Lincoln Park Zoo

On the 16th, we met up with the cousins, and Steve's sister and brother-in-law at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

The previous morning had been lazy, and then while Steve and I got ready to go out for our anniversary, B took the girls to get their nails done. Alexa was excited and very proud to show off her finger and toe nails. It was so generous and kind for B to do this for the girls. It's something I never would have thought to do with Alexa because it definitely isn't my type of thing at all! But Alexa is more of a girly girl, and I need to do more things like that with her in the future.

Steve and I had an awesome time at the Art Institute. We checked out the new Matisse exhibit, and did an audio tour. I want to come back for my birthday and continue the tour in some of the other galleries. We had crab legs, my all-time favorite food,  at Cy's Crab House  in  the Lincoln Park area. Steve's cousins went to Steve's sister's house to stay the rest of the week at their house.

So, that brings us to the zoo. I picked up Steve's mom, and we drove downtown to meet everyone. They had arrived a little before us, so we walked towards the Lion House to meet them. The zoo was packed that day! It's free to get in, but we had to pay $17 for less than a two hour visit.

Things went fine for a little while. We followed everyone into, I think it was, the ape house. But everyone else in the group was going really fast past the different cages. Just when we'd stop and look at the monkeys for about ten seconds, it was off to another cage. The kids and I are not used to this type of pace, at all. We like to take our time and really look at things, so they started to get whiny when I felt pressured to rush us along.
We wound up getting separated from most of the group; Steve's sister stayed back with us for a bit, but spent most of the time in the zoo by ourselves. Once I got over trying to rush the kids from exhibit to exhibit, we really did have a fun, if short, time at the zoo.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but there was an orb spider in the trees. Jared was fascinated by this.

We got a call from the rest of the group saying they wanted to walk down to the beach to eat lunch. Steve's sister left to join them, and we went to find a bathroom. By the time we finished that, left the zoo, and trudged back through the lots to the car, we gave them a call and they were about to leave in ten minutes.By the time we would have made it to the beach, they would have wanted to leave. They wanted to rush back to the car to get home in time for naps, so we had a leisurely time eating at a park bench. Jared kept us entertained by doing twirls in the gravel. After I dropped off Steve's mom, which took FOREVER in the traffic, the kids and I had a great afternoon reading books on the couch together, water color painting, and playing in the back yard.