{"id":445,"date":"2007-08-20T11:21:50","date_gmt":"2007-08-20T16:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=445"},"modified":"2007-08-20T11:21:50","modified_gmt":"2007-08-20T16:21:50","slug":"Chicago Weekend - Fun with Friends!","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Weekend – Fun with Friends!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, I’m starting a couple different posts with pictures about our trip to Chicago last weekend. We had a great time. It was close quarters in Brian’s Dad’s car – Analise in the far back seat, Brian, Josiah and I (lucky me in the middle) in the center, and his parents in the front. We did watch Ice Age and the sequel several times, as I expected. But Brian and I enjoyed riding together doing logic puzzles. Josiah loved having me next to him. Here’s the first fun picture from the trip…<\/p>\n


And we wondered why we couldn’t get him to sleep…<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

For over a year now, I’ve chatted with a group of moms online, and we’ve gotten to be good friends. Michele and I have a lot in common… both Analise and Josiah are the same ages as her kids, Emma and Michael. She lives outside of Chicago, and ever since we knew we were going up for the wedding, we’ve been looking forward to getting together. <\/p>\n

Saturday morning, we met at a park so the kids could play. They had a great time! Analise and Emma are both big sisters, and we were a little worried that they might be a little too bossy for each other. But they hit it off immediately. Josiah and Michael are only 3 days apart in age, they started walking within a day of each other, and they’ve got similar personalities. They were so cute together, playing with the balls and "sharing" pretzels and lunch. (I say "sharing" because at this age, when one offers food to another, I’m not sure they really mean<\/em> for the other to take it. But they did well together!)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After playing for a bit, we headed to the Choo Choo Diner<\/a>. This place is seriously fun! There is a bar area, with 2 booths on either end, and a train track runs around the rectangle and a little electric train brings baskets of your food out on the back of the train. So cute! Brian’s dad told them it was Brian’s birthday (well, the day before), so the train brought us a little sprinkled cupcake with a train whistle and a candle, and they played a Choo-Choo birthday song. It’s tiny, and we got there in the nick of time, just before the lunch rush. If you’re ever in the Chicago area, it’s worth the drive out to Des Plaines (beyond O’Hare airport) to have lunch there. You can also see the very first McDonalds just down the street. Oh, and the food was GREAT!<\/p>\n

Looking from our booth, across the track to the counter area.  Looks like the train has already dropped off its cargo!<\/em><\/p>\n


The girls enjoying their sprinkled cupcakes.<\/em><\/p>\n


The two cuties… Michael would hand Josiah french fries.  Josiah loved that… I don’t give him many:)<\/em><\/p>\n


Not a bad photo, considering how squirmy our cuties are! And this is the entire diner!<\/em><\/p>\n

We had such a fun time! I sure wish Michele and her family lived down the street from us! We’re already looking forward to visiting them again, maybe next year. Here’s the pictures that Michele took…<\/p>\n

The girls loved the old-style merry-go-round.  Josiah, on the other hand, got caught in the centripetal force and fell on his face.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My three favorite photos… "sharing" pretzels.<\/em>
<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, I’m starting a couple different posts with pictures about our trip to Chicago last weekend. We had a great time. It was close quarters in Brian’s Dad’s car – Analise in the far back seat, Brian, Josiah and I (lucky me in the middle) in the center, and his parents in the front. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkzLf-7b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}