Chicago, the windy city - Day One & Day Two (part one)

Recognise this fountain anyone? Think back to the 80's sitcom Married with Children...... This is the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park in Chicago City.

A view up Michigan Avenue.

Another view up Michigan Avenue a day earlier whilst we were waiting for our tour bus to arrive.

The city skyline poking out through rain clouds. What a day for a tour.

So after a couple of quiet and very wet days in Detroit we hit the road once again and headed West for Chicago. I have to say that Chicago is such a beautiful city and I will most definitely on my 'go back and visit again' list. We arrived pretty late in the evening on Thursday (although it was still light out) and so we ordered ourselves some very expensive room service and got to bed. The next morning it was off exploring for us. The Concierge at the Hilton (where we were staying but more on that later) told us of a great little cafe for breakfast called Eleven. It is a Jewish inspired cafe with the most delicious french toast I have ever eaten not to mention the biggest topped with fresh bananas, strawberries and fresh grated coconut! My mouth is watering and tummy grumbling just thinking about it now. After brekky we set off walking around our immediate area, we ended up taking a short round trip ride on their famous El which is the elevated railway system the trains operate above the city streets (much like the skyrail in Brisbane that goes to the airport). A spot of souvenier shopping saw us purchase a pink Chicago teddy bear for Emily that she pulled off the shelf (with the help of Daddy I believe) and became attached to and a Chicago City Police Department Sherriff's badge for Riley (which Daddy talked him into talking Grandpa into buying for him). After a long day of walking and a great bus tour we ended with a nice dinner at an Italian eatery.

Day Two we thought we would try somewhere else for brekky and decided to try another little cafe that came recommended to us by the Concierge at the Hilton. When we arrived we found approx 40 -50 people lined up outside and the inside completely packed. We thought taking a number and waiting might not be so much fun (especially with two little hungry people with us) so we gladly headed back to Eleven for some more french toast. They too had a line up but thanks to some ugly roadworks outside the cafe not nearly as many people were there. After another big and very yummy brekky we headed off on a walk through Grant Park. This is a beautiful park on Michigan Avenue. In the summer of 1968 Grant Park was filled with young people protesting the war in Vietnam. A riot broke out and the mayor at the time gave the local police the order "shoot to kill". Investigations into that night later revealed that it was a police riot and not the protesters that caused the violence to erupt.

This is our tour bus coming along.

A very famous talkshow host lives here.............

This is a little theatre house opened by David Schwimmer (otherwise known as Ross from Friends)

Riley on our walk through Grant Park.

A walk in the park is just too much for some little ones LOL. We ended up forgetting to pack either of our two prams and so had to buy this at Sears in Detroit on our way to Chicago, not bad for $17!

Riley and Emily happily sharing an ice-cream in Grant Park.


Riley just before he rolled down his second hill in Grant Park on Day Two.

I was trying (in vain) to get a nice pic of both kids in front of the fountain, seems Emily had other ideas......

Limousine American style. Stretch H2 Hummer!

The city is filled with so many beautiful flowers (apparently at the request of the mayor's wife). Here is Emily pointing out which one she wanted whilst in Grant Park.

The last two pics are of Native Americans (albeit naked!) on horseback posed as though they are about to shoot off an arrow from a bow and arrow. The fact that they do not hold a weapon is said to represent the power that has been taken away from the natives. These two statues are facing each other on Michigan Avenue at one of the entrances to Grant Park.

All that Jazz..............

Hilton @ Chicago view from Grant Park across the road. The tallest black tower behind the Hilton is Sears Tower.

Hilton @ Chicago view from Sears Tower.

After our short stay in Detroit we loaded up the kiddies and the grandparents and headed off to the windy city CHIGAGO!! Brad found a website called hotwire.com where we have managed to find some pretty good last minute deals. The way that it works is that you choose your town/area and the star rating you want and it searches their database for hotels wanting to fill empty beds for those nights. It means not having a booking too far in advance but so far that has not proven to be of any issue. We went online before leaving Detroit and booked our accommodation and found a 4 star hotel for $79 per room per night (we were looking for 3 but there were none). Good enough deal we thought. Well that was until the name of the hotel was revealed. We had booked ourselves into the very famous Chicago Hilton. This hotel has an AMAZING history starting in the 1920's.

American Presidents stay here, Barrack Obama gave one of his speeches there. The Queen of England stayed there JFK stayed there and Elvis once booked out an entire floor! We felt very honoured to be staying in such a beautiful and historical place.

Chandeliers were everywhere throughout the hotel. This is a hallway outside one of the many ballrooms.

This chandelier was in our elevator.

Our floor had a seperate set of elevators called the Executive Floors. This is our elevator foyer on the ground floor.

This is not the best shot but it is a foyer that goes out onto Michigan Avenue and the stairs go up to the ballroom that Barrack Obama gave a speech in.



The pics behind Riley are of the Obamas speeches in one of the ballrooms at the Hilton @ Chicago



The elevator foyer area on our floor.


JFK leaving the Hilton @ Chicago I think in 1960



This was our view from our room. You can see Buckingham Fountain and Navy Pier off to the left side of the photo.

We all loved our time in Chicago and will definitely go back there again some day for a longer stay.

On the road again.....

My little poser in front of the spring display in the foyer at the Motor City Casino in Detroit where Mike & Yvonne stayed.

May sees us packing up and heading off on a road trip to the North of the USA to meet up with Brad's Dad Mike and his wife Yvonne. We left home in Oakville on the morning of Tuesday the 12th and headed for Detroit. The trip South was relatively uneventful in itself.............until we reached the US border. We didn't realise that in order to travel across the border via tunnel that we would have to pay a toll. We did not have cash and they did not accept debit or credit cards. This meant that we had to re-enter Canada (even though we had not yet left the country) via customs (which involved about a 40min wait), find an ATM and get cash out and then we were once again on our way. We made it to Detroit and met up with Mike and Yvonne the next morning for brekky.

Emily and Grandpa getting re-aquainted.

Riley and Nana Yvonne teaching Emily how to step off the escalators.

We spent two days in Detroit and due to fatigue and some pretty crappy weather we chose to relax and get ready for our next big trip so we did not get out and do any sight-seeing here.

Wasssuuup?

This is a quick little video of Emily at dinner tonight. The story behind it is that she was looking at Riley eating his dinner and he turned to her and said "Wasssuuup Emily?" and she just said "Wasssuuup" it was so funny that we thought we would try to re-capture it on video. She said it for us just a little quieter, still pretty cute though so we thought we would share it with you all on here.

Bronte Creek Provincial Park Maple Syrup Festival

Today with such beautiful weather I decided to take the kids out for the day to the Bronte Creek Provincial Park where they were hosting their annual Maple Syrup Festival. It was just a short drive from our house and a great day out. They have information showing how the maple syrup is collected from the sap of trees and how it is turned into maple syrup (we didn't do this tour today as we wanted to just wander at our own pace around the place and see what there was to offer). The kids got to sample some maple taffy (the first picture) maple taffy is just like toffee and is served on blocks of ice needless to say they both loved it. Then we headed over to see the animals, we got to see some cows and pigs. The pigs had a few little piglets who were very cute but the pig pen stunk like nothing else so we really couldn't hang around and admire them for too long.

The kids sampling some maple taffy.

This is a side view of the children's play barn at the children's farm area. The barn was set up with loads of indoor activities for the kids to burn off some extra energy (assuming walking around the provincial park didn't already do the trick LOL)

Front view of the barn.

Riley inside the barn taking a leap from a loft onto a nice soft landing.

The kids playing around on a hill. Right after this pic Emily stumbled on the hill and had two middy patches on her knees for the rest of the day.

Riley trying his hand at carrying the pales - these ones were only filled with hay so not too heavy for my strong little man.

Front view of the area we entered for the maple syrup festival.

Tractor sitting....LOL

We took a real tractor ride from the festival across to another area of the park called The Pancake House for lunch. As you can imagine we dined on pancakes and maple sryup for lunch........hmmm still can't work out why Emily didn't nap this afternoon LOL.

Overall a great place to visit and a great day to be had too. We will definitely return there one weekend when Brad is home as they also have short hiking trails that we can take the kids on. If we weren't leaving soon I would definitely buy an annual family pass and spend more time there. They also host radio control model shows and have a large camping area as well and numerous picnic spots and a large public pool.

Playdates......

The kids have made some lovely friends from across the street and a couple of weeks ago we took a walk to our local park. The boys were more than happy to 'pose' for a few pics but I chose just a couple to post here.

This is Riley and his mate Roy on one of the climbing forts at the park.

Emily wondering just how she is going to scale this big kids slide and make it up top to where the big boys were playing. See the ice on the ground behind her? She couldn't help but to taste test it a few times whilst we were there, she would break off an edge and then pop it in her mouth, until Mummy came along and spoiled all the fun.

This is Emily's little mate Ria enjoying a swing right beside Emily. The girls would have stayed on those swings the entire time we were at the park if they had their way.

Emily enjoying her swing.

It is March break here right now which means that Riley has a week off school and the weather here has been amazing with temps around 10 degrees. Ok so I know that for all of you playing back home in Aus 10 degrees is freaking freezing but here it has been lovely. So the kids wanted to play out in the back yard and we realised that we didn't have any outside toys so after a short trip to the toy store we return with some outdoors fun in hand and Riley's mate Roy came over and joined us for some fun. Not long after the neighbour next door to us bought her little grandson, Ethan, over to play also. Ethan is a few months older than Emily so they played really nicely together.

Emily working out what goes where for the first time...

Might not be the conventional way to hit the ball but connection was made! (oh and Emily was pretty pleased with herself also)

"What you lookin' at?"


The boys at play with the tiny tonkas in the only patch of dirt we have in the yard and this is only thanks to our friendly squirrel who dug for nuts in this patch at the beginning of winter LOL

Best seats in the house!

The kids working out how to hoola hoop......Emily wasn't going to let a little thing like size stop her.
Action shot!

Mix n Match from around the place

It has been some time now since the good old blog was last updated so I am just adding some pics to get everyone up to date. We really haven't been 'doing' a terrible lot but sometimes just hanging around the house can be adventure enough.....

Wild West day at school. Riley sure does make a cute cowboy and Emily? Well she wasn't going to be left out of the photo.

My little guy 'creating a masterpiece'. Now there's painting..................

..............and there's PAINTING....................took Mummy quite some time to scrub off all the paint that night LOL

My little spidergirl.

Even superheros need some 'downtime'

The kids and I baked our own playdoh one afternoon and they both had a great time making playdoh creations together.

Family tea party time with the kids' new mini Tupperware baking set.

Emily thinks it is HILARIOUS to lick Riley's feet and then falls over laughing when Riley wriggles and giggles. As gross as it is to think of one person licking another's feet this is actually quite cute to watch.