Cutiefest-- The Marquisses come to the Great Lakes

If you read my sister's, Leighann, blog then this may be repeat but I couldn't pass up showing these cute pics to everybody.

The last weekend of July, I met these hooligans down in Chicago to give them a abbreviated grand tour of the big city. I took a train down to the city (because Adam was coming later after his golf tournament) and then took a bus over to Lincoln Park. I made the rookie mistake of talking to the bus driver as I stuck in my bus card in the money slot instead of the card slot. Well, it ate my $7 bus card and I overpaid my fare by $5. Geez, Louise. Then she asked if I was a local and I felt really dumb. Lady, you better hope I'm not a local because that my friend was really dumb. Rookie move. But I digress. On to the fun stuff.

We met at the zoo because it was free and fun. What kid doesn't like the zoo and what parent doesn't like free stuff? I didn't have a lot of options for my train departures so I got there after they had already toured part of the zoo. Henry emailed me the pictures so I could catch up on what they had seen already. Gotta love technology. I had brought lunch for everybody to save money so we caught up a little as everyone hungrily ate what I brought. Poor them. It was 2'clock eastern time by the time I got there. Poor Ryan was so excited to see me but oh so confused at how I got there. He just kept staring at me during lunch trying to figure out how we had met there and I think trying to see if I really was Aunt Dottie.

Leighann, Natalie, Ryan and his tiny little toy pig souvenir from the zoo. You'll see the little pig in several shots.

The zoo was so much fun. It was a little chilly but we decided that was better than sweating all our body parts off and begging for water.

We stopped and saw a juggler and Ryan thought he was the funniest thing...EVER. What a cute smile!

We watched this bear rub his fish all over his head and then nibble on it in between his rubs. It was really weird but also super interesting to the inner zoologist inside me.

I could resist. (Our view leaving the zoo) haha

Next stop: Millennium Park home of Cloudgate or The Bean as everyone else but the architect calls it. This is where Adam met us. The adults caught up a little as the kids had fun with their reflections

Only picture of all of us. Thanks, Bean!

 What an adorable family. 

Natalie Bean with The Bean. Um, how cool is that? (backstory: when Natalie was growing in her mommy's belly, Leighann and Henry would call her Bean because that's what she looked like on the sonogram. When Leighann had her, they couldn't give up the name since that's what they had been lovingly calling her for the past few months. So Natalie's middle name is Bean. I think I got that right. Correct me if I'm wrong, Leighann) 

Natalie's turn with the camera. Not too shabby. Me and Ainsley loving Chicago.

 Love this shot of them! Leighann and Henry loving the city.

Adam and I

We love selflies. There are so many pictures of us and that little pig almost made it into all of them. We were having so much fun!

After the Bean, we stopped at one of favorite bakeries and I got a macaroon (which inherently is gluten free but sometimes suffers from cross contamination. I decided to risk it and it was oh so worth it). I love the freshly made macaroons here. The flavors are so good. 

Adam being the wind for his sail boat cookie

We walked up Michigan Avenue and saw some of the more famous buildings. Then we took a water taxi, which was super fun, and got dropped off at Navy Pier.

Ryan has loved Uncle Adam since they first met back in 2010. Their friendship continued this weekend too and it was really cute. I think what gets Ryan is that Uncle Adam is usually wearing a big hat that Ryan can steal and put on his head.

(Photo from Easter 2010)

(2013)

 I don't have many pictures from Navy Pier. Oops. We then caught a free trolley (yay!) to take us back to our cars but missed our stop (boo!). It was fun nonetheless because the boys talked and us girls played a game as we walked back (an eye-spy game of sorts that the girls made up. It's actually really intuitive for their age.  They are some smart cookies). This trip was really fun because the girls were old enough to engage in conversation. It was like you are talking to mini-adults.

Right before we got back to our cars, we saw a concert under the bandshell. It was really pretty listening to a cello amongst all the buildings. I could have stayed for a while if it hadn't been so late and we had a drive back.

All of that was day 1. More to be continued on Monday. Happy Friday! Hope you have a good weekend!