Girls Weekend

This weekend the girls, Katie, Nel, Grandma, Khim and myself, headed up to Chicago for a girls only weekend.  We stayed with Veronika a good friend of Grandma's who leaves in Oak Park just around the corner from Frank Lloyd Wrights house (www.gowright.org).  It was a perfect weekend, the girls were on their best behavior and the weather Saturday was delightful not too hot or cold and the sun was out.  

We spent all day Saturday in Chicago.  First we headed to Lincoln Park where we visited the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (www.naturemuseum.org) and Lincoln Park zoo.  At the nature museum we spent most of our time in the butterfly house.  The girls loved looking at the butterflies, which kept landing on Grandma and Mom.  Nel was a little upset that they weren't landing on her and was determined not to leave until they did.  So she stood very still right in between Grandma and Mom and waited for a long time for one to land on her.  Finally we were all ready to go, but one still hadn't landed on Nel, however she declared that she felt on land on her head and that was all she wanted and we could go.  We only spent a short time at the Lincoln Park Zoo (www.lpzoo.org) where we saw camels, polor bears, bears, hippos, giraffes, lions and sea lions.  I am always a little unimpressed with zoo's having grown up in San Diego, but this was a nice zoo especially since it is free. 

    

At this point the girls were tired of walking and hungry so we headed over to Chinatown for some Dim Sum.  We had lunch at Phoenix (www.chinatownphoenix.com)which overlooks a strip of shops with a courtyard and in the courtyard they were having a special event for the upcoming Olympics in China.  They had all the olympic mastcotts and several performances by locals.  We stayed and watched a dragon dance, and some little children preform a dance before we did a little shopping in Chinatown.  

 The girls were very tired at this point and we headed back to Veronika's house, they slept the in the car, so we drove around Oak Park a bit and looked at some of the beautiful houses.  That evening we had a quiet dinner at Veronika's and then headed out for a walk around Oak Park.  Oak Park is a beautiful town, I think I could live there if only I could afford a house.  In addition to Frank Lloyd Wrights house/studio there are many more of his houses around town and it was fun to walk around and try to spot them.  Sunday it was time to head home, which was not so fun as it was pouring down rain and very windy.