes no sense to me, but what can you do! The ride to the city was supposed to take about an hour on the 'L'. Lara was in desperate need of a nap, so I was a little concerned that she would be a booger :-) But, in typical Lara-fashion, so was fabulous, loved the train and even took about a 35 minutes nap on the train!
My only other concern for the trip was potty training. Lara had been doing great at home and only wearing diapers at night and nap time, so I didn't want to go back to diapers for traveling, but I was a little worried that with it being a new, crazy place that she would have more trouble. Well, she did not have ONE.SINGLE.ACCIDENT the whole trip! I was so proud! :-)
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| Here is sweet Lara riding on the L! |
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| Right before she fell asleep... She thought it was sooooo cool to see all of the trucks and cars driving by :-) |
Once we got into Chicago, our first stop (after finding a place that we could buy the unlimited pass) was the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower.)
I was a little put off by the price they were going to charge for us to go up an elevator, but we went for it anyways. We had a great time, and it was definitely a fabulous view of the city!
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| Lara loved pushing all of the buttons that would zoom out the picture to show what it looked like from the top of the tower. |
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| View from the top! |
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| Hello Chicago! |
Crazy glass bottomed "room". I was not a fan, but as you can see, Lara thought it was SO neat! :-)
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| Don't look down... yikes! |
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| Checking it out with Daddy! |
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| The three seconds that Lucas convinced me to go out there. Not even long enough for a good picture. I kept reminding him that I was heavier than normal... ;-) |
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| Crazy child... |
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| When I almost had a heart attack! ;-) |
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| Silly goose! |
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| ... I have no words! |
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| View from the bottom! |
After we came down from the tower, we decided to head over to get some deep dish Chicago style pizza! It was pretty tasty! We then decided to just walk around and look at things around the city since the weather wasn't near as cold as we had expected it to be. We tried to pack our carry-ons as light as possible since we knew we would be traipsing around the city! I sure was glad that we did, because I think we had to have walked at least 5 miles! But, it was great to see everything and get to "experience" Chicago!
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| We thought it was pretty funny that we saw this bus when we were walking around Chicago on our way to Brazil! :-) |
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| Finally got her to take another nap... unfortunately it was right when we got to the Children's museum. Oh well, some day we'll have to go back and check the museum out! |
We took several buses to get out to the Navy Pier, which is interesting when you have a sleeping child in a stroller... but we just sort of ignored the bus drivers that told us she couldn't be in the stroller on the bus ;-)
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| Finally made it to the Navy Pier! |
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| I love lighthouses! So cool! |
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| When we finally made it out to the end of the Navy Pier (it was WAY further than it looked!) We couldn't stay long because it was WINDY and COLD! |
We had a great time walking through and seeing the city! It was fun to see and definitely a place I would go back to! Even though people thought we were crazy for adding another 12 hours to an already long trip, I'm so glad that we did it! It really helped break up the trip and Lara was definitely exhausted by the time our plane left at 9:30 that night. On an exciting note, we were oh-so-pleasantly surprised to be given an additional seat for the flight! Since we weren't paying for her ticket, she was supposed to sit in our laps, but I have to say it was WONDERFUL for her to have her own seat and not be sleeping on me the entire flight!!! And she of course slept for the entire flight! :-) Yay!
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