Elsa and Claire Take Chicago

We spent this weekend on our first family trip that included Claire (if you don't count Costa Rica)—a fun little weekend overnighter to Chicago.

We headed down there on Saturday morning, after dropping off Belle with Katie. We stayed at the Congress Plaza, where we were pleasantly surprised by our bargain-rate junior suite. Check out the awesome views from our room:

The very first thing we did was eat at one of our favorite Chicago lunch places: Pockets! It's basically a huge salad piled into really excellent bread. Every time I've been to Chicago or driven through it since we moved to Milwaukee, I've wanted to go to Pockets, but somehow it never happened until now, five years later. Their cups said that they are franchising—if I were looking for a business opportunity, I would totally open one at Bayshore Mall, mostly so I could eat there on a regular basis.

The next thing we did was go to Millennium Park, where Elsa went berserk at the Crown Fountain.

Crown Fountain features these giant glass block towers with projected images of huge faces, which periodically "spit" at all the kids playing below.

It was humid and in the high 80s, so the fountain was packed, and Elsa loved the chance to cool off. I was organized enough to bring her bathing suit with us to Chicago, but not quite organized enough to put it on under her dress before we left the hotel, so she had to do her cavorting in her clothes.

Oddly enough, while at the fountain, we ran into some people we know from Milwaukee: "The other Elsa." There is another little girl named Elsa who goes to the daycare at our gym, and her mother works in the daycare, so I chat with the mother on occasion as well. I thought it was a coincidence that there was another kid with such an unusual name as Elsa at our gym—so it was really a weird coincidence to run into her and her mother in Chicago.

After splashing in the fountain and getting thoroughly soaked, we went to a kids' activity tent that was set up for the weekend in Millennium Park. They had dancing and some various activity and craft areas.

Elsa even got Claire and me into the act. It's probably hard to tell on this web-quality video, but Claire is smiling and laughing!

But she mostly enjoyed the music from Daddy's shoulder.

We also tried out the building-block area.

And of course, we couldn't pass by Millennium Park's most iconic piece–The Bean (officially known as "Cloud Gate").

A family portrait, courtesy of the highly reflective Bean.

Elsa thought it was very cool.

We also explored the park's concert stage ...

... and even got to enjoy a little of the Air and Water Show, which happened to be going on this weekend. (Those are planes flying in formation way up there. They sounded a whole lot closer than they look in this picture!)

Elsa absolutely loved Millennium Park, and we thought that it was a really nice addition to downtown Chicago.