Daily Art - Foto Friday, Meerkat Edition

Why meerkats?  Why not.  Here's some meerkats I photographed at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  They look like they're having a great time.  Hope your Friday is just as fun!

Daily Travels - Chicago! (Part 2)

Continuing on our travels...I hope to have the last set of photos from our Chicago trip taken care of this weekend to share next week.  Meanwhile, heading on over to Millenium Park, which in itself has a wide variety of stuff to see.


We loved the Gehry designed pavilion, which seems like a beautiful place to sit outside and watch a concert (weather permitting of course as this probably isn't as much fun under 3ft of snow).  The pavilion stretches all the way back,and I can certainly see lawn chairs and picnics in the summer!

Then of course, we needed to take Bean to see "The Bean".  Ultimately, the best place to take strangely obscure pictures and put your finger prints on top of a million other people's.

Crown Fountain is possibly the coolest place to just splash around in hot weather that I've seen!  Two gigantic blocks spewing water into the space between them, complete with images projected on the blocks that change.  I had no idea what to make of it at first, but such a great feature for a park in the middle of the city.

In the meantime, any fun plans for Memorial Day weekend?  It's time for me to start working on the nursery...and by that I mean clearing space.  Let's see how far I get this weekend!

Daily Travels - Chicago! (Part 1)

In an effort to get in a short trip while I'm still able to travel comfortably (i.e. not hauling around an extra 30lb of baby, water and blood volume), husband and I decided to take a long weekend in Chicago.  Neither of us had been before and I do love a good adventure in a new town.

I will say that TSA was surprisingly helpful.  Both LAX and O'Hare have the new back-spatter x-ray machines, which I was electing to avoid so as not to subject Peanut to any weird radiation.  At both airports, I told the TSA agents that I was pregnant and would like to bypass the machine, and they nicely obliged both times letting me go through the regular x-ray machines with not so much as a pat down.

First stop was actually doctors orders - get some deep dish pizza!

 Then we went straight on to Wrigley Field.  I'm only familiar with Dodgers Stadium, which is massive in comparison.  The game was relatively uneventful, but a nice experience to check out the stadium.

 
Day 2, we hopped over to the Skydeck at Willis (formerly Sears) Tower.  I'm not afraid of heights, but when you're suspended in a glass box, 1,300 feet in the air, it is vertigo inducing.  In fact, you almost have to question the sanity of whomever thought it was a good idea to build said box and, no matter how big the rivets that are holding it together, it's unnerving!  There is another picture of me standing and kinda freaking out (which husband found highly entertaining), but I discovered that sitting and then scooting backward on my butt was better.  Looking down was absolutely not an option. The views were truly amazing though, despite it being a little hazy.

After grabbing a Chicago staple - an Italian Beef Sandwich - for lunch, we headed on over to Lincoln Park.  Walking through that area really reminded me of some of the neighborhoods in London, and definitely seemed like somewhere I could live (months with several feet of snow, and other months with hot, humid weather notwithstanding).  We decided to check out the zoo - one of the oldest zoos in the country, with the added bonus of being free to visit!

We'll leave that as the end of part 1 for now.  We saw a lot in the 72 hours we were in the city, and I have 350-ish photos to process, so another installment to follow...  :)