The Zyriek Zoo: Chicago Day 4

Surely we could recover from our not so favorite day on Friday. We surprised the girls with tickets to Pinkalicious, the Musical based on the cute children's book. The girls were excited. It was in the Broadway Playhouse Theater which is next door to the American Girl Place store in the Water Tower Mall area. We got the girls dressed up and headed to the show which was at 10am on Saturday morning. It was so good, funny and just what we needed. The girls had a blast and Gary and I were rolling at the humor in the story. It was about an hour and afterwards we got to stick around for autographs and pictures with the cast. What a great show and glad I saw online that it was playing while we were in town. Taught me always to find a parent website for the city we are visiting to find the not so well known stuff to do in town!

We went back to the hotel to change and get in some casual clothes and head to Navy Pier. We thought we could spend the rest of our day there and enjoy the beautiful warm day. We took a cab and arrived for a late lunch. We ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. restaurant. Of course the girls had no idea what this was or the references to Forrest Gump but we explained the best we could. One little keeping it real point about this restaurant. Caroline had to use the bathroom (as she does in every single public place we go) and so I said I would take her after we ordered our food. The restaurant could seat probably 400-500 people at least. They had TWO TOILETS in the women's bathroom. What in the world? This has to be against code!! Gary thought I was going to complain to the manager, but kept my cool and we went on with our day. Yummy lunch outside and onto the Chicago Children's Museum. We arrived in time to do the art room special project which was to make your own costume. They had an actual costume designer from one of Chicago's theatres there to help the kids with ideas, to help cut and sew their own creations. Anna made a white dress that served as an ice cream cone and Caroline made a dragonfly costume with wings. It was definitely fun. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the museum and enjoyed lots of fun activities. It closed at 5pm, so we headed over to do some rides/games. We all rode the huge Ferris Wheel. So proud of Gary who does not normally ride Ferris Wheels. Anna and I rode the Swings while Caroline (who was not tall enough for the swings) and Gary (who said heck no when I asked if he wanted to ride them) checked out Lake Michigan. We all played mini golf and then ate dinner at Harry Carray's Tavern. We got to watch some of the Auburn/Arkansas game while waiting for our table and while eating dinner (not a huge SEC market there!) but we lost very badly so not sad we did not see the whole game!! We thought we would hang out for the fireworks but the girls were fading and so we hopped in the cab and headed back to the hotel. We watched more football, started packing our suitcases and chilled out for the rest of the night.