Downtown

We wanted to go downtown to see the Zoo lights, the windows at Marshall Field's (yes, I know it is Macy's but it will always be Fields to me) and the tree at Millennium Park.  We started our trip on the L which is always a fun ride for N2.  For some reason I always end up taking pictures of them while riding.  Here Natalie is imitating an ad she saw on the L of a singer.

We started by going to see the windows and the tree in the Walnut room.  As a kid I always loved to see the windows and it was so exciting to see what the theme would be.  They were always so intricate and told a fairy tale story.  If I had known what the windows were going to be this year, I would have just skipped them.  What a let down!  Each window had a theme like "dream," "love," "believe" and were supposed to be decorated to fit that word.  Look at how creepy this one is.

Here we are not quite impressed by the windows.

The tree in the Walnut room was elegant.  The lights did change colors gradually from blue to white and back again.

After riding the escalators up and down (what a treat!) we went to Millennium Park to see the large Christmas tree.  We had heard that a tree was being cut down and donated from a resident of Wauconda.  It was a big deal around our small town!

We then took a bus down to Lincoln Park Zoo (my kids also love bus rides-we always sit all the way in the back) so we could see the zoo lights.  We hadn't seen the polar bear or penguin exhibit so we went there.  Too bad all of them were hiding.  We warmed ourselves up by touring the houses.  We discovered Natalie really dislikes snakes and Noah is fascinated by reptiles.

I didn't get a picture but the lions were right up against the glass window.  Natalie happens to LOVE lions and one of the female lions got up from where she was laying and walked right over to Natalie, looked at her, turned around and peed-she must have been threatened by her!  Natalie was thrilled by being so close to the lion.  The tiger was also very active, pacing in front of the window.  I don't think I've ever seen a tiger so close up that was awake!  The cats were definitely the highlight of the trip.  We waited around until the lights came on and walked the whole zoo again (good thing because we were able to see 1 penguin and 1 polar bear).  The lights are crazy but fun!

Our trip downtown was so fun!  We ended by eating dinner in Evanston.  While we were walking to the restaurant (combo pizzeria and Mexican-interesting) we saw a semi truck take down a traffic light and almost take down a light pole.  Poor driver who clearly had the wrong directions and tried to take a corner that wasn't possible.