under the magnolia tree

Oh, Chicago!  What a complete and utter treat!  It always seems so luxurious and so over the top to plan a trip right after Christmas.  But, every time we do it, we never regret it.  It is so wonderful to have something to look forward to after the holidays and so wonderful to transition into the slower months of the year.  This year we booked a room at the Waldorf Astoria for three nights.  We booked back in August for a good rate.  We were excited to go!

The hotel was beautiful!

The bathroom was a treat for me!  Our bathrooms at home are small, much, much smaller than our last house and I have to say...I'm not crazy about a small bathroom.  Especially since I share mine with the kids.  This bathroom was bigger than Georgie's bedroom.  The tub was so deep.   Look at these two!

This is what they were watching...t.v. in the bathroom mirror.  :)  

The morning after we arrived Magnolia and I went to American Girl for brunch.  The original plan was for the four of us to go.  The day prior had me change my mind about that (George was a little sick and in the worst mood we have ever seen him have)!  I'm so glad it was just the two of us, we had so much fun together and it doesn't seem like we do enough of these mother-daughter things.

I forgot Magnolia's hat in the room so I let her stay in the lobby while I ran back up to get it.  The concierge kept his eye on her and by the time I got back she was chatting up all kinds of people telling them all about everything.  :)  That's just so Magnolia...so charming, so sweet, and so outgoing!

What fun!

It was snowing outside making it so pretty and festive inside.

There was a little box of conversation starters on the table and Magnolia wanted to do all of them.  I had so much fun hearing her answers.  One of them asked if she ever ran away from home and she told me she did once, to run away with horses.  :)  Another one asked who her favorite singer was.  We don't listen to much pop music so I didn't think she would know how to answer that.  I laughed when she said Barry Gibb and then confessed that she has a little crush on him!  :)

Meanwhile the two Georges went to the Original Pancake House for breakfast where Georgie had his first pig in a blanket which were a huge hit for him and we heard about them all day long.  Then they went to the Lego Store to sit and build until Magnolia and I walked over to meet them.

I love walking the streets of Chicago.  I love seeing window displays.  This one was so simple but lso cool.  I'm filing this one away for next year...

I also loved the gold wreaths on the Park Hyatt.

I made reservations for Frontera Grill about two months prior to our visit.  In the past we've been for brunch but this time we braved it for dinner.  Not sure we'd do a repeat as Georgie wasn't the best dinner guest.  At one point he threw a ball across the restaurant landing half way into the kitchen. Oh my.   Things got better when the food came.  They had soup and quesadillas which were delicious but when my duck and George's lamb dishes arrived, that's what they really ate, and ate, and ate.  They were SO hungry and I was so impressed by their sophisticated palettes.  It was George and I who scraped up their soup and quesadillas while they finished our entrees.  :)

Magnolia and I must have played twenty five rounds of tic-tac-toe waiting for food.

Since the Pancake House was such a hit the day before, we all went the next morning.  The wait staff remembered George and he just loved it there.

Pigs in a blanket and balloons when you leave...what could be better?

My usual snack destination is Garretts Popcorn (which I did go to twice) but I think I found another favorite... Sprinkles.  Such a cute little cupcake shop.  It was near the hotel so we went a few times!  Yum!

After some shopping we stopped in Ghiradelli's for a hot chocolate.

We went to Lincoln Zoo which the concierge warned us would be crazy but it wasn't, we found parking very easily and walked right in.  It was great, probably the highlight of our trip!  Seeing the wolves was our favorite.

After the zoo we had lunch at R.J.Grunts which was fun.  I did not know they were home to the first salad bar!  We had burgers and nachos.  :)

On our last day we visited the Nature Museum.

Here we saw a turtle feeding, this life size polar bear, and all different kinds of scat (pretend) which really amused Georgie.

There was a cute little butterfly house...

which for some reason, seemed to scare Magnolia.  Love how she looks to her little brother to protect her.

It was a fabulous trip.  There wasn't any pressure to do much.  Our days were lazy and relaxing.  We spent a lot of time hanging out in the hotel room, swimming in the pool, doing a little shopping, walking everywhere we wanted to go, and even having dinner in the room in front of the fire watching a movie together.  It was as perfect as it could get.

I don't want to forget our first day in Chicago which wasn't so perfect.  It consisted of the Museum of Science and Industry (which was a bomb to us) and the highly anticipated visit to Chicago's Chinatown.  Magnolia was SO excited to see Chinatown and see all of the Chinese people.   I heard her thinking aloud to herself about a week prior to the trip that she doubted there would be any Chinese people in Chicago.  I told her there would be and she'd see even more in Chinatown.  Like I said, George was not feeling well and his unbelievably horrible mood put quite a damper on the day.  We managed to squeeze in a quick lunch and I snapped this photo of Magnolia drinking hot tea.  We also went into one shop in which she picked out a pair of Chinese mary janes which she loves.   Thankfully Chicago is in our backyard.  We'll be back soon for a better visit of Chinatown  :)