Thursday, October 7, 2010

C H I C A G O

On Monday morning, bright and early, Caroline and I packed our things and headed for the train station!

This year Caroline decided that instead of having a party with her friends from school she wanted to go to the American Girl Place.  So that is what we did!

When we booked our tickets for the train we realized that the train tracks were under maintenance between the St Louis station and the Springfield, IL station.  Because of this, we could either ride a Greyhound bus from St Louis to Springfield or just drive to Springfield and catch the train there.  We chose to drive to Springfield.

Waiting in the station…

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Getting ready to board the train…

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Very excitedly waiting for the train depart…

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The train departed Springfield at 8:38am and arrived at Chicago’s Union Station at 12:20pm.  Caroline really enjoyed the train.

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When we arrived in Chicago we took a cab to our hotel.  It was Caroline’s first taxi ride.

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Once we checked in at the hotel and dropped our bags off, we did a little site seeing at the Hancock Building.

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We went to the 95th floor observatory, the thought of it makes me nauseous, but I managed!

We could see the Navy Pier…

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And other tall buildings…

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They gave us headphones and little radio things and gave an overview of what you were looking at out of each window.  Caroline kept getting mad because her headphones kept falling off…

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We had fun seeing the skyline of Chicago!

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After we left the Hancock building we crossed the street and went to a store that was right next door!

AMERICAN GIRL PLACE!!!

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The girl could barely contain her excitement.  She was going every which way and didn’t know what to look at first!  It was funny!

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Before the girl got her shop on, I surprised her with lunch at the cafe, where Molly joined us for lunch!

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The cafe was the cutest!  And Caroline loved every.single.minute.of.it!!

Our first course was cinnamon rolls, which were heavenly.

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Then we had appetizers…

which I didn’t get a picture of!  We had strawberries and cheese, soft pretzel balls with cheese in the middle and cucumber slices.

For our main course, I had a grilled chicken salad and Caroline had baked macaroni and cheese…

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Then we had dessert!  That is chocolate pudding in the flower pot, a flower shaped piece of cake and a butterfly sugar cookie.

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All of the food was fabulous and it was such a fun, sweet experience for Caroline!  After lunch, we did some shopping.  Caroline had made a list of the things that she wanted before we left so she got out her list and picked out all of her things.  She was spending her birthday money and I must say that she spent it wisely!  On a side note:  Caroline also chose to put a large part of her birthday money into her savings account too!

Back at the hotel she had to look at everything!!

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She was so excited that she finally got her Molly doll!!

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We were beat from our long day, so we decided to rent a movie and go to bed!

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The next morning we got up and went to Dunkin’ Donuts, which was right around the corner from the hotel.  Caroline loved the donut!!

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After our breakfast, we walked to the Navy Pier.  We stopped at the shore line and a nice woman offered to take our picture…

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And then we made our way to the pier…

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And we also stopped and took Caroline’s picture in front of the huge macaroni noodle!

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We walked the pier and did some early Christmas shopping.

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And then we rode this…

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After all of that we walked back towards our hotel, stopped for lunch and did a little more shopping and site seeing.

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Then we took another taxi ride to the train station for our ride home.  Molly enjoyed people watching at the station…

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Our train left Chicago at 5:15pm and we pulled into our driveway at 11pm.  It was a fun time and Caroline is already talking about going back!!

3 comments:

Cindy said...

What a great birthday celebration! I'm so glad you had fun girls time together...Happy Birthday Caroline!

Anonymous said...

The whole post made me smile. You are a fun mommy ...

Kelly said...

I looked at your Chicago pictures a while back and didn't comment. Your trip looked like so much fun! You covered a lot of ground. I bet you and Caroline needed that girl time. John and I walked in to the American Girl store before. It is crazy looking at everything they have. Kelly F