Winter Wonderland

I almost decided not to bother taking the girls to Navy Pier's Winter Wonderland this year. I just kind of thought they'd be too young to enjoy it.

I was wrong, wrong, wrong.



I continue to be amazed that humans can construct such large indoor places.

And that we can heat them in the middle of the winter.

It was a kid Christmas paradise.

First up was a ride on the train, which Zoe would have been happy to stay on for the rest of the day. I think we were in the coal car. I think I lucked out because I had some extra headroom





Then we did a few laps up some ramps to a platform that had several toddler-sized slides (there were teenager-size slides there too...we stayed away from those).

Eleni got the "wave at Baba" thing down pretty quickly.



Next the kids went through an inflatable obstacle course. Zoe started crying halfway through so I had to go in afterward. That's me crawling out behind Eleni. This attraction pretty much freaked the kids out...I think that's a "thank crikey I'm out of there" smile on Zoe. I'm wearing one of those too.

The second longest line of the day was for the dragon ride. Nana and Baba waited with the girls for 10 minutes or so and everyone was very well behaved.

I was pretty darn surprised about the whole thing.

Amusement park rides make great photo ops.

I think it's the cartoon colors in a photo-size space. Nana was a trooper, considering she's getting back surgery in three weeks. Go Nana!

My personal favorite was the carousel. This was our second time on, and Zoe and I zoomed out from the line to get the zebra.

Afterward, Zoe tried to convince us that three time's a charm.

The longest line of the day was for ice skating, and lasted over a half hour. Apparently, the ice needed an extra 20 minutes to "dry" after the zamboni was all finished.

I have never ever heard of a "drying" period post-zamboni, and was ready to bag it but Eleni was dead set on ice skating, and she loved the whole 5 minutes I lasted (holding up a 2 year old while ice skating on dull-bladed rented skates is a real back-breaker.

That said, I haven't skated in years and it was magical to do it with one of my girls -- truly my highlight of the day. Zoe took one look at the ice skates and said "no thank you very much" to the whole idea.

All this and the girls were in bed for a nap by 1:30pm.

Not bad, right?