Downtown Chicago

For some reason today, we decided to bravely join the masses of people in downtown Chicago. The weather was unseasonably warm, which made for a perfect day to be outdoors.

Our day started out in the parking lot of the train station, with the kids correcting Grammy's parking payment mistake.

Because, honestly? I guess she didn't see the red arrow pointing to the slot for that particular number. Yes, she paid for someone else to park there all day.

The kids always have so much fun on the train. Other passengers probably got tired of them switching seats every couple of minutes, though. (Ugh, freaking tourists!)

Then you have this guy we decided to call "Most Wanted Santa". He jumped in next to Ryan while we were trying to get a picture. He kept walking around, handing out postcards and then asking everyone if they could spare some money for the homeless. A couple of hours later we saw him in McDonald's, counting a huge wad of cash. Hmm...all I can say is, "Get the (bleep) away from my little boy!!!"

Ryan wasn't too impressed with the Sears Tower Sky Deck. He just wanted to move on to something else, like a cab or bus ride or maybe the Macy's Christmas tree.

Ashley had a good time up there, though. She definitely got the award for best behaved kid today.

Ryan finally gets to see the big Christmas tree. It was pretty impressive.

A few attempts at getting our family Christmas card picture.

Still another attempt at that family picture, but in all reality we were lost. Looking for the train station, we had walked for another 25 minutes after this picture when we ended up right back in this same spot. Guess where the train station is? Right behind us and across the street.

Ryan got pretty wet playing near this fountain. Good thing it wasn't freezing out today.

We waited while Bret took Ryan into Chase Manhattan Bank to use the bathroom. When they got back, this is how they found us - just about passed out. At one point, some foreign lady came in and asked us if we were protesters. What?

We did make it back in time to to catch the next train out of there.

This was the second time we've done this after Thanksgiving and I think the kids really enjoyed seeing such a great city.

There will be more pictures at Flickr when I get to it.