Chicago: Day 1, Part 2, Navy Pier & Shopping

Lilli was really starting to get tired towards the end of our visit to the Children's Museum and we knew she needed a nap. Thankfully when we strapped her into her stroller she went to sleep pretty quickly as we walked around Navy Pier.

The famous Navy Pier Ferris Wheel:
Lilli asleep with the skyline behind her!
Family picture
The clouds were clearing up really quickly, in less than an hour the sky was already looking like this:
Navy Pier was super crowded with people out sightseeing and also picking up their race packets for a half marathon that was run somewhere around there on Sunday.
We walked through downtown and then headed up Michigan Avenue, the infamous Magnificent Mile. Any store you can dream of has a shop on it, and it is truly a shopper's paradise! We really didn't do any shopping since we've been to all these stores on prior trips and really can't afford anything. We did stop in the American Girl Store since Lilli had woken up while we were strolling along.

A little girl's mecca:
Lilli was pretty much frustrated the whole time we were in there. Those dolls are wicked expensive, and as such they are in glass cases and she wanted so desperately to hold them. She was running around touching all the clothes and things when a nice saleslady wheeled this little stroller over to her (with a doll in it). She was being so nice, but as soon as I saw it I completely cringed. We have this same stroller at home and she loves it. And I KNEW she wouldn't want to part with this stroller and would want to stay there in the store running around for all eternity.
And I was totally right.
We let her play for a LONG time with it, but were seriously ready to just move on. We sort of tricked her out of that part of the store and once it hit her what had just happened we had THE mother of all tantrums. There was seriously no recovering from this one and even though we offered her other stuff there to play with nothing was working and we just had to get out of there.

We headed back to our hotel room for a little while and relaxed. Funny story, our hotel changes the elevator mats throughout the day from Morning to Afternoon to Evening. I thought that was pretty cool so I stopped to take a picture - and the elevator doors shut on me. I didn't have a room card or ANYTHING on me and to get your floor you have to have your card. So I ended up having to ride back down to the lobby until Brent and Lilli rode back down for me. Lesson learned!
For dinner we just ate at a little burger/bbq place off Michigan Avenue. Everything on Saturday night had insane waits and that just doesn't work with a tired toddler! Afterwards we did a little more shopping, this time at the Disney store.
She had SO much fun playing with everything and we stayed until the store closed and we were asked to leave! I gave her a couple of small options of stuffed animals if she wanted one and she really didn't seem to care so we just had a good time playing, didn't buy anything and were miraculously able to leave without any fits!

When we got back to the hotel room we let her play until she was obviously tired and ended up all going to bed at 9:30. Wild and crazy vacation times!!! Thankfully she went down pretty easy, just cried for about 1 minute and then put herself to sleep. That was a major blessing since there were some times on our vacation back in May where we had to drive her around or walk the stroller around for anywhere from 1-2 hours to get her to sleep. We all woke up several times throughout the night, that first night somewhere strange isn't easy on anyone and the hotel was extremely noisy with a lot going on that evening (a wedding, etc.) But at least she did go down easily and it was kind of nice going to bed so early and getting some extra rest!