Friday, November 30, 2012

our thanksgiving holiday.

This year we traveled to Illinois for the Thanksgiving holiday. We have stayed home the past few years and enjoyed Friendsgiving with our good friends Brooke & Scott. A few days later we usually traveled up to Fergus Falls to enjoy another Thanksgiving with more friends.

I'm not sure what exactly it was that swayed us in our decision to travel this year but I'm glad we did. We planned on eating Thanksgiving dinner at my dad's cousin's house. They have family dinners a few times a year and it's been a long time since we've been to one. Unfortunately we got word late that it was cancelled as many people were traveling out of town or had other commitments. Last minute I set it up with my mom for the three of us to have Thanksgiving dinner with her and my stepdad. Unfortunately that meant that my dad didn't have plans but we did take a big plate of food home for him.

We arrived late Wednesday night. Thursday morning we woke up and went downtown for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. We usually feel pulled in too many directions when we visit home and rarely get a chance to do things that we want to. It seems the theme of this trip was a little more about our immediately family rather than struggling to please others and it was quite nice. Olive loves going downtown and we were fairly certain she would enjoy the parade so, before committing to seeing anyone in town, we headed on our adventure.

If you don't know us you might not know - I'm from just outside of Chicago and Tyler is from Iowa.  I lived in Chicago went to the University of Illinois at Chicago and Tyler moved to Chicago after living in Minneapolis.  We met in Chicago and moved to Minneapolis just a few weeks before we got married in 2007.

I had my phone and my camera along so this post is FULL of photos. FULL. There are so many photos and things are busy (as always) so I didn't get a chance to edit much.. forgive me? Also forgive the horrible terrible watermark placement in some of these. Yikes.



Before we left Olive had to "ooo" for a long time which was actually wonderful timing as UPS showed up with a package that contained some vitamins for my mom just as we were getting into the car.



Sleepy.  Car crazy.



Reading about our road trip to Washington in May.



We arrived fairly late so I threw together a couch cushion bed on my old bedroom floor and Olive slept in her clothes.



We woke up and headed downtown to catch some of the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  We munched on seaweed on the drive.  There are big big boxes at Costco which makes it even more of a wonderful snack because its so cheap!



We parked in Pilsen and waited for a pink line train.


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This is by far my favorite stop and one of my top three most used stops.



Sweet home, Chicago.

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We got off at State and watched the parade by the Chicago Theatre.

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Olive spent some time on my shoulders.

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And then switched to Tyler's.

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ha.

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We went down Randolph, just a block from the Oriental Theatre where Tyler and I used to work.  There were a few families with small kids watching the big parade balloons head this way to be deflated.

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Olive was pretty curious.

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I think it was a better experience than watching the actual parade.

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Then some lightbulbs showed up.

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And people popped out.

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Olive made friends with this little girl who is one month older than her.

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She really liked to gently pet her soft coat.

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It's not too often you can plop down in the middle of a downtown Chicago street.

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I heard some kids saying Arthur was going to sleep.

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We needed to find a bathroom for myself and Olive so we went to Millennium Park.  Once we got to the bathroom Olive apparently didn't have to go.

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Darn watermark. Look at Olive's hair.

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When I worked for Blue Plate Catering I did catering service for a really fancy event on this stage.

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I thought Olive might enjoy the bean.  I've never seen it so busy before.  Actually I've only looked at it a couple of times.  Never felt like a thing for a Chicagoan to do.



See us?

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Olive likes the sidewalk drummers.

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It was time to head to my mom's house to get ready for our Thanksgiving meal.  We waited for the Pink Line again and Olive had a front row seat.

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Some more of my favorite stop. The 18th street Pink Line station.

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I miss Pilsen a lot.  There's a Costco on the other side of this viaduct now. How weird is that?



Olive was worn out and took a little nap with her mango on the drive to my mom's house.



I got her changed into a nice dress in the bathroom.  She was super snuggly and we sat on the floor like this for a long time before she was ready to come out to say hi to her Nini, to Wally, the dog, and the birds.


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My mom wanted a photo like Olive and I do on our bed.  Tyler took some photos of us taking photos.

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This was the best we got.  Olive was not enthusiastic.

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But it was fun.



My mom gave Olive some holiday headbands.



They tried them on together.



And switched.  And Olive oozed cuteness.



Wally found something behind her ear.



$20!



And then he taught her to put it in her shirt.

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On Friday we ran a couple of errands with my dad, got beef at Portillo's, and went downtown again.  Olive fell asleep in the car again so we drove around and parked in Lincoln Park.

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After she woke up we bundled up and went to look at the lake.  Despite the previous day being amazing Friday was really chilly and windy.

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We decided to leave it up to the tiny toddler as to whether or not we should go all the way out to the water.  She said yes.

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So we ran through the sand.

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And we looked at the water for a few minutes before running back to the car.

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Useful.



We were pretty cold and pink.  Olive's right cheek isn't red because that's the side of her face that was up to Tyler.


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We drove south a little and over the Lincoln Park Zoo & Conservatory.

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We thought we would go into the warm and pretty conservatory.  It was closed.

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The zoo was open but it was still windy and cold so we tried to run from building to building.

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Zoo Lights was starting that night so the finishing touches were being put on all the displays.

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We saw lions and tigers.  And tried to go the bathroom but again Olive didn't have to.

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It was mostly kind of sad to me.  Though not as sad as Como Zoo here in MN.

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I used to go to this zoo a lot when I was a kid.



Olive made a friend.  She really liked the mice and the snakes in the reptile and rodent building.

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This guy is a new dad.  In another room we saw a 5 day old gorilla and a 1 month old gorilla.  We saw one of them breastfeeding, too.

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Olive is telling this lady "eeee! eeee! eeee!"

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Looked fun but I think it was $5 to go in a circle.

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Hey closed conservatory.  Maybe next time.

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And more running.

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We picked up my mom and headed to downtown Downers Grove for the tree lighting activities.

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Nothing was happening and no one was there when we arrived.

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We went to Starbucks for some treats and then popped into the Tivoli Theatre.  My mom hadn't been there in a really long time.

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My mom wanted me to take a photo in this general direction.

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And she wanted me to take a photo of this.

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Main Street station all dolled up.

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This was a good way to end the night.



On Sunday morning we packed up and headed downtown to eat at the Pancake House in Lincoln Park.  I used to go here a lot when I was little.  The waitresses new me.  Our friends who own a lighting gallery down the street told me a few days ago that they would call ahead when I was coming to give the waitresses a heads up.  I would walk in and say "I'm here!!!" and they would all be excited.  haha!  It's become sort of a tradition for us to get breakfast here before we drive back to Minnesota.  They have gluten free pancakes now!