Some people like to call the time when you are not at disney the in between, or real life updates.
I like to call it the Living Life. Why stop living life and having a blast when you are not on vacation, make special moments with your family/friends all the time.
Do these things have to cost a ton of money, nope, can they be free absolutely, are they fun, as long as you put a little effort in they are.
Our family outings dont just stop when the camping season comes to a close up here in the midwest. We find other things to occupy our time and make memories for the kids, and us of course.
This last Saturday we ventured off to the mystical land of Chicago for a fun family day. It was a great weather day for December. hovering around 60 degrees all day long.
We walked down Michigan Ave.
and stopped at the Disney store (see disney related trip), a quick look turned into a quick buy. There were some disney chicago skyline shirts with mickey on clearance for 3 bucks. how could we pass that up, and then 40%off decorations, so a tree skirt with mickey and minnie was had to replace our current one, plus we had a 10 off coupon. brought the 70 dollar tree skirt to a more managable 32 bucks.
a bell ringer asked parker if he wanted to give the bells a go around.
he happily accepted.
while my dad ran the purchases back to the parking garage a mere 4 blocks away we ventured off to the plaza by the WGN radio and NBC building.
for giant christmas tree #1 of the day. also the spot where they filmed the
Chicago Christmas kickoff parade with mickey and friends lighting the lights from. (disney related #2 item of the day)
ohh and in case you read along our last report where we went with my parents here they are again.
The reflective Bean that is Millenium park
provides alot of fun photo ops for people.
the kids underneath it.
under it looking up at all the different angles you can make out.
one of our favorite family portraits that we take with the skyline behind us.
i like how you can see us in the reflection taking her picture.
behind us you can look down on the skating rink that they were using the zamboni on took a panaromic of to show more of it.
then we ventured off to our favorite area of the park where the kids play in the water during the summer also where we met mrs kathy this summer.
dont you love her new winter hat, its a dog and keeps her head nice and warm.
then we moved along toward state street to see the window decorations along the sidewalks.
this year had a theme of the history of macys, (at least i think that is what it was, i forget now.
but the first window had virginia from the yes virginia show that is on every christmas.
a little shopping for the ladies at old navy we continued on to the big tree #2 at daly plaza. this building plaza has been in a lot of movies, from the batman movies, to blues brothers, to the fugitive, to the lake house where sandra bullock is sitting when he gets hit by the bus.
then we had an early dinner late lunch at Maggianos. We love there food, very good italian, they have a classic section of the menu where you order one item to eat there then take another home with you. Very large portions.
One thing was we usually have great service, but this time the waiter was the slowest i have had anyway in my life, he would leave to get something and be gone at least 5 if not 10 minutes to get it. and he had 2 tables. it was getting really close to when we needed to leave for our next destination so we were trying to stack things at the end like can you get our sons dessert that came with his meal and bring our to go meals.
okay meals came out forgot sons ice cream.
can we have our ice cream and the bill please.
okay bill comes, forgot ice cream.
goes to next table, comes back, ask if we can have the ice cream.
and parker must have picked up on how we were saying he was so slow that it went like this.
Me: "can we please just have our sons desert now, and make it to go we are running late" (this was at least 20 minutes after we first asked for his ice cream)
Parker says loudly: (as the guy is walking away) "and make it fast"
the table behind parker (the other table who the guy was waiting on) just cracks up into full on belly shaking laughs.
I look at the dad and say well he has a point, he told me I know we come here at least every few months and this is the slowest i have had service in my life.
When he brought the ice cream to go about 5 minutes later. candi said he didnt bring a to go spoon, how will he eat it.
I grab the spoon from the table wipe it off in the napkin throw it in my pocket and say problem solved.
The table of ladies behind me just crack up laughing and say i would have done the same thing...so even they knew how slow he was being.
parker munched down his ice cream on the walk back to the parking garage. we loaded up and headed towards lincoln park zoo.
for the zoo lights.
we love doing this and it is a great set up, not disney osbourn lights have you but still pretty good.
and the zoo is free.
a few pictures to show what we were working with,
all of the animals are out as well, or in there inside enclosures so that is fun as well.
the open lawn has a light show to music that plays all night.
tell me you dont want to take one of these stuffed animals home with you.
something i have not seen in the safari ride in AK. colored zebras but something they should add to there ride.
another really neat thing when you enter is they hand out 3D glasses, this year they had either reindeer or santa ones, we got two of each, this is what the santa ones look like when you look through them. I took a picture in the parking lot so you can make it out a little easier...pretty neat in my book.
coming up next chapter...we hit up chef mickeys.
Oh... back to our regularly scheduled TR??? 
Okay - I'm with you now!
if not, 
but maybe next year.
Throw your food onto someone else's table!
