Staycation 2012

When I had Cassidy in early August, I was able to take off work immediately. Pretty much because having a baby is like being put on the physically unable to preform list. Not that I am complaining, 12 weeks at home with the kids is a good thing. But Nate was not able to take the time off right away and really was pretty busy at work those first few weeks. So, after a lot of grumbling from me, Nate took the first week of September off, and we did a staycation.

A staycation? Yes. Taking a 1 month old to Mexico is not a good idea - or so I am told. So we did the Chicago/Milwaukee thing and took in the sites. Little did we know going into this is that the week after all the kids go back to school is the absolute BEST time to hit the city. Everywhere we went was wide open, and that was awesome.

We took it easy at home the first couple of days, hanging out with the girls, going for walks, relaxing stuff. Then we headed out - which is a lot more complicated with an infant in tow.

First on the staycation agenda was a trip to the Shedd Aquarium, which I forgot the camera for. That's okay, it is hard to take pictures in there anyway. We are Shedd members, so we go a lot, but that first week in September was a new experience. The place was dead. You could get right up and see all the exhibits. We even got seats by the Caribbean Reef and took in the feeding. Cassidy LOVED this. There is what is essentially a light show on ceiling in that room while they do the feeding of the fish that she checked out. We explored areas of the exhibits we usually skip because it is so crowded on weekends and we hate crowds. Going during the week rocked!

We then decided to spend a day up in Milwaukee and hit our favorite zoo. I did manage to remember the camera this time, and we got some cute shots.

By this time it was Friday, so we figured we might run into more people. We were so wrong - the zoo was empty. Again, this made it all the more exciting. We were able to get right up and see the animals as well as navigate a lot more ground not having to dodge people. I even learned that you can purchase a ticket to feed the giraffes. I was vetoed on doing it for this trip, but I am so feeding the giraffes next time.

View from the giraffe feeding platform. How cool!

I also learned that elephants swim under water. Seems like I should have known that, but I didn't and I was shocked when an elephant jumped into a pool of water and went under. Somehow it did not register that an elephant could swim.

We, of course, did a through tour of all the birds, including the aviary where the birds are free range. Freaks me out, but Kendall loves. We also saw a flamingo that appeared to have OCD. It kept spinning around picking at the ground, all the other flamingos were giving him a wide birth. Kept us entertained though.

Cassidy woke towards the end of the zoo trip and spent some time hanging out with us as well. Being a month old, she was not too interested in the zoo.

The day ended when the sky opened up and poured rain. Put a damper on wandering the zoo, but we were all tired after all that walking anyway.

We rounded out that trip to Milwaukee with the necessary stop at Pizza Shuttle - but by then the girls were asleep and ready to head home.

A successful staycation - and now we know when the best time of year to repeat this fun!